Despite adding Pro-Bowl and All-Pro pass rusher Matthew Judon before the season started the Atlanta Falcons still have the least amount of sacks in the NFL with five, and rightfully so a lot of Falcons fans are concerned about the team’s pass rush and lack of sacks.
However, the Falcons also give up the eighth most rushing yards per game in the NFL this season at 142.67, and earlier today on The Morning Shift Mike and Beau explained why Falcons fans should only be worried about the Falcons lack of sacks and pass rush after the team fixes tightens up their run defense.
“Until the run defense gets better, it’s not even worth talking about the pass rush.” Mike Johnson said.
Mike finished his thought by saying “That’s not even worth talking about until we can get past the run defense because until we can get a better run defense you ain’t going to have third and longs to be able to tee off on the quarterback and I know that Seattle is going to pass it a ton and not really gonna try to run it, but to me the run defense is much more a huge part of the next how many games they have, what 11 games left in the regular season, the run defense is carrying all the burden on their shoulders right now moving forward until they get it corrected.”
Now, while Beau doesn’t think the Falcons have necessarily been hurt by their lack of pass rush this season he still agrees with Mike’s sentiment about the run defense and talks about how the Falcons winning on first down when their on defense is key to everything.
“As long as you lose first down, and a lot of that has been in the run game the offense is at an advantage and you’re not.” Beau said.
Obviously the Falcons need to improve both their pass rush and run defense, but like Mike and Beau said it’s hard to rush the passer when the opposing offense is constantly in short yardage situations, and the only way to get opposing offenses in short yardage situations is to be successful stopping the run, so before the Falcons get more sacks they have to be better at stopping the run.
