Redskins Recon - The Falcons: Flying Too High?

O.K. it's official, the Redskins are no longer "the most disrespected team in the NFL" by fans of other teams.

As you might guess, Falcons fans are flying high at 4-0 with a couple of major wins, the second half demolishing of the Cowpukes and the butt-stomping they administered to the Texans. And, yes, they're pretty sure of a win against the Skins.

But, there were, perhaps grudgingly given, concerns about the Redskins as an opponent-something that for years I would never have expected to see from fans of a team on such a roll.

There were, as a number of fan forums have, a couple of threads set aside for smack talk, general snarky comments about opponents-this time the Redskins-but I skip those as not being useful.



The first few of these comments came from a thread titled "Don't Sleep on Washington"





mashburn*Fibonacci

Sorry I had to make this thread. Seems every game we played thus far, someone has made a thread of don't sleep on team "x".

So let's keep the trend going.






phocis850

This was a feel good game for sure, but I don't want us to sleep on our next opponent.
We are flying high right now, but a subpar team always has the potential to knock you down.





Power I

I know who won't sleep on them. Kyle Shanahan might break records against his old team.






paulitik

Their Defense is playing well, and their run game is good.





chifalc

We kinda did sleep on Houston through much of the fourth quarter after the game was over. Woke up with a start for the last play though.





virginiafalcon

They're better than the Texans, but not by a lot.

If we can stop their run game, we should win by at least 10.




Of course, not everyone showed some level of respect for the Skins.



*NiteFalcon

please, in the dome we should wipe the skins harder than a post-taco bell bathroom stinker







CraigSmackDaddy

I think we'll be ready. Skins are better than I thought they'd be though.







g-dawg

It is not college football - its the NFL - if you have a bad week, you can lose. Redskins are an average team (not good/not bad) - if they had a QB, they could be good.

Falcons should win if they play their game - home game against average opponent - we should win - but I would say 80% chance Falcons win.....if they don't play well, they could lose - of course.





Andrews_31

Kirk Cousins is garbage, and the Eagles made him look like Peyton Manning yesterday! Stop Reed, slow down Morris and Jones, the Falcons win by at least 3 TDs!





Dirtybird

They are actually not bad. I agree with virginiafalcon they are a bit better overall than the Texans. Don't have to worry about a JJ Watt in the trenches. Matthews and Schraeder can handle Kerrigan. Cousins is better than Mallett but he runs hot and cold and in our house we can rattle him






PokerSteve

He's going to be the key to whether this game is close or a walk-through for us. Cousins is capable of putting up points when he's hot. Our DL has got to keep him dinkin' and duckin' and put a serious damper on their passing game.





FentayeJones

Their style kinda plays to our strengths. We are built to stop the run first. I have to go back and look at their games but I don't think they have that small shifty running back that always gives our teams fits. They have a good defensive front but their secondary is weak. And then there is Kirk Cousins. Their best offensive player is TE Jordan Reed who might not even play because hes in the concussion protacol. If we jump on them quick, that will take Morris and Jones out of the game since they will have to pass more.





mdrake34

After a quiet day yesterday, Julio is going to have a monster day against that secondary.





virginiafalcon

Just listened to some local sports radio in DC... Jordan Reed had a concussion against Philly and will probably be out this weekend.

They sounded pretty nervous to have to play us in Atlanta. Lots of respect for Kyle Shanahan.






Asylum Guido

Already calling this one. No way the Falcons lose at home.





falcndave

Washing's defense is ranked 2nd in total rushing yards allowed per game. That sounds impressive on its surface. However, here are their opponent's offensive rushing rankings (total yards/gm)

Mia--31st (69 y/gm)
Stl--23rd (94 y/gm)
NYG--24th (93 y/gm)
PHI--30th (70 y/gm)

With a small sample size, you can argue that they are 25% of the reason that those numbers are so low. However, those teams are not running much in general. Another factor is that Washington leads the league in time of possession (we are 2nd), so their defense may not be seeing a high play count (I haven't checked it).

I'm not not going to completely sell that they are a good rushing defense. However, I am selling on the notion that they will shut our run down completely. We are the 13th ranked rushing offense. They haven't seen anything close to that yet. We may not light them up, but I think we can do enough to keep our play action passing game effective.





Lornoth

Yeah Dallas was #1, then they played us.





Clark Kent

More...

Kyle Shanahan has NOBODY to blame but his father for not being in DC still as the head coach.

Well, we're gonna send them Falcon fans home with a sore asshole and a handful of quarters.

Tarik El-Bashir said:

Really familiar faces.

As in, three recent teammates and six assistant coaches from the Shananan Era, including Kyle Shanahan, the offensive coordinator in Washington from 2010-2013.

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Wonder if there will be some awkward moments during the post game 'handshakes', this game would be real nice to win. (actually all of them would be but...)

Ax said:

Well, we're gonna send them Falcon fans home with a sore asshole and a handful of quarters.

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Quarters?

servumtuum said:

*NiteFalcon

please, in the dome we should wipe the skins harder than a post-taco bell bathroom stinker

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I must be in a goofy mood. I could not stop laughing at this quote.


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Kel Varnsen said:

I must be in a goofy mood. I could not stop laughing at this quote.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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This one cracked me up too, Kel.

Well done !

Thanks. Much appreciated.

The nugget I found in those quotes was " in our house we can rattle him (Kirk). That's worth noting. A big game for Kirk to prove himself on the road. A different kind of pressure, the stakes are higher. Nobody believes he can do it. Ironically, that may be in his favor.

The Skins will also have to be willing to blitz on the road. 9 sacks on the year - 8 at home. Dial up some pressure outside of the friendly confines of FedEx Field.

Falcons Fans are relieved I'm sure

First guy is called Negatorris..... wonder why?

These rest pretty much general consensus, most were calling a great 'team win'

This game is over. Everyone who keeps saying Ryan is elite needs to wake the **** up. This guy is hit or miss. He is locking onto receivers and is failing to attack a secondary who limped into the GA Dome today... Roddy White has been WIDE open on several of his completions. He's perfectly healthy, but Ryan thinks it's a better idea to target his oft injured shiny WR, Julio. Elite QBs don't commit two turnovers in opponent territory, especially not in his own stadium.

The defense hasn't been terrible and is the only reason we aren't down by 3 possessions, but this pass rush problem is becoming more and more apparent each week.

This game is over. I wish we would have never blown out the Texans, because we clearly came into this game unfocused and overconfident for the 2nd time this year.

The Redskins D is killing our passing game. Freeman is running well but for some reason we are still trying to pass when we don't need to.

This game is not going to be won by us, and it's not looking good for us to beat the Aints on Thursday. That bye week can't come early enough. Just wait until we play a good team like the Panthers.

The Redskins have a laundry list of injuries but they are owning us in our own stadium. What a joke.

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Much more to be concerned about than to feel good about. Ryan was god-awful. He should be past having games like this, but obviously not. The OL couldn't pass protect, but even when they did, Ryan would just freeze up with the ball with receivers wide open and get sacked.



The DL was missing in action. After preaching all-out attack, instead Quinn's defense went into full Smittyball retreat mode from the opening bell. Even after Ryan had managed to get the team back into the lead our alleged "attacking" defense was softer than an effing baby's behind.



If Quinn and company want to make the Saints look like the second coming of the '67 Packers on Thursday evening, if they want to add to the putrid legacy of the Falcons getting blown out and embarrassed on national tv, they definitely laid some solid ground work to pull it off with this fiasco vs the Redskins. Vegas should put the line at the Saints +10 after this dumpster fire.

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They were held to 219 yards passing today. The bs PI on Alford set me up for that TD. Besides that it was a great defensive game. 4-12 on 3rd, 51 yards rushing. 270 total and 2 turnovers. That was a good defensive day. The skins offense was second top 3 in the league. Cousins ain't as sucky as folks wanna make him.

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I dunno, there's been waaaay too much talk about the Falcons on TV stations and Radio lately. They had a bulls eye on their back going into the game vs. the Redskins.



Maybe I'm wrong and just wishful thinking, but I kinda got the feeling that the Falcons vs. the Redskins were holding back and saving what they could for the sAint's game on Thursday.



For one thing, I don't remember seeing the Falcons going into the Hurry up offense once? Maybe I missed something but did they ever do that? They played toe to toe Foosball vs. the Redskins and that played right into the Redskins hands in my opinion.



Something I'd like to see the Falcons try, but they haven't done in a while is the reverse on offense. If they did I missed it, sorry....



I dunno, but the game vs. the Redskins today looked either like the Falcons were thinking they could do what they wanted to do and found out they couldn't, or they were holding back saving something for the Thursday more important divisional game vs. the sAint's?

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It was really no surprise that the Redskins picked on Alford, most teams seem to think that's how they should approach the Falcons when it comes to passing these days. Maybe they are right. We shall see

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