On the Falcons’ first drive Monday night in New Orleans, the Saints forced a 3-and-out. Somehow.
Atlanta rattled off five touchdowns on their next five drives. On their sixth, they had to settle for a lowly field goal.
But was the 38-point explosion a product of a dynamic Falcons’ offense, one that leads the league in points scored (34.7) and total yards (448.0), or was it more about the Saints’ dreadful defense? Through three weeks, they’re ranked 31st in both points allowed (32.0) and yards allowed (448.3).
It's not like either of Atlanta’s first two opponents shed much light on how good the Falcons' offense may be. The Bucs’ defense is dead last in points (33.7) and 19th in yards (370.0) while the Raiders are 32nd in yards (476.0) and 22nd in points (26.3.)
“You play the teams on your schedule and you don't worry about that kind of stuff,” Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan said on a conference call with Panthers reporters. “You go out there and play as hard as you can week in and week out and you try to score as many points as you can on the offensive side of the ball.”
As perfectly clichéd as Ryan was with that answer, would his head coach respond similarly?
“No,” Dan Quinn replied. “I'd respond that we're just getting started.
“A lot of those statistics are more meaningful at the end of the year. We know we're just getting rolling, man. There's lots of work for us to do offensively, we know that. We like some of the stats that you hear, but if you look too far into that you're going to forget about the process at hand and about us digging to go get better.”
Their upcoming schedule should reveal more about the Falcons, who travel to Denver and Seattle after hosting the Panthers. That’s a stretch against teams that all rank in the top-7 in total defense.
The Panthers, who have allowed the 3rd-fewest yards (273.3) and 18th-most points (23.3), have been solid, but far from elite, which is what the Falcons have looked like on offense.
Now we'll see if they can continue to light up the scoreboard against proper defenses.
“We've got a long way to go,” Ryan admitted. “The one thing I've learned in 8-plus years of playing is that a lot of things can happen between now and January.”