Vita Vea and Mike Evans both tend to dominate against the Falcons. In seven career games against the Falcons Vea has 13 solo tackles, five assisted tackles, and five sacks. Evans has 85 catches for 1,317 yards, and has scored 10 touchdowns in 16 career games against the Falcons.
Both are really good stat lines, and as you can see both players have been game wreckers against the Falcons, so which guy will be more important to slow down on Sunday for the Falcons to secure their first road victory of the season and sole possession of first place in the NFC South?
The Morning Shift gave you their takes this morning.
“Whoever is matched up against Mike Evans.” was Beau Morgan’s answer. Mike Johnson agrees with Beau by saying “Whoever is matching up with Mike Evans, that could win or lose you the game.”
Now, Vita is very important to slow down, but the former Falcons offensive lineman says the way the Falcons run the ball in theory is built around slowing guys like Vea down.
“Your run game, your wide zones were built to beat guys like this. 350 pound nose guard, you’re not asking that guy to cover sideline to sideline, so your widezone was built to beat guys like Vita Vea that you’re going to say hey we’re not going to try to power this guy off the line of scrimmage we’ll make him run to the sideline, so that’s the good news about that. That’s why it’s not my A1 matchup.” Mike said.
If the Falcons can find a way to take both the Buccaneers’ big 350 pound nose guard and their 6’5 230 pound wide receiver out of the game or at least slow them down that would be great, but at the end of the day you can work around Vita Vea getting in the backfield more than you can Mike Evans scoring touchdowns on you all day long.