The Atlanta Falcons came up short on Thursday night, losing, 26-18, to the New Orleans Saints in front of their home crowd at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Thanksgiving.
It was the same old story fans are sick of reading about each and every week. The Falcons’ slow start offensively hurt the defense, then the team put up garbage-time points, and seriously flirted with a comeback.
Here are four takeaways from Atlanta’s ninth loss of the 2019 season.
Ryan’s turnovers, offensive line killed the Falcons
Ryan scrambling behind a leaky offensive line is not the kind of production that analysts had in mind when they routinely projected Atlanta to have one of the NFL’s elite offenses the season. For the second straight week, the Falcons offensive line lost the battle up front, which was the biggest difference between Thursday’s loss and the team’s Week 10 upset. While Ryan made the best of it early, he clearly got rattled late, fumbling and throwing two interceptions to kill the team’s chances with the game still up for grabs. This was the kind of offensive performance that gets offensive coordinators fired.