Yeah, yeah yeah, I know it’s just the Jets. And yeah, I know on paper a 7 point win over the Jets on a neutral field isn’t overly impressive. But when you look at the disgusting, embarrassing display of football vomit that Atlanta put forth in Week 1 against the Eagles, and the little-by-little improvements each week since that lead up to this game with still 12 games on the schedule, it’s hard not to be giddy about the outlook of this team. The defense got their first interception of the season and made Zach Wilson look like a rookie again, the offensive line didn’t allow a single sack against a sneakily-frisky Jets’ front seven, Kyle Pitts had his breakout game and Matt Ryan looked like the Matt Ryan of 2016. And when I look at the remaining schedule, I see some wins to be had and possibly even some upsets. Let’s dive into it and get our hopes up dangerously high!
There’s no better place to start this analysis than to praise the most overly-maligned part of this team. The man who is now 8th on the all-time passing yards leaderboard, is a former MVP, and is a future Hall of Famer, Matt Ryan. Confession: in a moment of weakness, I doubted Matt Ryan’s future with this team after the first two weeks. How silly of me! I’ve always been a Matt Ryan defender, and the payoff for that stance is coming to fruition lately. In his last three games: 868 yards, 8 touchdowns, and no interceptions. And heading into this game people were still talking about him as if he was on the same level as Ben Roethlisberger right now. No, he doesn’t have the same arm strength he used to, but he’s still a very effective quarterback who’s taking care of the ball and just had his best game of the season so far without his top two receivers. We are right in the middle of a “Respect Matt Ryan” tour, hop aboard now.
Working in concert with the Matt Ryan revenge tour are two key factors: an offensive line that has improved every single week and a first year offensive-minded head coach who is getting more and more comfortable with his role, calling plays that cater to his personnel, and whose beard looks less-bad every single week. In addition to turning Derrick Henry into the best runningback in football, Smith’s Tennessee tenure was marked by using two-tight end sets effectively to help out Ryan Tannehill. Sunday against the Jets? Kyle Pitts, Hayden Hurst and Lee Smith combined for 16 catches, 199 yards and two touchdowns. He knew the Jets would zero in on the tight ends because of the lack of depth at receiver without Calvin Ridley and Russell Gage and still found ways to make them productive. That’s the scheming he showed in Tennessee that got us to hire him and what was missing in the first two weeks. And another feather in his cap: he’s turned Cordarelle Patterson into a genuinely awesome football player, something that we merely saw flashes of at every single one of his previous stops. Matt Nagy’s use of Patterson was downright silly, Smith’s is effective every single week. And as I mentioned earlier, the offensive line allowed zero sacks. Not a single one. This was a unit that looked against the Eagles like they were the worst in football, Jalen Mayfield was the worst draft pick ever, they were going to get Matt Ryan killed before the end of the year. Oh how far they’ve come. Chris Lindstrom is playing at a Pro Bowl caliber level, Mayfield’s play has improved to serviceable, Jake Matthews is still awesome, and as a unit their pass blocking has been superb. Run blocking still needs to get better (less than 4 yards a carry as a team), but hey, baby steps.
And now for the defense. Jaylinn Hawkins was awesome filling in for Erik Harris, he appears to have been an absolute steal late in the 4th round of the 2020 draft. He had the first interception of the season… for the entire team. Speaking of late round steals, how about Ade Ogundeji, the fifth round rookie from Notre Dame! Recorded a sack and two quarterback hits Sunday, considering pass rush was a position of need that the Falcons didn’t address early in the draft, it’s great to see them getting value in the later rounds. Jacob Tuioti-Mariner and Mike Pennel also had good games, which is promising to see when we’ve seen plenty of games where the defensive line is completely ineffective if Grady Jarrett doesn’t have an awesome game. My overall outlook on the defense is that they aren’t anything great and they have holes, but they’re an improving unit that isn’t the hapless joke of a defense that we’ve seen a lot of in Atlanta since 2017. Use some draft capital on the defensive line and we’ve got the makings of a good defense for years to come with all the young talent at all three levels of defense.
As for my outlook on the rest of this season, I’m going to try not to get too far ahead of myself, but when I look at the remaining schedule and see the Dolphins, Jaguars and Lions, I see three wins there and if we can get some wins out of the 4 games against the Panthers and Saints we can have a very promising season. I wish we hadn’t squandered the gift of getting the NFC East by losing to the Eagles and Washington, but even if the schedule had been more front loaded I wouldn’t reeeeelly be able to see playoffs in 2021. However, a couple smart free agent signings and a helluva draft in 2022, and maybe, just maybe, we’re looking at a team that will turns some heads in 2022.