00:00Welcome back again to the Mercedes-Benz Post Game Show.
00:02This is the Atlanta Falcons Radio Network.
00:04I'm Grant McCauley alongside former Falcon Mike Johnson
00:06following a tough day's work for the Falcons.
00:09A tough loss down in Tampa Bay.
00:1216-0 the score.
00:13Falcons shut out in this one.
00:15Really a battle of two ground games
00:16because the weather, that's what predicated all of this.
00:19It was soggy conditions.
00:20It was wet conditions.
00:21It was described as a lot of different things.
00:23I don't know if it was biblical weather, Mike,
00:25but it wasn't very much fun weather
00:27and it didn't seem like the rain was going to stop, did it?
00:29Yeah, it felt like we needed a biblical intervention at some point
00:32to be able to stop the Buccaneers' ground game.
00:35Frustrating to watch, but you're right.
00:37When it started raining early, I knew it rained at some point,
00:40but when it started pouring right after we got done with the pregame show,
00:43I was like, that's unfortunate.
00:45They had a college game there the night before.
00:48South Florida and UAB, I believe, there at Raymond James Stadium.
00:51It's shaped up to be a rough one for sure.
00:55Yeah, I can't imagine the job that those groundskeepers
00:57have had to go through in just a 24-hour period
01:00to turn around a game from college to pro
01:02and then get rained on like this.
01:03And they're going to be doing a little bit of work on that field
01:05now that this one is over as well.
01:07And to say nothing of the Buccaneers,
01:09I mean, they have a pirate ship down there,
01:10so if it was going to rain a lot,
01:12they had already prepared for this thing.
01:13I don't know that the Falcons had that kind of plan B.
01:15Be that as it may, 16-0 the final score.
01:18Nothing funny about that for the Falcons.
01:20Dominance on the ground from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
01:22is a big reason why Bucky Irving and Kenny Gainwell both setting career highs
01:26as the Buccaneers set a single-game franchise high as well,
01:30rushing for well over 300 yards.
01:32Let's send it back down to Raymond James Stadium.
01:34Dave Archer caught up with Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski.
01:37Our visit with him is brought to you by Mercedes-Benz,
01:39the official luxury vehicle of your Atlanta Falcons.
01:42Here is Dave with the Atlanta head coach.
01:44Kev, unbelievably tough conditions to play in.
01:48Don't know that that describes everything that happened,
01:51but just your thoughts on the way this one went down.
01:53Yeah, we have to handle conditions.
01:55Conditions were the same for both teams.
01:56They did a better job.
01:57That's credit to them, things that we have to learn from.
02:01Obviously, in any type of game,
02:03sometimes you can have all sorts of different conditions,
02:06and sometimes it's a high-scoring game or a low-scoring game.
02:08You just got to play the game that's there,
02:09and we just didn't do a good enough job.
02:11Their ability to run the football, obviously,
02:13ended up being the story of the game along with the turnovers,
02:15but just their ability to get after you guys
02:17and you guys not able to do the same.
02:19Sure, it's a good run offense, as we knew, going into it.
02:22They've put up a bunch of yards.
02:23Obviously, we have to be better in that area,
02:25and then we've got to run the ball better on our side as well.
02:28Experience in that second level, does that hurt you guys at all?
02:31Obviously, you've got young guys in there trying to learn how to play at this level.
02:33Yeah, I think at this point, Arch, it's the guys that we trust,
02:36and it'll be a learning experience for all of us.
02:38We can all be better from that.
02:40And leaning into that same idea with your quarterback,
02:43obviously a tough day for him.
02:44I've played in conditions similar, but not nearly as bad as that.
02:47Tough to grip the football, but from a confidence standpoint,
02:49what do you tell Mike this week?
02:50Yeah, he'll bounce back.
02:52Again, disappointed in the result there, but we've got to move on from it.
02:56Thanks for your time, man.
02:56Thanks, Arch.
02:57And that was Dave Archer with Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski.
03:00A few things to take away from that.
03:02Obviously, a quick conversation and one that we're going to spend a lot more time on.
03:05But, Mike, both teams had to play through these conditions,
03:07so credit where it's due.
03:09Tampa Bay was just simply able to execute to the point
03:11where they didn't even need to complete a pass in this game,
03:13which is still a mind-boggling statistic, which we'll talk about more later.
03:17But I think Kevin Stefanski really underscored it.
03:19They did a good job of doing what they needed to do, conditions or otherwise.
03:22We did not do that.
03:24Yeah, and it's a little bit interesting because I think that over the last few years,
03:29and really since Arthur Smith showed up in Atlanta,
03:32you've kind of had this, I don't know, people will say your offense is kind of finesse.
03:38It's wide zone.
03:39It's lighter bodies.
03:39It's athleticism.
03:41It's kind of slicers and dicers and not more of the bruisers, right?
03:44You look at Tristan Wirfs for them and Vita Vea and Kenneth Gainwell to an extent
03:50and just some of the players.
03:50Luke Kadecki, a little bit bigger bodies up front
03:54than what Atlanta really has had over the last couple of years.
03:56But I thought we've done a nice job early in this season
03:59establishing more of a power run game,
04:01establishing more earth movers and double teams and duo and everything else.
04:05And yet that just has not come to fruition,
04:08not only this week, over the last couple of weeks.
04:10And you found yourself in a situation where if you can't establish that,
04:14then nothing else really works.
04:15The play action doesn't work.
04:16They can kind of sit on their heels.
04:17They get you off schedule.
04:18You're third and eight in a rainstorm.
04:20You know, just kind of fill in the above.
04:22And what they were able to do was really attack the exterior positions
04:26of your defensive front.
04:27Ebukam leaves with an injury at some point.
04:29Z'Darrius Smith, for everything we love about him rushing the passer,
04:32he's going to have his issues in the run game.
04:34Um, you know, Cameron Thomas, it just, they did a good job of really attacking,
04:39utilizing Tristan Wirfs and Brederson on kickout blocks
04:42and just being more physical up front.
04:43So I think that's what Kevin Stefanski is saying.
04:46I think you can hear in his voice a little bit of,
04:49Hey, I'm going to keep it, you know, PG while I'm talking to Arch,
04:52but when I get in the locker room, it's not,
04:54it's going to be more R rated.
04:55And, uh, you have to respect that from him just a little bit,
04:58but he's got to find a way to get this team playing that gritty brand of football
05:04that they have to play with in conditions such as this.
05:07We're a dome football team,
05:09but you never want to have the identity of being a dome football team.
05:12And I think that that kind of showed itself a little bit today.
05:14Yeah, that's a really good point.
05:15And they are going to get the director's cut version.
05:17I'm sure of conversations about a lot of things that didn't go right in this game.
05:21Just looking inside the box score,
05:22especially from the team breakdown side of things,
05:24first downs handily won by the Buccaneers as was this football game.
05:27And they had 16 first downs to the Falcons eight.
05:30They did not need to complete a pass at all in this game.
05:32So 15 of those on the ground,
05:33one of those from a penalty on the Falcons third down efficiency.
05:36You brought this up earlier, and this is a tough, tough way.
05:39I mean, you're not going to overcome this kind of thing.
05:41You're old 12 on third down.
05:43That's a difficult pill to swallow as well.
05:45When you start unpacking the stats from this game,
05:47uh, Buccaneers four of 13 on third down,
05:49the ground game was, uh,
05:51one pretty handily again by the Buccaneers who ran for 324 yards.
05:56Falcons held to 99 on the day.
05:59And again, that's a 99 yards,
06:00including having one of the most dynamic playmakers in the NFL,
06:04M.B. John Robinson.
06:05So, uh, try to figure that out into the weather's part of it,
06:08but some mis-executions, a little bit of it.
06:10Uh, we also talked about with, uh,
06:11Michael Penix throwing 24 times in these conditions.
06:14That seems far from ideal,
06:16especially when you've got four interceptions on your stat line.
06:19But when you get down,
06:20you've got to start throwing the ball around a little bit to try to get things
06:23moving and unfortunately just nothing was working for the Falcons on this day.
06:27Yeah.
06:27And the reason that the third,
06:28a third down percentage thing comes up early and it's not a perfect stat,
06:32but I would say more so than maybe every other stat,
06:35I look at third down percentage as an indicator of how,
06:39you know,
06:40the health of your offense and that's because it incorporates third and short
06:44and third long, right?
06:45It gives you a little bit of everything.
06:47It's,
06:47can you get the,
06:48you know,
06:49the ball move or the chains move in dicey situations?
06:51And you can win a game having less of a third down percentage than you,
06:55the opposing team.
06:55I think you've done that this year,
06:57but over the full course of a season,
07:00third downs have got to be good.
07:02And that's one thing that Falcons have really lacked that,
07:04in my opinion,
07:04over the last five,
07:05six years,
07:06they just have not been able to get it done.
07:08That's why you've seen quarterback change after quarterback change after
07:11head coaching change,
07:12because third downs have been an issue and you saw them at one point run a
07:16quarterback sneak today,
07:17could not get it on third down.
07:19Uh,
07:19and then you pick it up on fourth.
07:20Uh,
07:20there was a couple of those opportunities.
07:22So health of your offense to me is,
07:25is huge.
07:26When you look at third down and to have zero of them in a game,
07:29no matter what your percentage was coming in,
07:31and I've got it somewhere around here,
07:32it's going to take a massive hit and you're going to have to crawl out of
07:35that throughout the rest of the season.
07:36But that's going to be up to Michael Penix.
07:38The protection wasn't awful today.
07:41Um,
07:41but it wasn't as clean as it was last week.
07:43And so I don't think you had to take those chances that we thought Todd
07:46Bowles would in terms of the blitz today.
07:47And,
07:48uh,
07:49Michael just has to do a better job as do the receivers on certain third
07:52downs of being able to pick that stuff up.
07:54Yeah.
07:54And again,
07:55the weather was far from ideal for the passing attack,
07:58whether you're throwing the ball or trying to catch the ball,
08:00both sides were accustomed to that and had to deal with it and had to do the
08:03adjusting off of that.
08:04And it seemed like for Tampa able to grab a lead,
08:07get more points on the board early,
08:09nurse that lead all the way into the fourth quarters.
08:11The Falcons were just really never able to push through breakthrough and get
08:14the big plays they needed in this one.
08:16We'll talk about some of the reasons why that was.
08:18And of course,
08:19a little bit more about the performance of Michael Penix when we hear from the
08:21Falcons quarterback here in just a bit,
08:23this is a Mercedes Benz post-game show.
08:25This is the Atlanta Falcons radio network.
08:27This is the Atlanta Falcons.
08:27This is the Atlanta Falcons.
08:27This is the Atlanta Falcons.
08:27This is the Atlanta Falcons.
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