NFC Championship Afterword: Falcons vs 49ers

Frank Gore was very effective once San Francisco's read-option got going
and Atlanta could not stop him. Photo credit to The Arizona Daily Star.

It always seems to be the same story with these Falcons: get out to an early lead, turn ultra conservative, and trust Matt Ryan and/or Matt Bryant to pull off the win after you give up the lead.

Yesterday followed that script to a T. The biggest difference was that Matt Ryan was slammed during their final drive and hurt something in his left chest or shoulder. It wasn’t his throwing arm, but it seemed to be bothering him pretty severely. He couldn’t open up to put much behind his throws, which may have led him to panic on a 4^th down play inside the red zone. I think it also was the reason for the bizarre play call not to throw up a Hail Mary into the end zone and instead throw over the middle to Julio Jones and pray he could do something as time expired.

The better team won. The Falcons deserved to win for about 40 minutes of that game, but conservative offense and prevent defense betrayed them. Colin Kaepernick took full advantage as the Falcons lack of aggressiveness on defense completely nullified any effects of a very loud home crowd.

Once Kaepernick was able to make some plays throwing the ball down the field, it opened things up for the read-option and the Falcons were doomed. Frank Gore ran for 90 yards and a couple of scores, mostly out of the read-option. LaMichael James added another 34 yards on the ground with a score of his own out of the same set.

Neither Jacquizz Rodgers nor Michael Turner reached James’s rushing yards mark in the game.

As I expected, Julio Jones and Roddy White were just too much for the 49ers’ secondary to handle. They are very physical, and Jones in particular made some pretty impressive catches. They also have more speed than a lot of defenses are aware of. When you throw Tony Gonzalez into that mix, this is probably the best receiving corps in football, followed closely by teams like Baltimore and New Orleans.

For Atlanta, their season ends in disappointment, but they finally won a playoff game with Matt Ryan under center. If Atlanta can remain competitive in the NFC South, there will be plenty more over the next several years. One of the biggest hurdles facing them will be replacing Tony Gonzalez if he does in fact retire. Yesterday he said their loss to San Francisco was “probably” his last game. “I’ve been very blessed. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I’ve had a great ride, an unbelievable ride. I have no regrets,” he said.

San Francisco, meanwhile, advances to their franchise’s sixth Super Bowl. They are 5-0, putting them one short of Pittsburgh’s record for most Super Bowl victories. They will play as the home team in New Orleans on February 3.

Check back with my blog daily over the next two weeks, especially next week when the focus will be fully on Super Bowl XLVII. For updates on when new blog posts are published, ‘like’ my page on Facebook and follow me on Twitter @cpuffnfl.