This is what Sunday night football is all about: Two good football teams battling in front of a national audience, with the winning team sure to be looked at as a force in the NFL. The Atlanta Falcons showed the country that they are one of the top teams in the NFL as they held on to beat the Chicago Bears 21-14 in the Sunday night tilt.
“I can’t tell you how proud I am of the 53 men on our roster and our coaches,” head coach Mike Smith said after the game. “I think all three phases of our football teams stepped up when called on.”
If the first quarter told the story of the entire game, then the Falcons would have probably come away with a loss due to the fact that the offense could get nothing going with three consecutive three-and-outs. The Falcons ended the first quarter with a total of 10 offensive yards.
“We did anticipate coming out here and being able to move the ball up and down the field and we weren’t able to do that,” said tight end Tony Gonzalez, who ended the night with four receptions for 52 yards and a touchdown. “It’s good that we were tested like that and we had to come up with close plays.”
The offense may have failed the first part of the rest as they were shut down in the first quarter, but they picked up the tempo second quarter when they started going to a no-huddle offense. Matt Ryan threw touchdown passes to Roddy White and Gonzalez to take a 14-7 lead at halftime.
The third quarter was not a good one for either offense, as Chicago and the Falcons committed turnovers that ended solid drives. Early in the third, Ryan threw an interception to Zackary Bowman, but the Bears could do nothing with the turnover. Later in the quarter, Chicago drove down to the Falcons 1-yard line and a Matt Forte fumble was recovered by Coy Wire to give the Falcons possession at the start of the fourth quarter.
But another interception by Ryan killed the drive and Chicago was able to turn that into points as Cutler threw a 2-yard touchdown pass to Greg Olson to tie the game at 14.
“As a quarterback, you have to have that temporary amnesia,” Ryan said talking about the two interceptions that he threw. “Forget about what happened before and just continue to play. You just have to bounce back from it, go out there, continue to trust what you see.”
Ryan did just that as he came up with two big throws to Tony Gonzalez which led to a Michael Turner 5-yard touchdown run to take the lead.
But the Bears were not out of the game yet. With 3:06 left in the game, Chicago drove down to the Falcons’ 5-yard line and looked as if they were going to tie the game. But due to miscues in the red zone and penalties, the Bears could not punch it in as Cutler threw an incomplete pass to Desmond Clark on fourth-and-six and the Falcons came away with the win.
As much as the offense should get credit for the victory, it was the defense that stepped up for the Falcons on Sunday night. Thomas DeCoud was one of the key standouts with two interceptions and Mike Peterson had another strong game with six tackles and one sack. Jonathan Babineaux also contributed with a forced fumble and a half-sack.
The Falcons will be back on the road for the next two weeks. They will travel to Dallas next Sunday to take on the Cowboys and will have a huge divisional game against the Saints on Nov. 2, which will be a Monday night contest. They will be back at the Georgia Dome on Nov. 8 to take on the Washington Redskins.
Jones can be reached at bjones@scoreatl.com.
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