The Falcons had more first downs than Tampa Bay, outgained the Bucs by 30 yards and were able to have a better third completion percentage. One would think that would translate to a Falcons win right?
That wasn’t the case as the Bucs was able to come away with a 16-13 win, thanks to the Bucs defense frustrating Matt Ryan for the majority of the game.
In fact, on the first offensive series for the Falcons, Ryan was sacked by Dekoda Watson, which led to a fumble and was recovered by Ronde Barber and the Bucs were threatening to score at the Falcons 17-yard line.
However, the Falcons caught a break when Josh Freeman threw an interception to Thomas DeCoud in the end zone.
The Bucs got on the board first with a Connor Barth 49-yard field goal, but Matt Bryant was able to tie the game early in the second with a 26-yard field goal. The Bucs answered on the ensuing drive with a 12-play 80 yard series that ended with a Freeman 1-yard score.
The Falcons looked to answer on their next drive, but was sacked by Adrian Clayborn and Ryan fumbled the ball again and was recovered by Michael Bennett. That led to a Barth 26-yard field goal to increase the Bucs lead at halftime.
It was the fourth quarter when the Falcons made their move. Ryan threw a 49-yard strike to Julio Jones on the first play of the series and Ryan then threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Tony Gonzalez to cut the Bucs lead to six.
Later in the quarter, the Falcons were looking to take the lead for the first time as they were able to put together a drive that lasted 13 plays and over three and a half minutes. But due to two dropped passes by Roddy White and another sack on Ryan in the red zone, the Falcons had to settle for a field goal and were down by three with over four minutes left in the fourth quarter.
At that point, the Bucs were trying to run out the clock on their next offensive series and were able to get to the Falcons 40-yard line. The Falcons were able to stop the Bucs on a third-and-1 play and looked to get the ball back with 1:30 left. But the defense made a critical mistake when the defensive line was drawn offsides by Josh Freeman and because the Falcons had zero timeouts left, the Bucs ran out the clock with sealed their second win of the year.
After a rough first half that included three turnovers, Ryan was able to bounce back in the second half, completing 26 of 47 passes, 330 yards and one touchdown. Jones was able to have his best game if his young career with six receptions and 115 yards. White had a strong performance, leading the team with nine receptions and 140 yards.
The running game never got going, though, as Michael Turner only rushed for 20 yards on 11 carries. And the offensive line had its issues again as they allowed four sacks. So far, Ryan has been sacked 13 times and has been hit over 20 times. Last season, Ryan was sacked only 23 times en route to a Pro Bowl season.
Defensively for the Falcons, Sean Weatherspoon lead the team with 11 tackles while DeCoud and Williams more each had a pick. But they were not able to sack Freeman which is something they will address this week.
The Falcons 1-2 on the year and will look to get back to .500 when they face the Seattle Seahawks next Sunday. Last year, the Falcons were able to defeat the Seahawks at Qwest Field 34-18. Kickoff for this year’s contest will be at 4:05 p.m.
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