The Atlanta Falcons suffered their second straight loss by losing to the Chicago Bears 31-23.
Bears quarterback Caleb Williams made his return after a three-game absence due to a hamstring. Williams showed no signs of rust by throwing for 305 yards and a touchdown against an impressive Falcons defense.
The Falcons came in being the number one rushing defense in the league and the team did a decent job of stopping the run for the most part.
“Williams was 12 of 12 for 142 yards before throwing his first incompletion in the second quarter,” an ESPN article says. “Though the Bears won two of three games with Tyson Bagent and Case Keenum filing in at quarterback, Williams’ return sparked the offense. He completed 30 of 36 passes for 305 yards with one touchdown.”
Atlanta’s Slow Start
Kevin Stefanski made it a focal point to start out fast against this Bears team.
Unfortunately, it did not happen.
“Instead, the visiting team raced out to a 14-0 lead in Mercedes-Benz Stadium,” Will McFadden wrote in an Atlanta Falcons article. “The Bears built that lead up to 31-7 on the first play of the fourth quarter, a cushion large enough to withstand a furious Falcons rally that nearly turned the game on its head in the final 10 minutes. Tight end Kyle Pitts caught two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter to close the gap, but Atlanta ran out of time and couldn’t overcome its slow start, losing 31-23.”
Though Stefanski made it a focal point to start fast, as expected, he was not pleased with how the team started. It’s one thing to talk about it, it’s another thing to actually put it out on the field.
“I’m obviously proud of how we continue to fight, but to start like we started is really, really disappointing,” head coach Kevin Stefanski said after the game. “That’s something we talked at length about, and we talked at length about starting fast in this ballgame, and we did not.”
“We’ve got to get that fixed because we just put ourselves in the hole,” Stefanski said. “Disappointed. I’ll have to look at how we start and make sure that we are putting our guys in position, but we will own that one, and we will move on.”
Atlanta Could Not Get The Run Game Going
The identity of this Falcons team is to get Bijan Robinson and this run game going. Robinson was held to 61 yards on the ground, yet only carried the ball nine times.
“That’s what we set our identity in: this run game,” Robinson said after the game. “The run game gets everything going on this offense. So, for us, I know when we got down those scores, we were trying to play catch-up with the passes, so we could try to get as many yards as we can. When we run the ball effectively and have opportunities to run the ball, that’s what makes our offense super hard to stop.”
Well, the first mistake is that you didn’t give your star running back the ball a few more times. Things go bad when you are one-dimensional.
Atlanta will have a chance to redeem themselves as they attempt to end their losing streak next week against the undefeated San Francisco 49ers.
This article was originally published on HEAVY
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