 Last season the Falcons played their way into the playoffs with a rookie quarterback and a career backup suddenly at the top of the depth chart for running backs. The team came into this season with expectations upped a bit with a now second year quarterback and the addition of Tony Gonzalez at tight end. The Falcons have made their fan base at the Georgia Dome happy a quarter of the way through the 2009 NFL schedule, going 3-1. The team is in second place in the NFC South and is the only competition so far for the division leading Saints. The offense is actually more prolific than last season, but seems less exciting. The Falcons have raised their points per game by about a point to 25.5, but the key parts of that offense have yet to hit their stride. Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan has a triple digit quarterback rating at 102.9, but has had issues with the deep ball all season long. The last game he and Falcons lead receiver Roddy White seem to have moved closer to resolving their timing issue, connecting on eight of the 10 attempts between QB and WR for an incredible 210 yards and 2 touchdowns. Running back Michael Turner has been rather average for most of the season. His three touchdown game against the 49ers might be the breakthrough game of the season for him. He averaged 4.4 yards a carry with 97 yards on 22 carries which helped raise his season per carry average to 3.7 yards. The strength of this Atlanta Falcons team is last season's Achilles heel, the defense. This season the D has allowed just 15.8 points per game. The problem is that this number glosses over the yards allowed. The Falcons defense seems to solidify once the other team approaches the end zone. Before then, the team is susceptible to the run. Atlanta is allowing other teams to run for 127 yards a game. Eventually this stat will hurt unless things improve over the remaining 12 games. Going into Week 5, nobody was quite sure if this Falcons team was for real again. They beat two bad teams and loss badly to a good team. The win over the 49ers helped make it clear that the team was not just coasting on an easy first two weeks. Over the next few weeks of the 2009 schedule they must play some of their best football. The next three games are against three teams with winning records, the Chicago Bears, the Dallas Cowboys, and the undefeated New Orleans Saints. The Saints game is the marquee challenge for this team. The Atlanta Falcons will need to have solved their problems running the football and stopping other teams from running to have a chance in this first division meeting.
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