Falcons talk about post-bye improvement, increased play action usage

Atlanta’s gearing up for a critical six game stretch.

The bye week is over, and the Atlanta Falcons intend to look like a very different football team in Week 13 and beyond.

The proof will be on the field, but what was the team saying about their bye week improvements, and what were they not saying? Here’s a little Monday rundown after Raheem Morris and players met with the media.

More play action...finally

One of the more baffling subplots of the early season was a lack of play action usage for Kirk Cousins, who is regularly touted as one of the league’s best play action passers. The first week or two when the Falcons were feeling out how well Cousins could move, that made sense. Once his lasting limitations became more apparent, the Falcons did start to roll out play action, but not to the extent I think any of us would have anticipated.

The Falcons are currently 30th in play action passing attempts and 26th in yardage, and Kirk Cousins is 31/50 for 374 yards. For the sake of perspective, on non-play action passes, Cousins has thrown zero interceptions or touchdowns, but somewhat crucially has just one sack on 50 dropbacks versus 22 sacks on 310 non-play action passes, which should tell you something about his comfort level getting rid of the ball quickly in that scenario.

Cousins’ historic comfort with play action and solid results this year even with his glacial movement indicate the team should be trying to use it more often, and Raheem Morris promised Monday that the team would.

It’s fair to ask why it has taken until eleven games and a bye have gone by to determine this, but better late than never with a divisional title still within reach. I wrote after the Week 1 debacle that a heavy reliance on shotgun and pistol did not necessarily play to Cousins’ strengths, but that’s an essential part of what Zac Robinson wants this offense to do. Chances are that having seen the way the passing game is trending and how uncomfortable Cousins has looked at times, the Falcons took a look at the offense during the bye week and determined trying to ramp up Kirk’s bread-and-butter might get them out of the funk they’re mired in.

That will hopefully be the result. I wouldn’t expect this time to suddenly start running play action all the time for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is an upcoming slate of capable pass rushers that make Cousins having his back turned to the defense a bit of a dicey proposition. A handful of additional snaps per game to try to get Cousins on track, though? Reasonable and welcome.

Cleaning up mistakes is a focus

Morris saw the same thing we did throughout the season, but I’m certain going back and watching every game really illuminated just how deadly penalties have been for this team in the red zone. The number of times the Falcons have turned a would-be touchdown drive into a field goal try or a punt this year is not a tiny number, and many of those drives have been killed by holding penalties and false starts.

Talking about it is one thing, as we know, but preventing those drive-derailing penalties would go a long way toward this offense really blossoming.

The Falcons are getting healthier...but how healthy is TBD

Morris gave his press conference today before the Falcons had everyone back in the building, so he told reporters he simply didn’t know exactly how healthy the team would be this week. He did say he expected them to be healthier; we had seen Troy Andersen and Drew Dalman on the cusp of returning, so hopefully he means they’ll be back.

The one player we did get an update from was old friend DeMarcco Hellams, who should have been this team’s third safety but for an injury suffered this summer. Hellams seemed to indicate he’s likely to return before the season ends, and whenever the Falcons get him back, it will be a very welcome return.

No talk of the defense

Given that the defense has been a rolling disaster the past couple of weeks and the pass rush has been missing in action for close to a decade, I expected there to be a spirited discussion of defensive improvement to come.

Apparently there was...not. The lack of that conversation is very surprising, but it confirms what we all knew: Jimmy Lake is not going anywhere, and the changes are more likely to be tweaks than massive overhauls to the lineup.

We’ll hope for more blitzing with Kaden Elliss now that Troy Andersen is (hopefully) healthy, perhaps the permanent elevation of Khalid Kareem after he turned some heads the past two weeks, and that a healthier lineup takes the Falcons to better places. I’ll believe all that the second I see it, though.