Falcons Not Fretting Monday Night Loss

ATLANTA -- To an Atlanta Falcons team that hasn't lost at home all year, Monday's 17-14 loss to the visiting New Orleans Saints should sting just a bit.

To a team that had been 19-1 at home with Matt Ryan under center since 2008, that loss should be monumental. For the Falcons, who failed to clinch a division title and home-field advantage in the playoffs on Monday, that loss should be earth-shattering.

But it wasn't.

With the calm of a team that had just finished seven-on-seven drills with no pads, the Falcons blew off their Week 16 defeat to division rival New Orleans. There wasn't a lot of swearing in the Atlanta locker room, nor were there any tears.

But don't take their lack of emotion as complacency. This is a smart, well-led football team that knows where it's headed -- and it knows what it has to do to win the NFC South and earn home-field advantage.

The Falcons just have to beat the 2-13 Carolina Panthers in the final week of the regular season. Call it the "Carolina cushion."

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Saints' Defense Stifles Michael Turner

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Monday's loss dropped Atlanta to 12-3 on the season and moved New Orleans to 11-4. Both teams have just one game left on the schedule -- so if both teams win in Week 17, the Falcons get a restful bye week to start the playoffs, and then get to play home games for the duration of the NFC playoffs

"We still like where we are, I can assure you of that" said Falcons coach Mike Smith. "We'll regroup, we'll get back together, and we'll put this one behind us. We've got to get this one behind us as quick as possible and move on to the Carolina Panthers."

"Yeah, we're upset we lost. But at the same time, we're still in a good position."
-- Falcons TE Tony Gonzalez Seemingly without so much as a second thought, Smith preached the need to look ahead. That's the smart thing to do. Most of the players echoed that sentiment in postgame comments.

But there were still a few that needed to vent, if only for a moment.

"Yeah, we're upset, we lost," said tight end Tony Gonzalez. "But at the same time, we're still in a good position."

John Abraham talked about missed chances, mainly the lack of sacks Atlanta totaled after attacking Saints quarterback Drew Brees all night, forcing him from the pocket on numerous occasions..

"The opportunities were there," Abraham said. "We just didn't execute.We didn't do a good job of keeping them off of the field. We had opportunity after opportunity to get to him (Brees), and couldn't do it."

Even the Falcons players who took Monday's loss a little harder still knew the obvious: Atlanta still controls its own destiny.

So the Falcons can quickly forget about a very unusual and very critical Michael Turner fumble on the Saints 1 in the third quarter. They can forget about an odd exchange from veteran center Todd McClure, when his snap apparently got hung up in the turf and turned into a New Orleans fumble recovery. And they can forget about Brees' late, game-winning touchdown drive.

Monday night's effort didn't feel like typical Falcons' football, in more ways than one:

The defense scored as many points as the offense, seven apiece.

The Saints were able to stop Atlanta's dangerous running game by piling eight, sometimes nine players in the box. Turner was held to 48 yards on the ground, Jason Snelling adding just one more.

The Falcons even stayed away, for the most part, from a no-huddle offense that has not only worked all season, but produced Atlanta's few positive gains at the beginning of the second half.

The magic that's followed Atlanta around all year was also mysteriously missing. There wasn't a final possession, come-from-behind victory, as Ryan and the Falcons have made the norm in 2010. Smith didn't pull any fourth-down tricks from his playbook, even when he could have to extend the final drive of the game for the Falcons.

Still, the Falcons, while they hated the outcome – a three-point loss to a hated rival – preferred to take the thinking man's approach afterward. With no injuries to speak of and a two-win Carolina team headed to Atlanta next Sunday, the Falcons still expect to lock up the NFC South and the conference's top playoff seed.

"We come out next week and take care of business," Gonzalez said, "(and) we still have home-field advantage and a first-round bye."

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