By The Numbers: Vikings send Falcons to Valhalla

The numbers aren’t pretty this week.

It’s not over yet, but this season feels like it’s slipping away at a rapid pace.

After what could only be called a scintillating 6-3 start from the Atlanta Falcons, they have now dropped their fourth straight game, lost their multi-game division lead, and are on the outside looking on for the playoffs yet again. Raheem Morris doesn’t seem to have lost this team, as they’re still showing some effort, but there has to be some questions about what’s going on in that building.

Is Kirk truly the best answer at quarterback right now?

What is this team’s identity?

When are we going to get a complete game from all three phases?

Before we can get to those, we have to make sense of the 42-21 shellacking from the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. Here are four numbers to help you understand what we just saw.

13

It has been 13 years since a team has had a span of four games where their quarterback has not thrown a touchdown, while the opposition has thrown 10 or more. The last team to achieve this depressing feat?

The 2011 Indianapolis Colts. They are also the only other team to do this in the Super Bowl era.

From weeks 7 to 10, the Colts, missing their leader, Peyton Manning. due to a neck injury, allowed 10 passing touchdowns while not throwing a single touchdown in that span. They, not shockingly, lost all four games, including a 62-7 drubbing from the eventual NFC #1 seed in the New Orleans Saints.

In week 9, the Falcons got their licks in on the hobbled Colts, beating them 31-7 behind a 275-yard, three-touchdown day from Matt Ryan and the introduction to a superhuman talent we now know as Julio Jones.

Julio got his first touchdown on a 50-yard rocket from Ryan in between two would-be defenders that taught us that even off-balance, a rookie Julio is still just as deadly as if he was running full-speed. And if they needed further evidence of that, they got it when Jones took a slant 80 yards to the house to make the game 21-0 and formally asking the Colts to pass the sticks to the next player.

Though this did give us an excuse to take a trip down memory lane, don’t forget that we are here not to remember the roots of the Ryan-Jones connection that would keep this Falcons offense afloat for the next decade.

We’re here to mourn the fact that this team, captained by a $180 million quarterback, has more in common with a 2-11 team quarterbacked by Curtis Painter and Dan Orlovsky.

This is not a celebration. This is a travesty of truly unacceptable proportions.

18,257

ESPN’s Marc Raimondi has done a stellar job of covering the Atlanta Falcons and gave us this amazing stat about today’s game:

While that is a long time, Brett Favre had already pissed off Jerry Glanville and the Falcons brass and won the Green Bay Packers a Super Bowl by 2005. So, I went a little deeper to figure out when was the last time a Falcons quarterback was held without a touchdown and threw 8+ interceptions in a four-game span, and wouldn’t you know, there was one other guy that fit the billing.

Kim McQuilken, the former third-round pick for Atlanta out of Lehigh, was thrust into action his rookie year as the Falcons were looking for some sort of spark to get them out of their early expansion hole. Over the last four games of the disappointing 1974 campaign, McQuilken would spell incumbent starter Pat Sullivan in the first two games and somehow throw four interceptions in his limited playing time.

Despite the lack of efficiency, McQuilken got the nod in the final two games, presumably to get the rookie some live reps in an otherwise lost season, and he threw five more interceptions, all of which without a touchdown.

So, that’s nine interceptions to zero touchdowns to end a lifeless 3-11 season.

But McQuilken did something miraculous during this stretch…he somehow helped pull out a 10-3 win at the end of the season, in 18 mile-per-hour winds in front of dozens of fans in Atlanta Stadium.

Despite having a quarterback rating of 5.8, the Falcons ended up winning this game behind the legs of running back Dave Hampton and his 23 carry, 94-yard day with the lone touchdown of the game against none other than the Green Bay Packers.

1

Since 2000, only one wide receiver duo has been able to have 130 receiving yards and two touchdowns apiece. It was in 2022, when the NFL world got a formal introduction to the true potential of the Miami Dolphins and their “Legion of Zoom” offense.

Tyreek Hill went for 190 and Jaylen Waddle had 171, with two touchdowns a piece for the flash-y duo.

While Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison didn’t necessarily hit those heights, they made an emphatic statement of their own that they are one of the top pass-catching duos in the NFL.

Jefferson, despite seeing rolled-over coverage all day, still found a way to catch all 7 of his targets for 132 yards and two touchdowns, including making Dee Alford a living, breathing microcosm of the Falcons’ woes in the secondary.

Addison, benefiting from all the attention that Jefferson was receiving, torched his one-on-one matchups, catching eight of his 12 targets to the tune of 133 yards and three touchdowns.

It was an embarrassing showing from a Falcons secondary that was supposed to be the unit that could be relied on the most on this defense. But Sunday, there was a glimmer of hope for the remainder of the season.

5

It has been five years since we have seen a pass rush this diverse for the Falcons. Not since weeks 10 and 11 of 2019 have the Falcons had back-to-back weeks of four different players registering a sack.

After not being able to register double-digit sacks heading into the bye week, Atlanta’s pass rush has come out of the bye sizzling, getting nine sacks over the past two weeks. Literally doubling their production from the first 11 weeks.

Is this something to be proud of? Absolutely not. The fact that this pass rush got to this objectively low level to begin with is asinine, but the good news is that steps are being taken to fix it.

The way the Falcons front messed with Minnesota’s protection rules was fantastic, unfortunately, they did not get much help from the backend of the defense, as illustrated above.

However, finding any bright spots in this dim bulb of a game is a win in my book.

Now the Falcons have to get actual wins and quickly if they want to salvage this season and make the postseason.