There’s usually good, bad, and ugly to take away from every NFL game, especially in week one, and it was no different for the Atlanta Falcons in their week one matchup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Earlier today The Morning Shift gave their good, bad, and ugly from the Falcons’ week one 23-20 loss to the Bucs.
The Good: Edge Rushers
Despite allowing Baker Mayfield to have some long scrambles the Falcons edge rushers looked good, and got pretty consistent pressure on Mayfield. The interior of Atlanta’s defensive line was a different story, but as far as the edge rushers go they played pretty well on Sunday.
The Bad: Zac Robinson
Mike Johnson was disappointed in Zac Robinson, specifically the run plays he called because he felt like there was no “variance” in the run game. Mike also said he felt like that at no point there was anybody on the Bucs defense having to guess where the ball was going.
The Ugly: The Offensive Line
Former Atlanta Falcons’ offensive lineman said the Falcons O-Line was “bad all the way around” in the run game on Sunday, that they got “whipped”, and that there was confusion and missed assignments across the line.
The Falcons’ edge rushers will need to build on their good performance and carry that into their Sunday night matchup against the Minnesota Vikings this weekend, and hopefully they will get a little more help from the interior of the defensive line as well.
The Falcons running game as a whole must be better against a really good Vikings defense, because if Zac Robinson, Bijan Robinson, Tyler Allgeier, and this Falcons’ offensive line can’t establish the run against Minnesota, and make Brian Flores think twice about blitzing it’ll be a long day for Michael Penix Jr. and the Falcons’ offense.