Another week, another struggling loss for the Atlanta Falcons. The team fell to the Pittsburgh Steelers at home in a game that was not as close as the score indicated. The Falcons maintain first-place in the NFC South despite the loss, but must win their final two games in order to see the postseason. With offense looking worse than before, those two wins might be hard to come by as players begin to speak out.
With Julio Jones watching from the sidelines, the Falcons struggled on offense, but more importantly Matt Ryan struggled. The quarterback finished going 26 of 37 for 310 yards, two touchdowns and a pick-six interception. It was Ryan's second straight home game with a pick-six, his third on the season. The numbers might now show it, but Ryan's slow start and offensive misfires were too much to overcome for the Falcons. Bad passes to both Harry Douglas and Roddy White early got the Falcons in a hole too deep to climb out of, something that could plague the Falcons for the final two games.
"Not talking about last week, talking about this week, we didn't really get started the way we wanted to," said Ryan, via ESPN.com. We had an opportunity early on and just missed on a couple. We continued to battle back. I think offensively it comes down to a couple things: you can't turn the football over and when you have opportunities in the red zone, you've got to put it in the end zone. We didn't do a good enough job of that today."
No one was interested in making excuses regarding the absence of top target Jones who was ruled out with a hip injury. According, to White, there is simply no excuse for the Falcons not to score when they get in the redzone. The Falcons were forced to settle for six points when they could have had 14 and White notes that simply cannot happen.
"I knew once we got down there, we had to score touchdowns," White said via the team website. "First-and-goal from the 2-yard line - just unacceptable for us not to get in the end zone. It hurt us at the end. You just can't keep getting down there and putting yourself into bad situations, kicking field goals from the 5-yard line and in. That's not good football, especially with the players we have on our team."
Devin Hester echoed the words of his teammates saying the Falcons are lucky to be in the running for the playoffs, but must step up in order to make the impossible possible. Part of that will be getting Jones back on the field something that may or may not happen when the Falcons travel to New Orleans to face the Saints. The NFC South title is on the line and the Falcons must start hitting the offensive gas pedal to win.
