The Falcons have won six in a row overall and five straight against stiff competition; vs. Tampa Bay (7-5), vs. Baltimore (8-4), at St. Louis (6-6), vs. Green Bay (8-4), and most recently at Tampa Bay.
On paper at least, Atlanta finally gets a break this week. The Falcons, co-owners of the best record in the NFL at 10-2, will pay a Sunday afternoon visit to 1-11 Carolina.
The Panthers have not just been losing games; they’ve mostly been getting blown out. Nine of their 11 setbacks have come by double-digits, including a 34-13 rout at Seattle last week. Also in the past five weeks Carolina has the following blemishes on its regrettable resume: a 34-3 home loss to New Orleans, a 31-16 loss at Tampa Bay, and a 37-13 home loss to Baltimore.
Falcons’ head coach Mike Smith, however, is not about to look past a division rival, or any other team in the league for that matter. “You can’t concern yourself with what a team did before or what they did five weeks ago,” Smith said in his post-practice interview on Thursday. “Each and every game in this league is a different dynamic. (The Panthers) are playing very hard, competitive football. Every game that we’ve played with Carolina since our staff has been here has been very close; it’s come down to one or two possessions. I anticipate it’s going to be the same type of game.”
If the home team wants that to be the case, something better change in a hurry; especially on defense. The Panthers are a respectable 17th in the NFL in total defense (339.1 yards per game), but they are 26th in scoring defense at 25.6 points per game. They have allowed more than 30 points in four of their last five outings and they have not held a single opponent to fewer than 20 on the scoreboard since Week 4.
Offensively, if Carolina thought jettisoning Jake Delhomme would bring some stability to the quarterback position, it thought wrong. Instead, the QB issues are as dire as they were during Delhomme’s post-Super Bowl disaster era. The Panthers have tried Matt Moore, Brian St. Pierre, Jimmy Clausen, and even Tony Pike this season. Moore led the team to its lone win over San Francisco in Week 7, but he is out for the year. Clausen almost orchestrated what would have been a solid win at Cleveland two weeks ago, but John Kasay botched a last-second field goal.
The rookie out of Notre Dame will get the nod again on Sunday. Carolina wants to see if Clausen can be the future of the franchise, but all it knows at the moment is that the future is not now. Clausen has just one touchdown against six interceptions and he has been sacked 19 times. His passer rating is 55.3 (while that’s miserable, it’s as as good as the Panther’s other quarterbacks).
“It’s the NFL,” Atlanta linebacker Mike Peterson told the team’s website. “When you’re going up against a team that’s backed up against a wall, that’s when you have to be even more focused. They’re capable of anything. We’re definitely not taking them lightly. This is the NFL. There’s no freebies in this league.”
Recent meetings: Dating back to 2006, Atlanta and Carolina have split each season’s pair of meetings. The road team prevailed every time in 2006 and 2007, while the home team took care of business in the four contests between 2008 and 2009. The Falcons won 28-20 last year at the Georgia Dome before the Panthers got revenge with a 28-19 victory in Carolina. Michael Turner rushed for more than 100 yards in both meetings. Matt Ryan tossed three touchdowns and one interception in Atlanta’s win, but he threw for just one score while getting picked twice on the road.
Injuries: The Falcons are starting to get banged up. Tony Gonzalez (ankle) returned to practice on Thursday, but Jason Snelling (hamstring) and Curtis Lofton (knee) were still absent. Snelling missed last week’s win over Tampa Bay. If Carolina had as many wins as it has players on injured reserve, Atlanta would be in second place in the NFC South. As for the Panthers’ active roster, two notable defensive players are questionable–linebacker Jon Beason (knee) and cornerback Chris Gamble (hamstring).
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