–The return of Devonta Freeman last week against the Steelers didn’t exactly supercharge the Falcons’ running game. Head coach Dan Quinn said the team will emphasize the rush in practice this week as they prepare for Tampa Bay.
“It means quite a bit and I’ll tell you why,” Quinn said. “In the run game, it adds to the toughness of our team, and it carries over to third-and-short yardage. It carries over into our four-minute operation. It carries over into our play-action.”
Atlanta rushed 19 times for 62 yards against the Steelers, a 3.3-yard average.
The Falcons had only two runs of 10 yards or longer against Pittsburgh – and one was a 10-yard Matt Ryan scramble. They had only one against the Bengals and Saints. Quinn isn’t worried so much about the explosive plays as much as the steady contributions of the running game.
“There will be some games when we won’t get as many long runs, but they’re very important to get the explosive passes,” Quinn said. “So it’s just part of our balance of what we do.”
Tevin Coleman leads the team with 225 yards, but had only 15 yards against Pittsburgh. Freeman led the team with 32 yards against the Steelers and has 68. Rookie Ito Smith has 80 yards.
“It’s always tough, but sticking with it slows down the pass rush, which is important,” quarterback Matt Ryan said. “We always have the mindset, too, that the next one is going to break out.”
–Matt Bosher has been a reliable punter for the Falcons since he joined the team in 2011 as a sixth-round pick out of Miami. But he had his second punt of the season blocked last week and has had eight rejected during his career.
That is unacceptable to head coach Dan Quinn.
“We’ve had two in the last three weeks,” Quinn said. “I use the analogy, our security director Willie was part of the bomb squad, and you cannot be right eight out of 10 times. It has to be all the time.”
Quinn said the fault may not lie with Bosher, who didn’t have a chance on the block made by Roosevelt Nix last week against the Steelers. Bosher was able to catch the ball and try to make a play, but was unable to advance.
“On those particular ones, the players had done it right, but that one time that you don’t, that’s usually when it happens,” Quinn said. “So that’s where we made the big push to say you may have had one this play. Let’s make sure that all of us have the trust and accountability to each other that we’re getting it right all the time.”
Bosher averages 45.1 yards per punt. Atlanta is the only team with two blocked punts.
BY THE NUMBERS: 19.6 — According to Next Gen Stats, Mohamed Sanu’s 43-yard receiving touchdown marked him as the fastest ball carrier for the Falcons against the Steelers at 19.96 mph.
–100 — Career games for Julio Jones, in which he has 9,618 yards, the most through a player’s first 100 games in NFL history.
