FLOWERY BRANCH , Ga -- In what was the Falcons’ record-setting offensive explosion in Sunday’s 45-10 victory over the San Francisco 49ers, one area that got overlooked was the performance of the defense.
The Falcons held the 49ers to 279 yards offense, collected three sacks, had an interception, six quarterback hurries and seven passes defended.
In their previous two games, the Falcons had but one sack and in their most recent game before Sunday -- a loss-- allowed the New England Patriots to rush for 168 yards and control the ball for nearly 40 minutes.
“On running plays -- and that was something we stated we needed to improve on and we did in our bye week -- I thought the guys played the run extremely well,” Head Coach Mike Smith said.
Perhaps the biggest story on the defensive side was the performance of the defensive line. The Falcons rotate eight players on the defensive line, including only three “true” tackles, but on Sunday they started a new group.
Kroy Biermann earned the first start of his pro career at left end and Jamaal Anderson, usually the left end, moved inside to play left tackle in place of Thomas Johnson, who later had a sack (Johnson earned his first start as a Falcon against New England after Peria Jerry was lost for the season with a knee injury against Carolina).
Smith said the new grouping was part of the coaching staff’s evaluation process during the bye week.
“That was all part of it,” he said. “With our defensive line, it’s a group of guys that are going to rotate and the starters may not be determined by the defensive coaches because it could be determined by the offensive personnel that’s out there. Because we are going to match personnel groupings. It depends. Who is going to play the very first play of a ballgame is going to be dictated by the offensive personnel that the offensive team, our opponent, presents.”
Anderson, the team’s first-round pick in 2007, has had his struggles in rushing the passer from the end position, collecting just two career sacks and none this year. At 289 pounds, however, he is more suited to playing tackle than ends such as Biermann (260 pounds) or rookie Lawrence Sidbury (265).
Smith described the differences for Anderson in playing tackle as opposed to end.
“It’s a little bit quicker in there,” he said. “When I mean quicker, you’re going to have blocks in there a lot quicker… You may not have someone outside of you as a defensive end and as a defensive tackle you’re going to have to contend with two blockers and a blocker from the other side, if it’s a gap scheme where they’re pulling linemen.
“I thought Jamaal did a nice job in that role. There’s still a lot of room for improvement.”
Smith said one of the reasons the defense was successful was its ability to disguise its coverages and blitz packages.
“The front four did a very good job when we had four-man rushes,” he said. “In fact, we actually had a sack in a three-man rush situation. That has a lot to do with the disguises that we were doing. I thought we did a very nice job of mixing in our pressure whether it was going to be a three-man, a four-man, a five-man or a six-man pass rush we had very good execution there and that’s not just the guys up front.
“The secondary in the shell of the defense has to execute as well to give the illusion of one thing and then we’re doing something else.”
He said he thought the 45.7 passer rating of San Francisco quarterback Shaun Hill was a result of the pass rush.
CAUTION TO THE WIND: Even though quarterback Matt Ryan had a career best day in passing yards (329) and Roddy White set personal and Falcon bests for receiving yards with 210, Smith said the coaching staff did not make a philosophical or game-planning decision to open up the passing game.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “Each week we go into a game plan and we have ‘X’ number of plays we’re going to run and have up and we’re going to have ‘X’ number of shots -- when I say shots I mean taking shots down the field. Sometimes the coverage dictates that we’re going to be able to take those shots and sometimes it doesn’t.
“[Offensive coordinator] Mike Mularkey and his staff did an outstanding job in game-planning. I think Matt read the defenses extremely well and the guys blocked up front and we’re able to get the ball vertical. Of course, the 90-yard completion [to White] was about an 8 or 9-yard completion with an 80-yard run by Roddy.”
Smith said he thought one factor in the offense’s production was field position -- a credit to the defense and special teams. The Falcons’ offense started with the ball on the 49ers’ side of the 50-yard line four times.
WHAT WENT WRONG: About the only two things that Smith could criticize his team for on Monday were facets of the game for which he did not need to review the video tape.
The Falcons were penalized eight times for 90 yards and fumbled three times, although they recovered two of those fumbles.
Eight of the penalties were called on the Falcons’ offense, including three false starts, one personal foul, one unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and a few holding calls and illegal blocks.
“Those are things we have to get fixed and we don’t like dumb penalties,” Smith said. “Aggressive penalties, that’s a whole different thing that you have to deal with. We don’t like dumb penalties.”
As far as the fumbles, Smith saw it as a positive that the Falcons recovered two.
“We had guys running to the football and protecting our ball,” he said. “… It’s not always just the ball carrier. It’s the job of people blocking to stay between them and the guy they’re blocking. It’s important for us to harp on that.”
FUN AT WILLIAMS' EXPENSE: Smith was joking when asked about Brian Williams’ interception. In four games, Williams has an interception, a 53-yard fumble return and a blocked punt.
“We would hope he would be able to catch it cleanly and have more than the minus-2-yard return,” Smith said, “but Brian is a guy that understands the game.”
