The defense thrived, and it was more about players stepping up than any major lineup shuffling.
The Falcons didn’t exactly shake up their starting lineup coming out of the break, and their snap counts weren’t hugely different than they were before the bye. What changed was real improvement from several defenders, a few tweaks like the return of Troy Andersen and Drew Dalman to help, and so forth.
Let’s talk snap counts.
Offense
Kirk Cousins: 81
Jake Matthews: 81
Matthew Bergeron: 81
Drew Dalman: 81
Chris Lindstrom: 81
Kaleb McGary: 81
Drake London: 80
Ray-Ray McCloud: 77
Darnell Mooney: 76
Bijan Robinson: 61
Charlie Woerner: 47
Kyle Pitts: 33
Tyler Allgeier: 24
KhaDarel Hodge: 6
Ross Dwelley: 1
The personnel is what it is on this side of the ball now. Your top three receivers get a ton of run—Mooney should have had a touchdown!—and Woerner is officially a bigger piece of the offense than Pitts. There’s very little to quibble with there except for the disappointing fact that Pitts has been a non-factor and Cousins has been struggling; the hope is that both of those things reverse but there’s no particular reason to think we get that lucky.
Well, maybe one complaint. Allgeier has been scuffling lately, but it also feels like he’s just in games to run into the teeth of the defense and give Robinson a breather at times, and that’s a poor use of a talented player. I’d like to get a player who breaks tackles and runs well in a straight line more opportunities to the outside, on screens, and so forth to help hammer down the defense.
Defense
Clark Phillips: 46
A.J. Terrell: 46
Justin Simmons: 46
Jessie Bates: 46
Kaden Elliss: 46
Grady Jarrett: 36
Dee Alford: 29
David Onyemata: 25
Lorenzo Carter: 25
Demone Harris: 24
Matthew Judon: 24
Eddie Goldman: 21
Arnold Ebiketie: 19
Nate Landman: 17
Troy Andersen: 16
Kentavius Street: 12
Zach Harrison: 11
Brandon Dorlus: 10
Kevin King: 6
DeAngelo Malone: 1
Lot to cover here. The Falcons split snaps at inside linebacker next to Kaden Elliss more or less evenly between Andersen and Landman; Landman came up with three stops but allowed one catch for 20 yards, while Andersen had a stop, a missed tackle, and a pair of completions “credited” to him. Andersen should work his way back up to a larger role soon.
Harris stepped right into a significant role, as anticipated, and held his own as a run defender in particular. The bigger surprise came from Carter and Ebiketie, who played really well against the Chargers. Carter had his best game of the season, forcing a fumble and playing the run extremely well while chipping in a pressure; Ebiketie was second on the team with three pressures (Grady Jarrett had four and Kaden Elliss also had three) and managed a pair of sacks. That kind of performance was something Raheem Morris suggested was repeatable, and we’ll have to hope so.
It’s been a resurgence for Street, too, who although he continues to play limited snaps looks like an entirely different player than he did when he was made an inactive earlier in the year. With the entire rotation playing at least solid football up front—the Chargers ground game fizzled and the pass rush was able to get home, and Street played a key role Sunday. Jarrett looking refreshed and energized—and Onyemata looking pretty good too—is good news for this team coming out of the bye.
The secondary had a very good day, too, with Phillips following up his disastrous performance against the Broncos with a very solid day against the Chargers. He allowed just three of four targets to be caught for 15 yards, chipped in a couple of stops, and alongside Dee Alford and A.J. Terrell delivered key open field tackles all day. Alford got eaten up a little bit by Ladd McConkey at times, but had a good day on balance himself.
But I’ll save special praise for Kevin King, who made a great stop on the fake punt attempt to prevent it from succeeding. Atlanta’s been superb at sniffing those out all year, and King is a high-end tackler even if he has his adventures in coverage.
Special teams
DeAngelo Malone: 18
Richie Grant: 18
Avery Williams: 18
Josh Woods: 16
Charlie Woerner: 15
Tyler Allgeier: 15
Natrone Brooks: 13
Kevin King: 11
KhaDarel Hodge: 10
Bradley Pinion: 10
Antonio Hamilton: 9
Zach Harrison: 7
Ross Dwelley: 7
Troy Andersen: 6
Liam McCullough: 6
Demone Harris: 5
Ray-Ray McCloud: 5
Casey Washington: 5
Arnold Ebiketie: 4
Matthew Bergeron: 4
Kaleb McGary: 4
Jake Matthews: 4
Chris Lindstrom: 4
Storm Norton: 4
Younghoe Koo: 4
Ryan Neuzil: 4
Kyle Hinton: 4
Clark Phillips: 3
David Onyemata: 3
Eddie Goldman: 3
Kentavius Street: 3
Quiet day on special teams outside of the fake punt stop, which I mentioned above and was spectacular. Younghoe Koo missed a field goal, Avery Williams had one punt return for 10 yards and one for no gain (that moved backwards five yards thanks to an ill-timed Natrone Brooks penalty), and Bradley Pinion had a fair of unspectacular punts. To give Pinion his due, he made sure the Chargers didn’t get any chances to return any kicks; to the credit of the coverage teams, they didn’t manage any punt returns either.