A 25 point lead with 8:31 left in the 3rd quarter. Should be insurmountable against the #1 offense in the NFL, right?
Not for Tom Brady and the Patriots. Their gameplan worked to perfection in the 2nd half last night, and Atlanta Falcons fans have possibly the worst hangover in history today.
So how exactly did this happen? Let’s break it down.
In the first half and the first 6:29 of the 3rd quarter…
… the Patriots ran 46 plays in that time-span and kept the ball for 18:57. At this point, the Falcons had 3 scoring drives (one touchdown was a pick 6 at the end of a 12 play drive for New England). Their 3 scoring drives spanned 5 plays and 71 yards in 1:53, 5 plays and 62 yards in 1:49, and the first scoring drive in the 3rd quarter was 8 plays and 85 yards in 4:14. The Falcons kept the ball for 29 plays and took 16:30 off the clock. To close out the first half, the defense returned an interception at the end of a 12 play drive, and then New England went for 11 more plays before kicking a field goal with :02 left in the half. That was 33 straight plays for New England’s offense to close out the first half. Which was also 33 straight plays for Atlanta’s defense with no rest.
And that’s where everything went haywire. The Falcons defense was gassed. They had given up only 3 points, but the Patriots were using Alabama’s offensive gameplan from this season – running sweeps and outs, making the Falcons run the length of the field as often as possible – to tire out the opposition for a 2nd half run. Football games are, as we have seen time and time again, a tale of two halves.
Once the Falcons went up 28-3, the Patriots had the football for 40 more plays in regulation, going for 263 yards and keeping it for 16:33 seconds. The Falcons, by comparison, kept it for 16 plays, going 44 yards in 6:55. The defense had nothing left, especially when the Patriots kept it for 8 more plays in overtime for another 3:58. The Falcons defense is aggressive and fast… but not when they’ve been on the field for the entire game. There was nothing left in the tank. Kinda the same deal as Alabama and Clemson in the college football national championship.
The Falcons had 9 penalties for 65 yards…
…while New England only had 4 for 23 yards. And the worst part about it was the fact that the Falcons penalties were at the worst possible times. On the drive immediately after New England’s first touchdown, the Falcons threw a short pass to Hooper for 9 yards to setup 2nd & 1. They ran the ball on 2nd & 1, and Coleman lost 1 yard, which should have setup 3rd & 2, but Jake Matthews was called for holding, which made it 2nd and 11. Ryan lined up in shotgun and threw an incomplete pass. Then on 3rd and 11, he lined up in shotgun again, but this time was sacked for a loss of 9, making it 4th & 20. Toss onto it the fact that they couldn’t get the ball snapped in time for the punter and they lost another 5 yards, making it 4th & 25. The Patriots drove down for a field goal right after that.
On the possession immediately following the New England touchdown (which cut it to 28-20), the Falcons drove down to the New England 22, then took a sack, and , on 3rd & 23, threw a 9 yard pass to Sanu, which set them up at the New England 26 for a 43 yard field goal… but Jake Matthews was again called for holding, which made it 3rd & 33 from the New England 45. An incompletion on the next play forced another punt.
The Falcons had 5 runs for 9 yards after going up 28-3.
Yes, that’s correct. The next time the Falcons got the ball after scoring to go up by 25, after giving up a TD and missed XP to the Patriots, there was 2:05 left in the 3rd quarter with the Falcons nursing a 19 point lead. That’s 3 scores. Giving up a lead like that would take a myriad of bad decisions. So, of course, the offensive playcalling was the one to take ownership of that.
A 19 point lead, with the ball, with only 17:05 left in the game, and the game clock taking either 40 seconds from the end of a play, or 25 from when the ball is marked ready to play… running the football with Coleman and Freeman would seem like a good idea. Yes, you’ve got a high-flying, prolific offense with a great QB and great receivers… but everytime there’s an incompletion, that stops the clock. You have 2 different running backs that both went for over 1,000 yards rushing this year. Utilize that and work the clock.
The Falcons ran 16 plays on offense after going up 28-3. 5 of them were runs, which netted 9 yards (two went for -1), and Tevin Coleman was injured after gaining a yard on 2nd and 2. Which setup the biggest momentum shift in the game.
After giving up a touchdown and a field goal, and the 25 point lead dropping to a 16 point lead, Coleman was injured on a run for 1 yard on 2nd & 2, which setup 3rd & 1 at the Atlanta 36 yard line with under 9 minutes left. And Kyle Shannahan, rather than bring in Devonta Freeman to get the yard and run more clock, put Matt Ryan back in shotgun formation with an empty backfield. Ryan was sacked and Dontaa Hightower forced a fumble, which was recovered by the Patriots at the Atlanta 25 yard line.
The Pats scored in 5 plays and converted the 2 point conversion to make it a one possession game.
The Falcons got the ball back, were able to move down the field quickly, and after a heroic, amazing catch by Julio Jones at the Patriots 22 yard line, the wheels fell off again.
Shanahan called for Freeman to run up the middle again, which lost a yard, but kept the clock moving (ran off over 40 seconds before the next play). On 2nd and 11, from the Patriots 23, he lined up Ryan in the shotgun again, and he was subsequently sacked for a loss of 12 yards, which put them back at the Patriots 35. Now, this is still field goal range for Bryant, so another run to kill clock would have been fine. The only thing you can’t have happen on 3rd down in this spot is a sack or a penalty. And they lined up Ryan in shotgun again, where he completed a 9 yard pass to Sanu, but Jake Matthews was called for holding.
On 3rd & 33, they didn’t have any other choice but to throw the football… and Ryan failed to connect with Gabriel, forcing a punt, and giving the Patriots the ball back and down only one possession with over 2 minutes left and 2 timeouts.
If you have ever needed a gameplan on how to blow a lead, this was it. A worn out defense, an offense that refuses to run the football (even though they ran it 13 times for 95 yards before the 8:31 point of the 2nd quarter), and back-breaking penalties in the worst possible situations.
Falcons fans, you have every right to be upset with your football team this morning. And if I were the 49ers, I’d be asking Kyle Shannahan exactly what he learned from that game last night. If his answer is anything other than “run the damn ball,” I’d start looking for another coach.
If you want to hear our recap of the game and what happened from both perspectives, check out the Winning Cures Everything podcast #59, which is linked here:
