- 13 hours ago
The Atlanta Falcons fall to 3-6 on the season following a 34-17 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in Madrid. Grant McAuley and Mike Johnson break down the massive penalty problem that plagued quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and the Atlanta offense all game long. From 12 costly penalties taking points off the board to Dexter Lawrence wreaking havoc in the trenches and Joe Burrow connecting with Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.
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00:00And welcome in to the Mercedes-Benz postgame show.
00:02Grant McCauley alongside former Falcon Mike Johnson here on the Atlanta Falcons radio network
00:06from our studios in Midtown where it is sunny.
00:09It is a beautiful day and over across the pond.
00:12That was where the Falcons were setting up for what we knew was going to be a challenge
00:15for the Cincinnati Bengals have been and shown themselves to be one of the best offenses
00:19in the NFL.
00:20So you knew it was going to be a tough one, Mike, but unfortunately for the Falcons, not
00:24only were you fighting the Bengals in this one, but you were also fighting yourselves
00:28and it came out 34-17 Falcons on the wrong side of that.
00:31But penalties on this day, Mike, it's hard to ignore the negative effect that had on the
00:36Falcons' ability to keep up with one of the most high-powered offenses in the game.
00:40Yeah, and that's really the nature of the beast when you look at this game is, you know, Bajon's
00:43going to get his 100 yards.
00:45Michael Penix, how about over 50 yards rushing, right?
00:48I mean, that's just crazy.
00:49Look at some of the signs that you would normally look to for an Atlanta Falcons victory or not.
00:53How about 50% on third downs?
00:56Just, you did a lot of the things that you felt like could put yourself in victory lane
00:59and yet the penalties, particularly the ones and the timing of the ones that you had on
01:03the offensive front, just absolutely terrible.
01:06And when it comes down to it, you can't make those penalties.
01:09You know, Kyle Pitts' first down catch, penalty.
01:11Kyle Pitts' first down catch, penalty.
01:12Down to the one-yard line, penalty.
01:13Just, you know, Michael Penix' rush, penalty.
01:16It was frustrating to watch throughout a lot of this game, but the nature of the beast of
01:20it is, Grant, that you knew that you were going to have to really execute a nice game plan
01:24on both sides of the ball.
01:26And defensively, you were going to struggle to keep up with this wide receiver core and
01:29this passing attack.
01:30Because, look, you're the type of defense that has a lot of underneath throws.
01:33You can get home with four.
01:35And that was a recipe for disaster today because they really excelled in that area.
01:39Yeah, and when you look at the final tally for penalties, how about 12 for 88 yards?
01:43You mentioned a few of them.
01:44It just felt like every time the Falcons got that big conversion, especially, and even close
01:50and down on the goal line, really, with an opportunity to punch one in.
01:53I mean, you're taking points off the board.
01:55In some cases, you're doing your offense a complete disservice in others and stalling
01:59out your own drives.
02:00And again, not to beat the drum that we're probably going to beat for the next couple
02:04of hours, but it is very hard to win in this league.
02:06It is very difficult to win if you are doing things that cost yourself in the manner that
02:12the Falcons did it and in the quantity that the Falcons did it, as you talked about.
02:15It was especially a troublesome day, it felt like, with the Atlanta offensive line with a lot
02:19of these holding calls.
02:20Yeah, and I think a lot of times when you have a penalty-laden game, the way in which
02:24you did today, you kind of look at it, and it's an indicator of a bigger issue.
02:27I feel like that's exactly what we're talking about today.
02:30You knew that protecting Michael Penix would be of the utmost importance.
02:33Jawan Taylor gets the false start to kind of, I don't know if he got things kicked off.
02:37It might have been after Bergeron's first holding call, but you knew he was trying to get
02:41a good jump, and you knew that they've kind of struggled to do that this year, and you knew
02:44that they needed to keep Michael Penix clean.
02:45I mean, Dexter Lawrence, the holding calls on the inside, that was his doing.
02:50That's good football play.
02:51He's disruptive.
02:52Yeah, and you're getting called for some of the things that you knew were going to be
02:55difficult.
02:55So, Falcons, a lot of times when there's a bully on other football teams, and I'm talking
03:01about at any position, wide receiver or whatever else, they can cause you to have those plays.
03:05Jamar Chase and Dexter Lawrence are bullies in the way they play the football game, and you
03:09saw the Falcons kind of struggle to keep up as far as the penalties go.
03:12And not to pick on just one positional group, because we're going to break down the whole
03:15thing over the course of the two hours here on the Mercedes-Benz postgame show, of course,
03:18brought to you by Mercedes-Benz, official luxury vehicle of your Atlanta Falcons, but
03:22it did feel like a tale of two different days and outcomes for the offensive lines here,
03:29because the Falcons were not able to disrupt Joe Burrow and get him off his game.
03:33Meanwhile, it did feel like there was just enough disruption going on on the Cincinnati side
03:38to kind of put Atlanta in places where it just felt like maybe they were on their heels or
03:42having to perhaps overcompensate knowing what you're going to be up against and trying to
03:48get ahead of that.
03:48And, you know, ultimately, again, unforced errors, just making mistakes and is creating
03:53opportunity where an offense for the Falcons definitely can't afford to give those away.
03:58Meanwhile, for Cincinnati, they weren't making those kind of mistakes and their offense
04:01was staying on time and on target and doing the things that you pretty much expected
04:04them to do coming in.
04:06Yeah, and you know what's wild about it is these are two offensive lines that are fully
04:10healthy compared to what they were on opening day.
04:12Yeah.
04:12You just don't get that a lot midway through the season, right?
04:15And so both these, you know, both these groups playing a good brand of football, it's
04:18wild to look at and see that, you know, that Michael Penix wasn't sacked.
04:22And you add that to the fact that he had the rushing yards he had today and you're going,
04:26okay, well, maybe that's causing, you know, Cincinnati's defensive line to kind of sit
04:29back on their heels a little bit, pay more attention to the rushing lanes as they're
04:32getting after Michael Penix.
04:33No, I don't think so.
04:34It just is one of those things where when you got yourself into the bad situations and
04:39found yourself behind the chains, now they can say, all right, game time.
04:42I'm going to, I'm going to rush the edges of these offensive players.
04:45Dexter Lawrence against Ryan Newsel, as much as I think Ryan Newsel has been good this
04:48year, it's just a matchup nightmare.
04:50I mean, styles make fights.
04:51That's not a style that you're going to want to have more times than not.
04:53And, you know, you can see Dexter Lawrence directing traffic to make sure that Chris
04:57Lindstrom can't help.
04:58He's calling somebody else over to walk up over Chris Lindstrom and saying, Hey, you're going
05:02to rush him so that I can get news of one-on-one.
05:04Yeah.
05:04And, you know, credit to him.
05:05That's a veteran move.
05:06It's a veteran player that understands the situation and what you're trying to get accomplished
05:09defensively.
05:10And they had numerous guys that stepped up in those ways today.
05:12Yeah.
05:13And you have to give respect to what Cincinnati was going to bring to this dance.
05:16You talk about what the tail of the tape was going to be for this fight.
05:19You knew they had some significant punching power on offense.
05:21Joe Burrow certainly did it again.
05:23He had three touchdown passes, also ran in another one, just 271 yards.
05:27I say that tongue in cheek because you thought maybe based on his last couple of games that
05:31he could approach 400, maybe 500 yards.
05:33If he gets himself rolling, I will give credit where it's due.
05:37It didn't get completely out of hand.
05:38And it felt like the Falcons were a handful of plays away from trying to at least keep
05:42pace with this Bengals team and give themselves a chance to maybe make a late push.
05:46A lot of those drives fizzled out, but they made all the plays they needed to on the Cincinnati
05:50side.
05:50He was 24 of 29.
05:52You talk about efficiency.
05:53Again, three touchdown passes for him.
05:55He ran in another and a huge day from Jamar Chase, who had 10 catches on 12 targets, 155 yards
06:00and a score for him.
06:02Two touchdowns for Tee Higgins.
06:03It just feels like the playmakers that they have on that side and the ability to put it
06:07on them that Joe Burrow has, you knew this was going to be a very, very tough fight to
06:11use that analogy again.
06:12Yeah, there's no two ways about that.
06:14And I think that you mentioned Joe Burrow and the 271 passing yards.
06:18I'd be curious to know once it gets broken down and maybe it's a, you know, a next gen
06:22stat or whatever else has to come out of how many of those were air yards.
06:24Obviously you have the explosive over the top of Jamar Chase and Dave Archer did a good
06:28job of talking about that when we did the round table on the pregame show of saying,
06:30look, we can talk about hugging up coverage and quick throws, but the minute you try to
06:34do that is when they beat you over the top.
06:35And sure enough, they did it.
06:36They did it right off the top.
06:38But the air yards, the amount of crossing routes that were thrown to Jamar Chase coming
06:43across the formation or Tee Higgins or, you know, Dante Myers, they are able to catch some
06:49of these balls and, you know, break tackles and spin moves and get up the field and find
06:53an extra 10 yards, 12 yards, just something the Falcons have not been able to do.
06:57And when they did do that today offensively, got called back with a penalty.
06:59So it's, it's a really big indicator for me of how many yards that Joe Burrow had to throw
07:04it through the air, because it's one of the reasons you struggled getting home a lot of
07:07the day.
07:08And then when you tried to hug up, they beat you over the top.
07:10They're just a really well-rounded passing attack that just sprinkled in just enough
07:14run game to keep you honest.
07:15They are.
07:16And to give you an idea of just the kind of pace that this Cincinnati offense is on now,
07:19if you look at Joe Burrow and the Bengals are now six and twos or roughly nine games to
07:24go in a halfway portion of their season here, he's sitting on 23 touchdown passes, just
07:28six interceptions, no picks today.
07:30So, I mean, he's got a chance to push 45, maybe 50 touchdown passes this year, if things
07:35go right for him.
07:36And when you look at the way Jamar Chase was playing today, and you look at T Higgins and
07:39some of the other playmakers they've got, I mean, those are just the two that jump off
07:41the page immediately to you.
07:42They've got a lot of other capable guys to catch passes.
07:45Joe Burrow's got all the ingredients he needs on the Cincinnati offense to continue to do
07:49the kind of things they did today and the kind of things that they've done coming in.
07:52It may not be defensively a team that's going to get all the stops that they were able to
07:56bottle up the Falcons and the penalty certainly didn't help, but this offense, man, it's
08:00the real deal.
08:01It'll be fascinating to see how Cincinnati approaches the remainder of its schedule,
08:05because as we got to see today, this is a team that can certainly put up some points
08:09and I would expect that trend to continue.
08:10Yeah, there's no doubt.
08:11And like I said, their offensive line's playing really well.
08:14The two Georgia guys, Marius Mim and Dylan Fairchild playing at a really high clip right
08:18now.
08:18And look, you contrast that with what you have defensively, and I think that's the
08:22thing about Jeff Ulbrich's defense is when you are able to find tight coverage and the
08:27receivers are not just absolutely going ballistic on you, now all of a sudden you force those
08:32long down in distances.
08:33Now the penetrating style of defense that you utilize up front can create chaos, but if they're
08:38able to find themselves in third and three, third and two, and they have some of the easy
08:41short throws, that's when things tend to fall apart.
08:44And we'll go back and watch the tape, obviously, when the All-22 comes out.
08:47And I don't know how well Kendall Daniels and Divine Diablo played in space today, but
08:52it felt like a lot of times there was some youth on display at that spot with Kendall
08:55Daniels.
08:56So we'll see.
08:57But man, frustrating, frustrating day for the Falcons defense, because it just felt like
09:01there was nothing you could do to stop what was going on.
09:03No, there really wasn't.
09:04You look on the other side of the box score, Atlanta's passing game led by Michael Penix,
09:08obviously 20 of 31, 162 yards.
09:11He had the touchdown, the late interception for him as well, though the ball was in danger
09:14a couple of times there in the fourth.
09:16We'll talk about that more a little bit later, coming off a four-interception game against
09:20the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last time out.
09:22I think one of the immediate questions you wanted to have answered was, can the Falcons
09:26get their offense rolling and what would I would say are ideal conditions to be playing
09:31a football game, even if you had to travel some extra miles to get there and get it done?
09:35And it was about as efficient and as, I guess, demonstrative a drive as you can have on the
09:42opening possession for the Falcons.
09:43But there wasn't enough of that on this day.
09:46The penalties, obviously a huge part of that, short-circuiting a lot of other opportunities
09:49to put points on the board.
09:50But when you looked at that opening drive, Mike, you had to feel like, okay, maybe this
09:54offense has got some things going today and is going to figure it out.
09:57The balance between the run and the pass was right on display there.
10:00And the first downs aplenty and then a touchdown on your opening drive as well.
10:03Yeah, it's interesting you bring up the first downs because looking at the Falcons, you
10:06know, I don't remember what the number is, the average first downs they have per game,
10:10but you get seven on the first drive and I'm going, how much of this pace can you keep
10:13up?
10:14You know what I mean?
10:14Like how much can you keep going at this clip?
10:16Obviously you're not going to get seven to first downs on every drive and you're going,
10:19well, there will be some, you know, some ability to back off.
10:21And then on the second drive, they go right back down and they're on the one yard line.
10:24And then the penalty brings it, you know, almost backs you all the way out of the red zone.
10:27You find yourself second and 17, I believe, or is, you know, second down on the 17 yard
10:31line, just frustrating, just maddening.
10:33Because after that you get out of sorts, I think Tommy Reese more times than not this
10:37year.
10:37Unfortunately, he's gotten used to playing catch up ball, whatever it may be.
10:41He saw it against the bears a little bit and tried doing different things where you
10:44have to air it out.
10:45He saw it against Tampa last week in a rainstorm.
10:48It's just not our game.
10:49And unfortunately, when you talk about Michael Penix's game, he's good when he's kept
10:52clean, right?
10:54And when he gets the pressure, we're just not going to get much offensively.
10:56And you saw that once again today.
10:58Yeah.
10:58Unfortunately, that has been the trend for the Falcons this year.
11:01We'll talk a lot about, obviously, this game, the trends that went into a 34 to 17 loss over
11:06in Madrid against a very capable Cincinnati Bengals team, which again is now six and two
11:10on the year.
11:10Falcons dropped to three and six have lost four out of five.
11:13That's something we're going to have to dive into in this one.
11:15We will send it back across the pond.
11:17Dave Archer is a busy man right now.
11:18He's going to catch up with Falcons head coach, Kevin Stefanski, quarterback, Michael Penix and
11:22others.
11:22And we will hear from them as we continue on the Mercedes-Benz postgame show right here on the
11:26Atlanta Falcons radio network.