This story was written by the AJC’s Mark Bradley and can be accessed here:
They showed us something. They showed the Saints something. They showed the nation something. But in the end they showed us both what they are and what they are not.
The Falcons are a pretty good football team. But they aren’t so good that they can throw two egregious interceptions on the road against the NFL’s best team and hope to win. They proved Monday night they can still run the ball and actually play a little defense, but they fell short of a famous upset because the famous Matt Ryan twice threw the ball to the wrong team at the absolute wrong moment.
And now, for all the skill and heart on display here, a sobering notion rears its head: What if Matty Ice isn’t quite as good as we thought he was? What if he’s a good NFL quarterback but not a great in the making? Will that be enough to lift this franchise on high? It wasn’t enough in this wild and careening game.
The first half started brightly and ended darkly. The Falcons took the kickoff and scored. Thomas DeCoud sacked Drew Brees on a staggered blitz and induced a fumble, which Kroy Biermann recovered for a touchdown. It was 14-7 and suddenly the big building on Poydras Street fell almost silent.
Then the game changed. The Saints kept coming. They scored two touchdowns in 23 seconds to pull ahead by 14 late in the half — the second was a Jabari Greer interception off a Ryan throw that went where Roddy White was supposed to be but wasn’t because he’d gotten bumped — and then Jason Elam missed his second field goal of the night.
And right there you thought, “That’s it. No chance. Not in this big building on this raucous night.” But the Falcons kept coming themselves. They got three stops in a row and Ryan threw a beautiful deep ball to White and the impending blowout turned into not just a game but really good game.
The third quarter ended with the unbeaten home team on its heels, the Falcons driving and mixing plays and doing all the things they hadn’t done at New England and at Dallas. They nearly tied it early in the fourth quarter, but a second White touchdown was overturned (correctly) by replay. And then Mike Smith, who’d gone for it on fourth-and-four (successfully) moments earlier, chose to take three points instead of going on fourth down again.
And just as you were mulling the wisdom of that, Erik Coleman knocked the ball from Pierre Thomas on third-and-one, and now the Falcons had the ball at the Saints’ 35 with a chance to take the lead on the NFC’s last unbeaten. And wouldn’t that have been something?
Didn’t happen. Ryan, who essentially kept both teams in the game, threw for Tony Gonzalez at the left pylon but Jonathan Vilma leaped and deflected the pass, and the resultant wobbler was gathered in by the Saints’ Tracy Porter. Thus did the great comeback die on the strength — or, more precisely, the weakness — of one throw.
The Saints got a break on a third-down holding call against Mike Peterson, and soon Thomas was fllipping into the end zone and the Falcons were about to fall three games behind the Saints in the NFC South with the season not yet at its midpoint. The good news was that the Falcons showed they could compete in as difficult a setting as they’ll ever encounter. The bad news was that competing left them eight points short.
And it raised the first real questions about Ryan, who has played well only once in the past five games and whose passer rating was 46.6, the second-lowest of his nascent pro career. A big-time team needs a big-time quarterback. The Falcons believed they had one. But do they really?
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