It's that time of the week again where we breakdown our opponents offense. This week of course we face the Atlanta Falcons in our second meeting of the season. When we first started this season we all expected Atlanta to struggle and looking down the schedule said okay week 4 we should win against a rebuilding team. Atlanta was 2-1 at the time and still didn't garner much respect from the league, after all, the teams they beat where the Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs. In their loss, Matt Ryan put up a relative sinker of a game against Tampa, completing only 40% of this passes no touchdowns and two interceptions and meanwhile Turner was held to under 50 yards. Everyone figured, sure they could win the easy ones but give them a half solid team and they will fold.

Not anymore, Matt Ryan has shown he should develop into a solid starting QB, if not an elite QB, and Michael Turner has put together quite a season, 971 yards, 9 TD, and a solid 4.3 yards per attempt. Combine them with star receiver Roddy White and currently a solid up-and-coming Michael Jenkins and they put together a serious threat on offense. Most offensive linemen don't get much attention as there is little to judge them on. However, for Atlanta without their linemen playing so well rest of the offensive wouldn't be the same, they've only allowed 12 sacks this season.

Twelve weeks into the season and you can see Atlanta's offense is quite solid all around. Elite is not a word associated with them right now, but combine this years success with another year and a few more solid moves and we could very well wish Atlanta was in another division.

Overall, the Falcons offense rank 7th in total yard per game and 12th in total points scored. Looking just at stats, the rushing game is their strength, ranked 2nd in the league while their passing game is in the middle ranked 14th.

Lucky for us however, is that the Panthers defense isn't to shabby all around. Ranked 8th overall, 5th in passing yard allowed (185.4 yds / game) but with a dip in rushing defense at 17th (107.6 yds / game). Yet we have only allowed an average of 15.5 points per game this year to earn us the spot of 3rd place. So the Panthers 5th ranked passing defense will face the Falcons 14th ranked passing offensive, but our 17th ranked rush defense will face the 2nd rushing offense.

With that in mind here are the top match-ups I'll be watching when our defense is on the field and what the defense will have to do to help the Panthers win. This week its fairly straight forward.

Continue reading this post »