Falcons Must Fix Their “Lifeline” After Offensive Meltdown

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga – The Atlanta Falcons’ offense suffered one of the worst losses of the Raheem Morris era on Sunday, with a 24-point drubbing at the hands of the Miami Dolphins. 

Sunday can be described as a total team loss. The Falcons’ defense struggled to stop what had been an anemic Dolphins offense, while the Falcons’ offense struggled to get to the 200-yard mark against the league’s worst defense. 

While the Falcons were brutally ravaged by injuries in Week 8, head coach Raheem Morris said it best on Monday. 

“Nobody cares about injuries,” he said. “We don't really talk about it. You’ve just got to get ready to go.” 

On this, the Falcons’ head coach is absolutely right. 

Neither the NFL nor its fans will provide much grace. Especially when this team was still healthy enough, both in its backfield and along the line of scrimmage, to run the ball effectively. 

That rushing attack has been the bedrock of this franchise, but it managed just 45 yards. 

“We’ve got to get our running game going,” Morris said Monday. “That really is our lifeline of everything that we do, whether it be running the ball, passing the ball, whatever the case may be. That's really our lifeline. When we get that going, we're a really good offense. When we don't get that going, we look like we did yesterday.”

Despite playing a defense that ranked as the worst in the NFL in rush defense and explosive runs allowed, Bijan Robinson was snuffed out. The player who started the season with five straight 100+ scrimmage yard performances was held under 50 on Sunday. 

The rushing attack is how they manage their games, and its absence on Sunday was glaring. Five of their first six possessions (not including the kneel down before halftime) ended in three plays or less. The sixth ended with a field goal after the drive stalled out after crossing into Dolphin territory.

“That's part of our game. That's part of what we do, how we want to manage our games,” Morris said. “That helps our defense get better, everything gets better. So really, we’ve got to get our lifeline [rushing attack] going. That's the honest truth. We’ve got to play better up front, and we’ve got to give those guys more opportunities. And when we do get the opportunities, we’ve got to hold on to the football.”

By the final whistle, Atlanta had held onto the ball for just 22:02 – the Dolphins nearly matched that entire total in the first half alone (19:22). Teams simply cannot win that way, but especially not the Falcons. 

Both Morris and the players who addressed the media after the game attributed it to a general lack of execution. 

“Just some small details we didn’t execute on,” tight end Kyle Pitts said. “We’ll get back to the drawing board and fix them.” 

So where does the blame fall? Morris expressed his confidence in Zac Robinson and the offensive staff, saying that it has to be a “we” type of mentality when taking accountability for their struggles.  

"I lean on my leaders, and my leaders are up front,” he said. “When you talk about Chris Lindstrom, you talk about Jake Matthews and those guys that are leading up front to get us going in the right direction. Those are the guys that are most capable of doing that for us. Matt Bergeron, [Ryan] Neuzil, all of those guys up front that have got significant minutes in the bag. 

“Those are the guys we'll lean on, and they'll get us going from an accountability standpoint across the board. I've seen those guys respond before, and I'm expecting them to respond again.”

That unit was beat up pretty badly on Sunday, and Morris said they discussed the performance “ad nauseam” on Monday. That poor play, he said, was the biggest correlation between this game and what they put on the field against Carolina in Week 3, but he also credited them with being the reason they won several games. 

When the Falcons fail to reach 100 yards on the ground, they are 0-3. When they reach 100 yards or more on the ground, they are 3-1. It’s a clear goal, but certainly one that has clearly been easier stated than consistently achieved.

“We've got to get some of the things going, running, and passing,” Morris said. “We didn't pass ‘pro’ [protect] well. We didn't run block well. We've got to do all those things better, so we've got to go back and give those guys another week of practice to go out there and get better because that's all you can do.”

Winning starts with their offensive line and this rushing attack, their lifeblood. It has never been complicated for this team, but recently it certainly has been difficult.

At 3-4, the Falcons’ season is not on life support, at least not yet. But the Falcons can’t afford many more weeks where their supposed strength rapidly turns into a weakness. The rushing attack has always been the heartbeat of this team, but on Sunday, it barely registered a pulse.

Now with a pair of crucial road trips on deck against two of the NFL’s hottest opponents, the Falcons have no margin for error. Now the challenge is for Zac Robinson’s offense to find its rhythm after a pair of difficult weeks with another daunting pair of games. If they don’t, the season, and any hope of a trip to the postseason, could slip away before Thanksgiving. 

That starts on the ground, and the Falcons will only go as far as the ground game can take them.