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Primetime against the Saints. Can it get anymore intense? I'm absolutely stoked, only have to wait a few more days for it. Who's pumped! Hopefully Asante can play otherwise they are in major trouble.

I really want to stick it to the Saints. I expect our guys to come out more fired up for this game than any other this season. Unfortunately, with a win on Thursday, that all but wraps up the division for us. The rest of the season could see us coasting along.

I'm actually routing for the Saints to beat San Fran right now. Would help us out. Anyways, gonna have to see our injury listing prior to making a pick, both our corners are dinged, but still playing hard. Hopefully they are a go.

Dunta came back in to the game so I'm not concerned by him at all. Also I don't think the Falcons will coast along. They want to get at least a first round bye along with home field advantage. Until they wrap up home field, expect them playing hard. Maybe Week 17 they'll rest guys but otherwise Falcons know the regular season is far from over.

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20 ... nts-effort

man, they lost thier 3rd RT and now have some schlub they signed off the heap protecting Breesus.

If I am Nolan, I smell BLOOD on the water. I would exploit this early, and get Drew rattled. Put that guy on his a$$ right off the bat.

Asante looked like he reinjured his shoulder in that last hail mary play..Hope it's not too bad

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcsouth/post/_ ... trief-back

Strief may be back for Thursday. Otherwise, it's a good thing for John Abraham. At this point in his career, he's only capable of dominating these 2nd/3rd string OTs. Anybody that is competent will perform competently against him. At least that has been the case over the past month or so.

I know he's dealt with a back injury the past few weeks, but he just hasn't been the same since the bye week.

Granted, it was against a 3rd-string T, but the strip-sack against AZ was vintage Abe.

Something to bear in mind as well: ATL doesn't need these games terribly badly. If I am Abe, I am playing, but I am playing with Week 19 in mind, the same as Matt training or week 19. I was shocked to see Julio out there, but he's young yet.

We shall see if the Falcons bounce back... I expect little from this game and more than anything our woes continuing and a 10-2 notch.

Yep, and it came against Nate Potter, a guy that was an overmatched LT at Boise State. That is classic Abe, to prey upon the weakest OTs in the league. Now occasionally, he'll step out against a Jammal Brown or Joe Thomas, but for the most part, particularly this year and in recent years, he is very quiet against those guys.


I think that mindset is falling into the trap in thinking you can just turn things on when you need to. This team isn't the Giants.

Every game is practice for Week 19. Going on cruise control until then is a bad idea.

Abraham is 34 right? Whatever the Falcons get out of him is good enough. The fact that he has 9 sacks so far is great even though he hasn't been that great this year. You can't judge Abraham off a month, come on now Pudge you are better than that.

I'm not judging him. Abe is Abe. He's our best defensive player and has been for the most part of the past 6 years.

But if I'm evaluating his play as of late, there has been dropoff. He was 60% of our pass rush before the dropoff, and basically if he has dropoff, the pass rush goes from paltry to pathetic.

That last line of paltry to pathetic is something that I couldn't agree more about. Still think he plays majority at left end spot so I'm expecting him to match up with Bushrod.

I had nightmares about Nicholas matched up with Jimmy Graham. If I was Nolan I would double Graham and force someone on the outside to beat us because when Graham gets going on us that always spells disaster for us. I dont know if Spoon is 100% but even if he was I dont trust him one on one down the field. I really wish that we could do what the Giants are able to do with their sub-package, but we really do not have the depth at safety to just move WM25 into the box and leave our back end to Charles Mitchell or Chris Hope. Might be worth investing in another safety with the league transitioning to a game where they have these vertical TEs, tall slot receivers, and pass catching backs. Well back to the subject at hand, I am pumped that we have a chance to put them out of the playoff race. For me to believe that the Falcons have a chance to to make a deep playoff run I need to see them clearly outplay the Saints in the dome.

Couldn't agree more. Lining your ducks up always seems to be a recipe for disaster. It's like self defense against a mugger. The mugger knew what he was going to do but you are caught by surprise. Are the Giants at the beginning of another winter inferno after thrashing the Packers?

Agreed, if it wasn't for Graham, I'd think this is an easy win, but he is a beast and will burn our backers all day. I'm thinking we stick a DB on him all game, no LB bs, play him like a WR and if he run blocks oh well.

The problem is that William Moore has been equally bad at covering TEs this year as Nicholas. Nicholas just doesn't have the hips, burst and flexibility to turn and run with good WRs/TEs in coverage. It was the same thing with Lofton. They can improve enough to be competent/tolerable/serviceable in coverage, but at any point when they face someone good, they immediately become liabilities.

Spoon is the only one of our players that stands a chance against Graham, but historically he too has struggled to cover him, and he hasn't exactly been all-world this year when it comes to covering TEs (Oakland's Brandon Myers made him look silly at times). It gives us a much better chance mind you, but the fact of the matter is that I think the Falcons will have to go with Spoon and McClain trying to cover Graham. McClain did an OK job later in the game when the Falcons switched Moore/Nicholas off him. McClain could at least stick with him, although he's not really going to do much to stop him from catching the ball. But at this point, that's really all we can ask for. Graham drops enough passes to make it so that you just need to contain him after the catch (which Nix & Moore did a very poor job of doing because they could never stick with him enough to be within 3-5 yds of him after he caught it).

I was optimistic that Moore would be a better asset in the nickel this year, with similar expectations that moving him into the box and putting another S on the field would give us flexibility. It really hasn't worked out so much.

The key in these Saints game has always been pressure. The Falcons have really struggled to pressure Brees at all in the last few outings. And then when they do and can move Brees off his spot, Colston or Graham or Lance Moore come open downfield and he turns it into a 25 yard gain/throw.

The last time the Falcons got effective pressure on Brees was their OT win in 2010. Biermann got into Brees face late in the 4th quarter which prevented Brees from throwing a late TD in that game. That was one of the 4 or 5 key plays of that game. That might have been the last time Brees has even broken a sweat against the Falcons.

I cant stress how bad I wanna win this game. Im so sick of losing to these guys and even sicker of hearing their stupid fans talk trash. Personally, this is a mini Super Bowl for me.

every time the Saints play up here my old lady gets these 'sideline tickets' from a client. You get to hang out on the sidelines for awhile during warm up and then club level seats! Normally, I'm waaaay up in the 300's. So Im hyped!

Man I really need this win. That MARTA ride with the newly insufferable bandwagon/relocated Saints fans after a win is awful...