After a team loses by a wide margin, coaches always tell you they’re going to evaluate everything and make changes where they see fit. But there are usually no changes in the team’s core strategies or philosophies on offense or defense. Now, sometimes if there’s a big loss going into a bye week there’s a possibility you could see some major fundamental, philosophical, or strategic changes from teams, but even in that scenario it doesn’t happen that often.
Well, after the Atlanta Falcons’ big 38-6 road loss to the Denver Broncos Sunday former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Dave Archer told The Morning Shift why he thinks the Falcons need to make a philosophy change on defense going into the team’s bye week.
“I think they can play tighter," Archer said. "I think that they’re giving some easy stuff up. I think that they’re allowing quarterbacks to get comfortable.”
Arch finished his thought by talking about how it might be better for the Falcons defense overall to challenge quarterbacks to beat them over the top with deep vertical passes and fade routes rather than consistently giving quarterbacks easy short-yardage completions.
“I think that coming up and making those more difficult situations, jamming guys at the line of scrimmage, being a little bit more aggressive, being willing to maybe get beat over the top because you’re up tight," Archer said. "Those are harder throws. I can tell you as a quarterback, throwing fade routes or throwing the ball down the field, the ball is in the air longer. You gotta be more precise to get the ball down there rather than throw a screen pass outside with a guy that’s off 10 yards. I think that they’re going to have to look at reinvesting and maybe coming up and doing some of those kinds of things and maybe changing their philosophy a little bit on the perimeter.”
If the Falcons were going to make that kind of change the time to do it is now. Atlanta has lost two games in a row, they have time to make the changes with this being their bye week, and they’ve got a big enough sample size on film to know the way they’ve been playing defense on the perimeter isn’t working.
After their bye week the Falcons will be at home to take on Justin Herbert and a red-hot Los Angeles Chargers team that has won four games in a row and has averaged 28.5 points during their four-game winning streak. If the Falcons don’t change their defensive philosophy, and the offense struggles again, the Falcons will be in danger of getting the same result they got in Denver.