Usually, it’s not good to freak out about anything one game into the NFL season. Especially with many teams not playing starters in the preseason.
But the Atlanta Falcons’ had a really weird Week 1.
The Falcons ran an offense nobody expected and they didn’t run in the preseason, lining up almost exclusively in pistol or shotgun formation. They say it has nothing to do with the health of their 36-year-old quarterback coming off a torn Achilles, though that’s hard to believe.
Plenty of offenses struggled last week, but in the Falcons’ 18-10 loss the one thing that was clearly obvious was that Kirk Cousins wasn’t moving at all and the Falcons were making sure he didn’t have to.
“I feel like Kirk is healthy,” Falcons coach Raheem Morris said on Monday. “He’s been healthy since he’s been here, since he’s been back.”
Perhaps that was the plan for Week 1. Maybe the Falcons will get back to running what would seem to be their normal offense in Week 2, or perhaps that the pistol/shotgun is what they want to use and it’ll just look better in Week 2. It’s just hard to believe Cousins’ health had nothing to do with their approach. And if that’s the case it seems unlikely to change in a week, or a month.
Falcons had a predictable offense
The Falcons’ offensive struggles were different than other teams’ struggles, because the offensive game plan was so unexpected.
The Falcons lined up in either pistol or shotgun in 48 of 50 plays, according to ESPN Stats and Info. In the pistol, the quarterback lines up about 4 yards behind the center with the running back behind him. That means the quarterback doesn’t line up under center and doesn’t have to drop back or move to a spot to hand the ball off. And the Falcons were stunningly predictable. The Falcons had no designed runs in 22 shotgun snaps and ran it on 81% of their plays out of pistol. Any NFL team can figure out that pattern.
This was also troubling: The Falcons didn’t run a play-action play. They’re the only NFL team that didn’t, via Yahoo Sports‘ Nate Tice. It becomes a lot easier to stop the run when there’s no threat of play action.
That offense is not what they showed in the preseason. In the preseason opener, which was Michael Penix Jr.’s only game, the Falcons did use a lot of shotgun in passing situations. But it was a standard under-center offense on early downs, with regular play-action passes. When Taylor Heinicke got in the game the offense was the same. The only snap of pistol came with Penix in the game, by the goal line.
However, it might not have been totally out of the blue. New Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson came from the Los Angeles Rams, who used the pistol last season and continued to use it heavily in Week 1. It could have been the Falcons’ plan all along and they just didn’t want to play their hand in the preseason with a new coaching staff. Cousins didn’t play in the preseason anyway. Morris said it was just a strategical decision against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“Everything is going to be situational to the game plan for who you’re playing against,” Morris said, via the team’s site “When you go out and you put those guys in what we do and how we want to play and try to put those guys in good positions to get those guys blocked, the aliens the Pittsburgh Steelers have, you gotta try to figure those things out.”
Whatever the reason, it didn’t work against the Steelers. And no team’s pre-snap alignment will be studied more in Week 2 than the Falcons.
What will Atlanta look like in Week 2?
It’s not like it’s a big surprise that Atlanta would have to make some concessions to Cousins and his health. He wasn’t the most athletic quarterback in the NFL before tearing his Achilles. But if he can’t move even a little bit, that’s a hard problem to navigate.
Cousins didn’t look sharp, and we’ll see going forward if that’s due to his health or being rusty after not playing in preseason. Either way, the play-calling with zero play-action passes and a predictable split between shotgun passes and pistol runs has to change. If it can’t change because of Cousins’ health, then Atlanta might need to thing about changing its quarterback.
If Cousins doesn’t look better, it’s inevitable that there will be calls for Penix Jr., who the Falcons selected with the eighth overall pick, and they’ll be justified. Right now there has to be worry that the Falcons spent $180 million on a quarterback who doesn’t have any functional mobility and has to modify their entire offense around that.
The Falcons’ second game comes at the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night with everyone watching. Maybe the Falcons will run the same offense, just a little smarter and Cousins will look better with a game under his belt. But if the Falcons struggle again with a statue at quarterback and go back to Atlanta with an 0-2 record, the panic will crank up a little bit.
