The Falcons are coming out of their bye week with an opportunity to claim the top spot in the division.
The club will host the Saints in Atlanta in what is as close to a must-win game as a Week 12 contest could be. With a victory, the Falcons will own the top spot in the NFC South. However, with a loss, the Falcons will sit three games under .500 and will effectively be out of the playoff race.
The Falcons have been an inconsistent team all season long, and they’ll have to find some sense of consistency this week if they want to upset the Saints.
It’s been turnovers in the red zone, poor tackling on would-be game-ending drives, and everything in between. This Atlanta squad has lost in a multitude of ways in the last month or so.
Two of the three losses were on final drives orchestrated by Kyler Murray and Josh Dobbs; both of which evaded Falcons defenders on scrambles that kept the drives alive. The other, against the Titans, was never close to begin with. Though it ended as a one-score game, it took a late-game touchdown from Scotty Miller to pull the Falcons within five points in the final minutes of the fourth quarter.
For most of the season, it was the offense that let the defense down. In recent weeks, it’s been the special teams and defense that have let the team down. The Grady Jarrett injury has devastated Ryan Nielsen’s defensive front, which has impacted the unit in more ways than one.
For the Falcons to own the top spot in the division on Monday, they will have to find some semblance of consistency against the Saints, who feature one of the best defenses in the league along with their own problematic offense.
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Photographer: Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire
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