FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Welcome back to Early Bird Report!

During Sunday night's 30-23 loss to the Baltimore Ravens in overtime, the Atlanta Falcons showed growth in a few aspects and uncovered some areas for improvement in the week ahead. As always, win or lose, the team will take a close look at how this past game went down before turning the page and preparing for another home game against the Chicago Bears.

The day after each game this season, we will collect all the nuggets we haven't used and organize them in a digestible way to give fans as comprehensive a view of the team as possible.

Here are the notes and quotes you should know from Ravens vs. Falcons.

Falcons injury updates

Among the topics fans and media will be tracking this week is the health of key players, including quarterback Michael Penix Jr., cornerback C.J. Henderson and defensive end Za'Darius Smith.

Penix suffered a rib injury late in the game Sunday night, and Henderson sustained a groin injury. Smith missed the game due to a concussion. The Falcons expect to have more information on the players injured Sunday after imaging takes place on Monday.

"I'm going to be ready to go next week because I've sat out enough in my career," Penix said after the game. "But I'm going to do everything I can in the training room, make sure I get back to where I want to be. Obviously, my health is very, very serious. I take that very serious. So that's always going to come first. But I will work my tail off to make sure I'm back out there on that field."

Letting it fly on third down

Nearly everyone expected the Falcons to give the Ravens a heavy dose of their run game in this matchup. And while Bijan Robinson carried the ball 17 times for 86 yards, he wasn't the focal point in the way he was against Green Bay or New Orleans.

Instead, Atlanta attacked the Ravens' secondary with aggressive downfield passes, particularly on third down. The average distance the Falcons needed to cover on third downs against Baltimore was 6.4 yards, which was actually the seventh-shortest distance among teams in Week 5.

The Falcons averaged 9.9 yards per play on third down against the Ravens on Sunday night, the most by any offense in Week 5. Penix completed eight passes of 10 or more yards on third down, including three passes that gained at least 20 yards.

"I think Mike did a great job getting the ball to those guys, and those guys made great catches routinely throughout the game and to alleviate pressure off us in the run game," Falcons guard Chris Lindstrom said. "They had a lot of hats in there. For those guys to make those plays is great. It's going to continue for us to be a better offense."

The eight plays of 10-plus yards on third down were the second-most for the Falcons in a single game since 1991. They had nine such plays against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 4 of the 2018 season.

"Yeah, I mean, it was huge," Robinson said. "Those are the improvements that we want to show. We actually talked about it earlier in the week. We have to be better on these instances in third down. I think we worked on it a lot during this week, and we went out there to do our best, try to capitalize on it."

The Falcons faced 17 third-down opportunities against the Ravens, and Penix threw the ball 15 times in those situations. He completed nine of those attempts for 163 yards and a touchdown, producing a passer rating of 119.6.

Atlanta learned an important lesson

A prevailing sentiment among Falcons players after Sunday's game was that the team didn't capitalize on its chances to put the Ravens away. Against good teams, those missed opportunities can ultimately prove costly.

"When you've got a chance to put a good team away, you've got to do it," defensive tackle Gervon Dexter Sr. said. "We didn't do that, obviously, so just working on that. Putting those teams away early so we can come out with a victory."

"It's very important," Robinson said. "Especially a team like that. They're a team that prides itself on being physical through all four quarters, and they did that. But we're a team that prides ourselves on being physical just as much as them. For them to be a good team, it's on us to put it away when we're supposed to."

"We can be better in those moments, and then you can put a good football team away late, which we did not do," head coach Kevin Stefanski said. "And then again, give them credit. They came back and scored and did a nice job. We'll learn from it."

Drake London's low-key excellence

He isn't getting a ton of attention at this point in the season, but London has played very well so far. London has 488 receiving yards, which rank fourth among NFL receivers through all but Week 5's Monday night game, and his 226 yards after the catch are the most in the league.

"Man, he's just doing a great job," Penix said of his top receiver. "Obviously, he's one of our better players on the team. So just whenever we get a big-time situation like that, obviously he's one of the guys we're looking for. And he made a lot of big-time plays on big-time downs for us."

Among players with at least 20 targets this season, London's expected points added (EPA) per target of 0.80 ranks third in the NFL. He is behind only 49ers wide receiver Mike Evans and Lions tight end Sam LaPorta, who have an EPA per target of 0.95 and 0.83, respectively.

Plenty of pressure to go around

According to Next Gen Stats, the Falcons generated pressure on 39.5% of the Ravens' dropbacks in Week 5. Brandon Dorlus led the way with four pressures on Sunday night, and he was one of 11 defenders who recorded a pressure against quarterback Tyler Huntley.

Atlanta has had 10 or more players record a pressure in four of its five games this season, signifying the diverse and complementary talent on its defensive line.

"It's coming along good," defensive tackle Gervon Dexter Sr. said of the team's pass rush growth. Obviously, you've got to stop the run to get the pass rush. If we want to get more of those opportunities, we've got to do a better job at stopping the run."

The Falcons had a season-high four sacks against the Ravens. Rookie linebacker Kendal Daniels and outside linebacker. Jared Ivey each recorded the first sack of their careers. Samson Ebukam recorded a sack as well, bringing his total to 2.5 on the season, which is tied with Za'Darius Smith for the team lead. Cam Thomas and Zach Harrison also had a half-sack each.

Next Gen Stats dug a little deeper into the specific rhythm of Atlanta's pass rush on Sunday night, noting that the Falcons generated a pressure rate of 53.8% on the Ravens' first nine drives. On the Ravens' final two drives, both of which resulted in touchdowns, they had one pressure on 12 dropbacks.

"You never want to lose, especially like that," defensive tackle Maason Smith said. "Having the game like we did. Being up the whole game, basically, and losing at the end. It's never going to feel good, especially not like that. But, just have to go back to the drawing board and get better from it."