Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Penix heads into the bye week on a high.
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Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Penix heads into the bye week on a high.
The Atlanta Falcons enter their Week 5 bye at 2-2 and a game back of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC South. It’s too early in the season to start keeping track of wins and losses, but the Falcons surely wish they had that 30-0 beatdown to the Carolina Panthers back. That’ll definitely be one they look back on in Week 18 when they are scoreboard watching.
But, they did get a good win over the Washington Commanders in last week, so they still entered their early week off on a high note.
“It was great to get a win before the bye, obviously, but a week five bye is not the best,” tight end Kyle Pitts said. “But it’s all good going into that with a win.”
Indeed it is, and it also gives them extra time to prepare for their Week 6 Monday Night Football matchup against the Buffalo Bills.
Bye week is a time for the Atlanta Falcons to look at everything
A Week 5 bye is pretty early and not ideal. I’m sure plenty of guys would rather get that break later in the season when their bodies are bruised and they really just want to sleep in for a couple days.
But, regardless of when they occur, bye weeks are always a good time for NFL teams to pause, take a step back and evaluate their trouble spots. Heck, last year the Philadelphia Eagles had the exact same Week 5 bye as the Falcons. They were coming off a dreadful loss to the Bucs (their other loss at that point was a bad one to this same Falcons team) and needed the bye week to learn how to tackle. Outside of an outlier loss at Washington, the Eagles ran the table and won the Super Bowl.
Can the Falcons do the same? Okay, probably not, but the point remains.
“It’s definitely a chance to go back and look at everything that you’ve done from all three phases of the ball and find out what you can do better and what you can add to it, or what you can take out, what you don’t like,” head coach Raheem Morris said. “It doesn’t really matter how early it is, but that’s a nice four-week sample of some things you can do better.”
Atlanta Falcons would like to focus on their pass rush
What’s new? How many times over the last few years have we heard the Falcons say they need to focus on improving their pass rush? Last year during their Week 12 bye, they set the goal of improving the pass rush, and they did. 21 of their paltry 31 sacks on the season came in the final six games.
This season, they are doing the same even after spending two first-round picks on pass rushers in the draft.
“I think the pass rush, I don’t know if it was a goal in last year’s [bye week]. I think that was a theme of life around here,” Morris said. “You want to go find ways to finish some of those sacks.”
The Falcons initially enjoyed an improved pass rush this year, but it has slipped a bit in recent weeks. But, the defense aside, Morris wants to build off of what they achieved on offense in last week’s win.
“I think our identity came out in a major way yesterday when it came to running the football and then being able to get some of those throws off in play action pass,” Morris said following the win over the Commanders. “We got the long ball going, so to speak, yesterday.”