The Atlanta Falcons got out to a fast start this season, but have come back down to earth with consecutive flat performances on the road. They dropped ugly games to the Saints and Broncos before hitting their bye week on a low.
With another playoff-level team coming to Atlanta in the LA Chargers, The Steakhouse discussed why winning this game will be critical for the optics for their second half of the season.
"You've got to win this football game," Steak said about the Falcons on Sunday. "You have to win this game on your home field and get to 7-5 and then go look like a team who can make a run in the playoffs. Or you know what? Other than your head coach, every other position on that staff is up for a conversation."
The Falcons had an offseason plan to put a pile of money on the quarterback position and flesh out the defense with a few veterans like Justin Simmons and Matthew Judon. So far, the results have been good, at times, but mostly they have lacked any consistency.
The national narrative of this team is that they don't have enough on defense
"[The pass rush] is ineptitude of epic proportion," Steak said. "There has never been a football team that people consider to be a 'good' football team that has ten sacks and looks like they do. We're terrible on third down, we're terrible at getting off the field when we need to."
The defense has received the majority of the backlash, but the offense deserves its fair share of criticism, too. There has been far too much variation in scoring to call them an effective unit. In wins, they are averaging upwards of 30 points, but that number plummets to 12.8 points per game in losses.
"It's simple, you've had two weeks [to get right]," Steak said. "Now go win the game."
