Falcons Fall In The Desert 27-24
by BigRegDaCommish | 4 years ago | 0 Comments
In a rematch of last season 1st round playoff game were the Cardinals eliminated the Falcons 31-17 in Atlanta, this time the Falcons traveled to Arizona, but still fell 27-24 on a last second 50 yard field goal by Zane Gonzalez.
The Falcons got the ball first and proceeded to march down the field only to throw a red zone interception and come up empty. The Cardinals countered with a field goal and then a touchdown by 2nd year back James Roberson to put the Falcons down 0-10.
The Falcons fought back to make it 7-10 with a Ryan to Gurley pass for a touchdown. After getting a sotp and forcing a punt, the Falcons were again on the march but stalled in the red zone again. This time, insteead of kicking field goal to tie the game at 10, they went for it on 4th and 1 and was denied but the still dominate J.J. Watt. The left the score at 7-10 going into halftime.
The Cardinals got the ball to open the half and took a deep shot to a seemingly wide open WR C Kirk, but FS D Kazee chased down a tracked it down for a pick and got the turnover.. After a modest drive, KR C McLaughlin tied the game at 10 with a 53 yard field goal.
On the next Cardinal drive, the Falcons thought they had perfectly lurked a pass for a another pick, but instead was just a little off resulting in a long TD score, K Murray to speedy B Cooks making the score 17-10.
The Cardinals defense stepped up and got another stop and after a deep drive, K Murray found B Cooks again after he beat man to man cover to run the score to 24-10 in favor of the Cardinals.
The Falcons again had to dig deep with a drive and came through with 1 yard slant for TD to the ageless and future HOF Julio Jones.
After the Falcoos defense got a stop, ont he next drive M Ryan threw a pick with only 2:29 left in the 4th quarter. The Falcons defense needs a stop in the worst way and with 1:54 left in the 4th SS K Cone picked off K Murray to give the Falcons a chance to tie the game.
With 1 minute left on the clock, M Ryan once again connected with Julio Jones for a 14 yard TD pass to tie the game at 24-24.
But the come back was for not, as K Murray connected on a 16 yard out route to C Kirk with just 7 seconds left to put the ball at the 33 yard line. Then, after an ill advise pass by K Murray that went incompleted, Zane Gonzalez's right toe ended the game.
Matt Ryan: "You must capitilize in the red zone, especially when playing a good team like the Cardinals. Twice we got down there and twice came up empty handed.."
The Falcons travel home to face the high powered Ravens in Week 2.
Big Reg