The failures of the red zone of Falcons have become a capital thing

If you think about it, there are two main objectives to any offense: create scoring opportunities and then convert them into points. In his 19 regular-season and playoff games as Atlanta's offensive coordinator, Steve Sarkisian proved to be one of the best in the league in first place. And he exposed how he seems to be to him.

Atlanta may have been the best free-field attack of the NFL last year.

If we define the "open game" as the area between your 30's and 30's of your opponent, as I did in the Advanced Statistics Guide in the SB Nation's NFL 2018 preview, the Atlanta's open attack was great in 2017 – Falcons 2016 at the Super Bowl.

For the second season in a row, the Falcons were the first to experience the open-play success rate for standard runs (first, second and seventh or lower, third and fourth or less). The low standards of open play are perhaps the most common type of game in football – being good is a sine qua non of success, and Atlanta is excellent. And in 2017, the third success rate for Falcons in open play went from 40% to 47%.

Sarkisian pulled all the strings when it came to getting his team in scoring position. And then bad things started to happen.

Falcons were not horrible last year, they scored points, but they were definitely worse. They were more likely to roll than a good offensive (which usually suggests bad luck) and were average below average in the primary red zone efficiency categories.

Basically, Atlanta had to be able to create scoring opportunities as it would take a lot to create the 2016 totals. The Falcons scored an average of five points per scoring opportunity (first down in the top 40 of the opponent) in 2016, among the best of the league; they averaged 4.2 in 2017, which meant that they had to create 20% more changes to finish with the same points.

It's a bit important, yes? And the statistics have been saved with the most overwhelming anecdotal evidence possible: a fourth goal with a chance to beat potential Super Bowl champions in the playoffs, a game that was sniffed by the Philadelphia defense and sentenced from the start . .

Then came Thursday night. Atlanta and Sarkisian have both found a chance of redemption starting in the 2018 season when the 2017 season is over.

The game was poetic in every sense of the word. It started and ended in failure in the same end zone.

For the match, Atlanta has clearly outpaced Philadelphia. The Falcons won 299 against the 232 Eagles and created six scoring chances for all three of Philadelphia. Under normal circumstances, you win this game almost every time. But the Eagles scored touchdowns in two of their three chances and Atlanta did this:

• Opportunity # 1: Falling Downhill. DeVonta Freeman slips into second place, Matt Ryan is in third place on a game with an interesting look but without horizontal spacing. and Freeman is again in fourth place in what we call a very predictable look.

• Second chance: FIELD OBJECTIVE. A few minutes later, the Falcons were back in the 10. This time, Ryan focused on tight end Austin Hooper, but two targets produced a three-yard hold. But there were points, at least!
• Occasion n ° 3: GOAL OF FIELD. Replacements of Julio Jones and Mohamed Sanu brought the Falcons to Philly 25, but a bag from Ryan's Jordan Hicks forced a 52-yard goal. This is fine.
• Occasion n ° 4: INTERCEPTION. Atlanta had a golden opportunity when an Eagles blocker hit a kick before he was shot down and Kemal Ishmael recovered at Philly 32. In third and third place out of 15, Ryan had trouble communicating with Jones. of her career; Anyway, Rasul Douglas made an easy interception at Eagles 4. The pitch was so bad that Twitter did not even blame Sarkisian.
• Used n ° 6: TOUCHDOWN. Despite all these failures, Atlanta has received another The life lost when Deion Jones recovered a deviated pass and sent her back to Philly 27. (Of course, Sarkisian is not credited for "creating" one of those last two scoring chances ). Ryan hits Julio for 18 yards, then Tevin Coleman taller than Freeman, but was not considered close to the goal line on opportunity # 1 – eliminates the right tackle for a nine-yard score and Atlanta leads again.
• Used n ° 6: CLOCK RUNS OUT. After one last chance after the Eagles regained their lead, Ryan led an outstanding two-minute exercise, moving the 70-yard Falcons to Philly 5. But after starting 5-to-6 to start the circuit, Ryan throws five The Eagles' penalty gave them a bonus shot, including two predictable and well-covered misses for Jones, and the final game ends.

First, Sarkisian ignored Jones as he did for a good part of last season. Then he focused too much on him. Then he called the good game and it ended with an interception.

The failures of the Red Zone of Atlanta have become a capital thing; Sarkisian throws a lot of things on the wall, but it does not seem that his players or himself are certain that something will stay. They failed to become too predictable in both the race and the Thursday night pass. It's almost as if Sarkisian needed an offensive coordinator to take the game book once the Falcons crossed the 10th.

Of course, the Falcons are obviously good. They lost by a game on the road to the reigning Super Bowl champions, just as they lost by a game on the road to the eventually Super Bowl Championships in January. Their defense, which was fragile in open play for a few years (and which probably should have taken more place in last year's slight regression), was rather impressive; in addition, they were screwed to a seventh possibility to score by the embarrassing dart board which is the catch rule of the NFL.

Many teams would kill for Atlanta's problems. But that does not make these problems less problematic. And to say the least, it must be disheartening to have had a full season to probably fix your biggest problem and make it look like more of a problem to start the season.