Matt Ryan throws the worst pick of the season in the NFL’s worst collapse of the season
The Falcons have now smeared their stench on two continents.
The Atlanta Falcons fell to the Detroit Lions 22-21 early Sunday morning in the latest NFL export to London, a game that showed we’re apparently not still over that whole “no taxation without representation” thing. How else to explain the utter garbage that America foisted on England? This wasn’t just a bad game, this was the bad game, absolute Peak Falcons.
Atlanta took a 21-0 lead into the half. Never before had Atlanta lost a game when leading by three touchdowns at halftime. Surely not even the Falcons could blow this one, right? In the first half, the Lions were the Oasis to Atlanta’s Beatles, a weak-sauce imitation, overmatched and scarcely worthy of being on the same field.
That all changed in the second half, when Matthew Stafford went full AMERICA and began slinging downfield passes that actually found their targets. Chief among those: a 59-yard touchdown pass from Stafford to Golden Tate that may have traveled 60-plus yards in the air.
Detroit couldn’t convert several of its Red Zone visits into touchdowns, including two second-and-goals from the 4 and the 2. But in the battle of who could stink less, Detroit came out the winner, largely because Atlanta now seems predestined to produce a historically awful NFL season.
Consider, for example, the interception Atlanta QB Matt Ryan threw at the end of the third quarter. Flushed out of the pocket, the normally steady Ryan slung a ball across his body into a region of the field completely devoid of red jerseys. This was hideous, a pass thrown with all the direction, velocity and foresight of a wet towel.
And although Detroit only turned that interception into a field goal, closing the Lions to within 21-13, the writing was on the cathedral wall. Atlanta surrendered another touchdown, managed to evade getting justly penalized on the conversion attempt, and then mismanaged its final possession badly enough to leave the door open wide for Detroit. Atlanta’s defense then demonstrated all the mobility of the Queen’s Guard, and Detroit walked down the field in moments to set up for a potential game-winning kick. In an appropriate underlining of the utter futility of the Falcons effort, Detroit won on that field goal, the aspect of the game that’s bedeviled the Lions all season long.
This, then, is a Falcons team in absolute freefall. Since coming within one play of reaching the Super Bowl at the end of the 2012 season, Atlanta is 6-18, a mass of defenseless disunity that lacks all sense of direction despite possessing some of the league’s top talent at key positions.
Falcons owner Arthur Blank is the very embodiment of steadiness in the NFL ownership ranks, sticking with his hires even when all around him are lighting the torches and sharpening the pitchforks, but even Blank can’t rationalize away the complete loss of cohesiveness for this team. Head coach Mike Smith and general manager Thomas Dimitroff may not even return to America with jobs, and you’d find few, if any, Falcons supporters shedding tears over that.
Regardless, Blank and the Falcons need to get this mess of a franchise righted, or at least pointed in the right direction, soon. The Falcons will be moving into a new stadium in three years, and the idea of four- and five-figure Personal Seat Licenses for this team is laughable. (Unless the Falcons are paying the four- and five-figure fees, that is.)
There are bad teams and there are pathetic teams, and on Sunday morning in London, the Falcons crossed over from the former to the latter.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter.
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