Game Recaps Season 2 Madden 18

Miggy_Ray

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Week 2 Recap: Bucs @ Falcons

The Falcons should have had this game won. With a 10 point 4th quarter lead, but the offense which was not on the same page all night kept putting the defense in bad situations.

Some notes from the game:

Offense:

The passing game was awful Matt Ryan missed open receivers and the receivers didn't help much either with a total of 5 dropped passes which were just the recorded ones.

The running game minus one big TD run from Devonta Freeman was not much better. Freeman finished with 94 yards on 13 carries but 62 of those came on 1 run. His backup Tevin Coleman was held to just 11 yards on 9 carries.

Give the Bucs defense some credit they played tough and forced some of the mistakes but the Falcons offense needs to figure it out quickly.

Defense:

The defense technically gave up 24 points but that was not the true story. They only gave up 239 total yards of offense. They made plenty enough plays to win this game but again got zero help from the offense.

The defensive front pressured Jameis Winston all night with really very little blitzing recording 8.5 sacks from 8 different players led by 2.5 Sacks from DE Aaron Lynch. 1st round CB Tavarus McFadden recorded his first career sack as well.

The defense forced 3 turnovers in the game they picked off Winston twice. One from FS Ricardo Allen and the other from CB Robert Alford. Alford also forced a fumble on a bubble screen that was picked up by Desmond Trufant and returned for a TD.

Overall the defense executed their gameplan and the coaches were happy. They held the Bucs rushing attack in check and held WR Mike Evans to only 2 Rec for 7 yards after an early short TD catch. The Bucs however made enough plays to win tonight but this kind of effort that can be built upon going forward.
 
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Miggy_Ray

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Week 3 Recap: Saints @ Falcons

For the 3rd straight week the Falcons fail to hang on to a 4th quarter lead. This is a trend that has to stop now or this season will be a loss.

Game Notes:
Offense:

The Falcons found their offense finally as Matt Ryan played a solid game throwing 266 yards and 2 TDs. He did throw a costly pick late in the game however as he misread the coverage.

The rushing attack was balanced and solid Freeman ran for a team high 95 yards on 13 carries and Tevin Coleman chipped in with 29 yards on 9 carries with a TD.

Julio Jones had a breakout game with 5 catches for 116 yards and a TD coming on a 45 yard catch and run on a slant route. Mohammad Sanu also had a TD catch working mostly underneath allday with 4 catches for just 38 yards.

Defense:
The defensive line was the only standout on this side of the ball today recording a total of 5 sacks. Vic Beasley led the way with 2 and Aaron Lynch and Dontari Poe each had 1.5.

The rest of the defense was hot garbage. The only turnover they forced was a Deion Jones Int and they gave up a ridiculous 400+ yards of offense. The secondary was in quicksand all day reacting to nothing and Drew Brees just picked them apart.

The Falcons are on the brink of disaster with their next 3 games all on the road starting in Pittsburgh this upcoming week.
 

Miggy_Ray

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Week 4 Recap: Falcons @ Steelers

The Falcons finally got into the win column even though they still struggled to play a complete game. But at this point we are just happy to get the first one behind us.

Game Notes:
Offense:

Matt Ryan threw some beautiful passes right on the money but had 2 terrible picks and those are the ones that stick out the most. One was an awful throw in the redzone where he clearly did not see Ryan Shazier just camping out right in front of his intended receiver. The other was almost even more costly as he was trying to get greedy to get into FG range right before the half. The veteran CB William Gay jumped a curl and took it to the house to close out the half leaving ATL trailing 10-6

Devonta Freeman left the game in the first half but luckily it turned out to be just a precaution. Tevin Coleman took over the top spot and came up big for the Falcons with 118 yards on just 14 carries and 2 Tds. A key turning point in the game came when he broke off a 66 yard TD run to give the Falcons a 10 pt lead.

Rookie Dante Pettis finally broke out still early in his rookie campaign. He had 2 long catches on the day with the biggest going for 82 yards to the house to give Atlanta the lead back for good early in the 3rd quarter. He finished the game with 5 catches for 161 yards and a TD. With Pettis stepping up Julio was only needed for 2 catches on the day but he still went for 70 yards thanks to a 64 yard TD reception early in the 1st quarter.

The offensive line played their best game by far on the season. They did allow 2 sacks but both were coverage sacks where Ryan saw nobody open. Also on Coleman's long TD run they basically put the whole front 7 of the Steelers on the ground allowing him to go untouched to the endzone.

Defense:
Overall better than last week but it would have been hard to be as bad. Things were still not perfect.

Big Ben was a magician getting out of the pocket and scrambling on the day. The Falcons front 7 were able to get to him 3 times with DE Lynch, LB Riley, and LB Campbell each recording a sack. They actually did a good job containing HB James Conner for the most part but a long 55 yard run late in the game skewed the numbers a bit. Plus with Big Ben scrambling for 54 more yards it made the rush numbers look worse than we felt they were.

LB Deion Jones created the only turnover on the day on one of those scrambles as he knocked the ball loose from Roethlisberger and recovered it himself.
The LBs as a whole were very active like we anticipated to start the year. All 3 starters had at least 8 tackles. Campbell and Riley had a sack each. The aforementioned Jones had a forced fumble and so did Campbell but the Steelers fell back on that one.

The secondary played much better on the day despite not creating any turnovers they covered much better than last week which forced some of those Big Ben runs. The coaching staff is considering a shakeup at the CB spots coming next week however.

The Falcons improved to a still not good 1 and 3. Next week they will see if they can keep it going against another AFC North team in Baltimore.
 

Miggy_Ray

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Week 5 Recap: Falcons @ Ravens

The Falcons improve to 2-3 on the season. The defense finally stepped up and played at least for one week like we envisioned back during training camp. If not for the Ravens scoring fairly late against all subs they would have kept them out of the endzone the entire day.

Game Notes:
Offense:

Matty Ice was not asked to do all that much in this game but he was efficient and kept the chains moving when called upon. He did hit Julio Jones right before the half on a 40 yard TD to put the Falcons up for good.

For the 2nd straight week Tevin Coleman had a big game with 120 yards on just 10 carries and 2 TD runs with one being a 47 yarder. Devonte Freeman put in a workhorse like performance with 73 yards on 21 carries.

Julio Jones led the team in receiving (3 for 64 1TD) despite suffering an abdominal tear midway through the 3rd quarter on an off the ball injury. Looks like he will miss at least 2-3 weeks. Mohammed Sanu (3 for 30) and Dante Pettis (2 for 46) both chipped in nicely both with and without him. In fact of Matt Ryan's 15 completions he found 7 different receivers.

The offensive line seemed to come together for the 2nd straight week as the team rushed for 197 yards total and they allowed 0 sacks.

Defense:
The Falcons defense played their best game by far on the season as a whole. The Front 7 forced the Rookie QB Fitzgerald into some tough 3rd downs by containing the Ravens rushing attack. In fact Fitzgerald was their leading rusher with 48 yards worth of scrambles.
De'Vondre Campbell led the way with 6 total tackles and 2 sacks. Aaron Lynch recorded another sack with his team leading 7.5. His backup Takkarist McKinley also got a sack but proceeded to also tear his abdominal muscle on the play. Looks like he will miss the next 5-6 games.

The secondary which had been a surprising weak spot for the Falcons finally seemed to put together a complete game. The coaching staff shook some things up and for at least this week they seemed to work out. The vet of the group Robert Alford recorded his 2nd pick of the season to tie him for the team lead.

Next week Atlanta will play their 3rd straight road game as they travel to the windy city to take on the Chicago Bears. Will be interesting to see if the offense can sustain without their biggest weapon and if the defense can continue to improve to keep them in the game.
 
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Miggy_Ray

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Week 6 Recap: Falcons @ Bears

This game seemed to make zero sense. For one the game had already been played 3/4 of the way through only to have to replay the whole thing. And two both teams just marched up and down the field with no resistance. And then when the defense would make a play the ball would bounce off 2 different people and go right to a receiver for a TD. #Notsim

Game Notes:
Offense:

Matt Ryan was steady from beginning to end. The Falcons were without Julio Jones in this one but Ryan did not miss a beat spreading the ball around to a variety of targets. Ryan did not find the endzone but threw for a solid 243 yards.

The rushing attack was a beast in this one. The team combined for over 200 yards on the ground with Devonta Freeman leading the way with 139 yards on 19 carries with 3 TDs. Tevin Coleman had a solid performance as well with 45 yards on 11 attempts and he also reached the endzone once.

The receiving corp without Julio Jones all stepped up and made plays Mohammad Sanu was the leading receiver with 5 catches for 83 yards. TE Austin Hooper and HB Tevin Coleman each had 4 receptions apiece. Dante Pettis added 3 catches and Devonta Freeman and WR Justin Hardy had 2 each.

Defense:
Not sure I can find any positives on defense. The defensive front did a decent job stopping the run for the most part and they did record 4 sacks with Vic Beasley leading the way with 2 before he was injured for 3 weeks. DE Aaron Lynch and Brooks Reed each recorded a sack as well.

The secondary was a 5 alarm dumpster fire. Jobs were lost in this game for sure.

So after escaping with a tie in Chicago the Falcons are left at 2-3-1 on the season and next week we had back home to host the Bengals.
 

Miggy_Ray

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Week 7 Recap: Bengals @ Falcons

The Falcons were able to hang on at home this week against a tough Bengals team and improve to 3-3-1 on the season. The 9 point spread of the final score was not a true indication of how close this game was. Only a late TD with just over a minute remaining proved to be the icing on the cake.

Game Notes:
Offense:

Matt Ryan has been really the only consistent performer this season in Atlanta. Today was no different with a 14 for 17 performance throwing for 233 yards but again did not get a TD pass but more importantly also did not turn the ball over.

The running game was solid but not spectacular. Freeman had a pretty good day with 74 yards on 15 carries and he found the endzone 2 more times after a slow start. However on the 2nd TD run that put the game out of reach he somehow got injured and will miss the next 5 weeks.
Tevin Coleman added 41 yards on 10 carries and becomes the go to back now with Freeman out.

Julio Jones missed his 2nd game in a row but the rookie out of Washington Dante Pettis stepped in to lead the team in receiving with 5 catches for 67 yards. Not huge numbers but seemed almost all his catches were important. TE Austin Hooper and WR Albert Wilson each had 3 catches. 3rd string TE Levine Toilolo had a big 26 yard catch his first of the season. Mohamed Sanu was held to just 1 catch.

Defense:
The defense was still not great but they applied the bend but don't break method. At the end of the day it worked at least for this game as Cincy moved the ball well between the 20's but then the defense would step up and make a play.

For the 2nd straight week the front 7 run defense was not that bad overall. They held Joe Mixon to 78 yards and 40 of those came on one hell of a run early in the game where he broke some tackles and regained his balance stumbling to take it to the house.

The defense recorded 4 sacks for the 2nd straight week. But none of them came from the banged up front 4 as they are missing 2 of their 3 top pass rushers. LB Duke Riley had 2 sacks and LB De'Vondre Campbell along with rookie CB Tarvarus McFadden had 1 each. Duke Riley also recovered a fumble that was forced by DE/LB Shaq Riddick who was receiving more playing time due to the injuries on the DL.

The secondary improved to a 3 alarm dumpster fire this week with the new lineup. They gave up a couple big plays but overall they did actually do a decent job against the very dangerous WR tandem of AJ Green and John Ross. CB Jalen Collins who has lost his starting job picked off a pass to officially seal the victory.

Next week the Falcons will host the Eagles before heading into their much needed bye week to heal up some.
 

Miggy_Ray

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Week 8 Recap: Eagles @Falcons

After a dreadful 0-3 start the Falcons have put together 5 straight non losses going 4-0-1 in that span. This was a wild one the last 5 mins of regulation and into overtime.

Game Notes:
Offense:

Matt Ryan had a clutch performance minus one huge miscue that almost cost the Falcons the game as he threw a 98 yard pick 6 with just under 5 mins to go in the game that put Philly on top. But Matty Ice kept his cool and drove the team back down converting a 4th and 11for 26 yards to rookie Dante Pettis and then a couple plays later he hit his backup TE Eric Saubert in for the injured Austin Hooper for a 19 yard TD pass to tie the game with under 30 secs remaining. For the day Ryan finished with 258 yards along with the mentioned TD and INT.

The ground game was solid in their first test without Devonta Freeman. Tevin Coleman carried the rock 18 times for 83 yards and scored his 8th TD of the season. Brian Hill and Rookie FA Fredrick McKay contributed with McKay scoring his first career TD on a draw from 9 yards out.

Julio Jones returned to action today and he received alot of attention from the Eagles secondary finishing with just 2 catches for 30 yards. But that allowed Rookie Dante Pettis to make some explosive plays hauling in 5 catches for 126 yards. Of Matt Ryan's 18 completions he spread the ball around to 8 different targets all catching at least one pass.

Defense:
The defensive line made enough plays to be hit and miss. Dontari Poe and Aaron Lynch led the way up front along with backup DE Shaq Riddick with 3 tackles all for loss. Dontari Poe recorded the only sack from the D-Line.

The LBs were not great today. Deion Jones led the way with 5 tackles and Duke Riley had 4. But De'Vondre Campbell was a little absent. No big plays from this group.

The much maligned secondary made some huge plays but also let Alshon Jeffery have a field day. Desmond Trufant and Keanu Neal each had an INT and Nickel CB Jalen Collins recorded a sack and a forced fumble on a blitz that Philly recovered. But FS Ricardo Allen was all over the field recording 12 total tackles and he also had the INT in OT that set up the game winning FG for Matt Bryant.

Overall the Falcons head into their bye week over the .500 mark at 4-3-1 and will get Vic Beasley back from injury after the bye. It looks as though they will need all hands on deck as the 2nd half schedule looks a little brutal starting down in Tampa Bay facing the division leader Buccaneers.
 

Miggy_Ray

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This game was a lot closer than the final score. Both offenses were terrible for 3 and a half quarters as the game was 12-6 heading to the 4th quarter. The Falcons defense finally showed up with an attitude and they needed them. This win moves Atlanta to 5-3-1 on the season and just a 1/2 game out of a 3 way lead for the NFC South.

Game Notes:
Offense:

Matt Ryan was not terrible in this game was just that the Bucs defense held him in check constantly having to look for 2nd and 3rd options. Ryan looked frustrated most of the afternoon. He did make the play of the game that seemed to turn everything in the Falcons favor however, trailing 6-5 at the end of the 1st half Ryan found his TE Austin Hooper running wide open down the middle of the field and he hit him for a catch and run of 60 yards and a TD with 19 secs left in the half.

Tevin Coleman ended up with a solid effort but after 3 qtrs he too was struggling until fairly late in the 4th qtr he broke off a 34 yard run to set up HB Brian Hill's first career TD that put the game out of reach for good. Hill finished with just 16 yards on 8 carries and the TD and 3rd stringer Fredrick McKay had just 6 yards on 3 carries.

Thanks to the long TD catch TE Hooper was the leading receiver today with 3 catches for 86 and the forementioned TD. Mohamed Sanu also had 3 catches for 30 yards. Julio Jones was held to just 1 catch for 28 yards and rookie WR Dante Pettis who came in leading the team in receiving came up empty with no catches.

Defense:
The front 4 rotation was just flat out dominant in this game. The Falcons DL recorded a total of 10 sacks combined between 6 different players. Vic Beasley who was back for the first time after missing 4 games made up for lost time leading the way with 3 sacks and a safety in 36 snaps. Aaron Lynch and backup Shaq Riddick had 2.5 sacks apiece in 43 and 36 snaps respectfully. Derrick Shelby had a sack and finally DT Dontari Poe and Brooks Reed had a .5 sack apiece.

LBs Duke Riley and Deion Jones both had good games as well helping to minimize the Buccs rushing attack. Riley tied for the team high in tackles with 7. Deion Jones had 6 tackles of his own 2 of those for loss and he also had a pick of Winston.

The secondary has played much better of late and today was pretty flawless and the main reason the DL was able to beat up on Winston. Really everyone played well as the Buccs leading receiver was HB Doug Martin on checkdowns. CB Desmond Trufant had a pick as well in the endzone to keep the Falcons ahead in the 3rd quarter and FS Ricardo Allen for the 2nd straight week was the leading tackler.

Next week the Falcons will try to keep things rolling as they will take on the dangerous Arizona Cardinals at home.
 
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