Texans slow down Falcons’ playoff push, 17-10
Atlanta recovered the ball after a Falcons defensive tackle Vance Walker (99) grabbed the arm of Houston Texans quarterback T.J. Yates (13), causing a fumble, in first quarter of an NFL football game on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011, in Houston. AP
HOUSTON — The Falcons’ march to the NFL playoffs suffered a setback on Sunday.
Enlarge photo Dave Einsel, AP Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan (2) is grabbed by Houston Texans defensive end Antonio Smith (94) in the second quarter.
T.J. Yates, who played his high school football at Pope High in Marietta, led the Texans to a 17-10 victory over the Falcons before 71,545 fans at Reliant Stadium.
Yates, who made his first NFL start, received ample help from a stout defense and running back Arian Foster. The Falcons chipped in with some overthrown passes, dropped footballs and untimely penalties that helped erase two touchdowns.
“That was not the kind of performance that we want to have, especially at this point in the season,” Falcons coach Mike Smith said.
Yates, a 24-year old rookie, out-played Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, who was under duress from Houston’s blitzing 3-4 defense. Yates completed 12 of 25 passes for 188 yards and one touchdown. He had a passer rating of 86.8.
Ryan, who overthrew three long passes and was intercepted twice, has had much better days. He completed 20 of 47 passes for 267 yards and one touchdown. He had a passer rating of 50.6 points.
The Texans improved to 9-3. The Falcons dropped to 7-5, and could find themselves two games behind the New Orleans Saints in the NFC South if the Saints handled the Detroit Lions in the late Sunday night game.
With four games to play, the Falcons will need the Saints to partially collapse in order to defend their NFC South title. Realistically, the Falcons are in a battle for one of the two wildcard slots with Dallas, the New York Giants, Chicago, Detroit and Seattle.
The loss was difficult for the Falcons to accept.
“We feel like this was a game that we should have dominated,” cornerback Dunta Robinson said. “I can honestly say that the only team that beat us this year was the Chicago Bears. The rest of the games, we shot ourselves in the foot, on both sides of the ball.
“If we want to be a dominant football team, we can’t beat ourselves. We are too good of a team to make some of these mistakes.”
With the score tied 10-10, Robinson was one of the culprits.
Linebacker Mike Peterson had intercepted Yates and had an apparent 32-yard touchdown. But, on the other side of the field, Robinson was in a fierce battle for inside position with Houston wide receiver Kevin Walter. Robinson was called for a holding penalty to erase the touchdown.
With a new set of downs, the Texans put together a 19-play drive. Foster capped it with a 1-yard touchdown to put the Texans ahead with just over six minutes to play.
Instead of taking a 17-10 lead on Peterson’s “touchdown” the Falcons were down.
Earlier in the game, on third and 8 from the Falcons 15, Yates was hit by defensive tackle Vance Walker. Safety James Sanders picked up the fumble and returned it for a touchdown. Even though no whistle was blown, players from both teams thought it was an incomplete pass and wandered onto the field, anticipating a Texans’ field goal attempt.
“The ruling on the field was the ball was dislodged from his hand before his hand went forward, so the fumble was ruled,” referee Bill Levy said. None of the players who wandered onto the field interfered with the play. “It was what we call a double foul after a change. What we decided to do is offset those penalties at the spot where the Atlanta player came on the field.”
Defensive end Ray Edwards was announced at the Falcons player who came onto the field, but Levy later announced there were multiple players from each side on the field.
The play was called back and instead of a touchdown, the Falcons were given the ball on their 35. Ryan was intercepted three plays later.
The Falcons started off misfiring.
Ryan missed on deep passes to Roddy White and Julio Jones on their first and third plays from scrimmage. He also was intercepted later on a flea flicker when the Falcons tried to catch the Texans’ safeties creeping up to help in the run game.
Ryan was not pleased with his game. The Texans basically dared him to beat them with some deep passes and he didn’t pull it off.
Smith said the offense played in spurts.
“We had opportunities, specifically early,” Ryan said. “We had some shots designed that were really good. I just missed on them.”
The Texans came up to stop running back Michael Turner and then tried to blitz Ryan into throwing quickly. Turner was held to 44 yards on 14 carries.
White, who had two back-to-back 100-yard games, caught four passes for 51 yards and a touchdowns.
“Our rationale coming into the game was let’s try and hit some of those balls down the field,” Ryan said. “We designed them to get one-on-one matchups with our guys and kind of pushed those safeties off. We just didn’t make enough plays. We didn’t make the plays when we needed to.”
Instead of keeping pace with the Saints and moving to the head of the playoff class, the Falcons find themselves back in the middle of the NFC pack.
–D. Orlando Ledbetter, The Atlanta Falcons beat blog
Get instant updates on Twitter at AJCFalcons and you can join the Facebook Fan page at AJC Falcons.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
336 comments Add your comment
steven A.
December 4th, 2011
4:46 pm
When Matt Ryan threw that PICK-6 last playoffs against Green Bay, Julio wan’t on the team, RIGHT?
” I didn’t THINK so!!! Correct me if i am wrong.
Arthur Blank
December 4th, 2011
4:46 pm
How much do we have to pay Julio for him to at least appear interested in the game?
Ha ha
December 4th, 2011
4:46 pm
You guys gave up all those draft picks for Julie jones. He had a chance to tie the gane up, but fails to catch the balls, which was right in his hands.
lamac66
December 4th, 2011
4:46 pm
Getting good
Reggie
December 4th, 2011
4:46 pm
Total team loss today….Ryan missed wide open recievers, when
they did touch the ball they dropped it….defense got pushed around, Abraham is still the only pass rush..Ray Edwards cashes his checks with a mask on
falcons are a joke
December 4th, 2011
4:47 pm
How does it feel falcon fans?Cant win against a qback who has never played in the nfl before.Great Game
falcons are a joke
December 4th, 2011
4:49 pm
4th and 1 and u have a false start as much as everyone blames ryan i blame the coaches,btw julio is a rookie so im not blaming him
i blame ryan and the coach
fire the coach
lanier
December 4th, 2011
4:49 pm
cant beat the refs. worst home cooking Ive ever seen
Yo
December 4th, 2011
4:49 pm
Julio did have the rap of dropping balls in college, I wonder if Gonzo and Douglas can do a psych job on him and teach him up? Stay away from White.
done
December 4th, 2011
4:49 pm
Whoever’s idea it was to revert to that losing gameplan from the beginning of the season needs to be FIRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SeenThisB4
December 4th, 2011
4:49 pm
Well at least that was a very entertaining, enjoyable game to watch. Great game Texans!
whodat1
December 4th, 2011
4:50 pm
I keep reading don’t blame Ryan. Well maybe at the end of the game, but at the first of the game he overthrew two passes and under threw one that was an int. So, great job matty boy.
falcons are a joke
December 4th, 2011
4:51 pm
lanier
so the false start,and wide open receivers are refs fault?You must blame the govt.on why u are struggling finacially also
SeenThisB4
December 4th, 2011
4:51 pm
Blaming the refs! That’s rich. The falcan’ts fans blaming the refs. Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha.
SeenThisB4
December 4th, 2011
4:52 pm
I bet even the refs would have caught those passes!
Governer Perry
December 4th, 2011
4:52 pm
There a “3″ things wrong with the Falcons 1. Matt Ryan
2. Matt Ryan
ahh, ahhh, ahhh,
i cannot remember the 3rd. OOPS?
falcons are a joke
December 4th, 2011
4:53 pm
the falcons did what the raiders did………thought they both had the game in the bag……
thats why they play the game!!!!!!
PlanB
December 4th, 2011
4:53 pm
Ryan can’t throw the long pass. 1st & 3rd play of the game were TD passes if Ryan could throw an accurate pass. After that, some of the worst bungeling of dropped passes I’ve seen in a pro game. Not including HD in this. The falcons gave this one away. Last play to JJ, … Killer.
I usually criticise Owens but he and Franks played OK. I hope this improvement continues. D played tough but were worn down by long time on field due to poor play by offense. With JJ, RW, HD, TG & QB MR along with 3 good RB’s, 10 points is unacceptable. Good D by Houston but they didn’t make the dropped balls happen. Catches on those would have been Falcon points.
The buck usually stops with the HC. MS is a good 9-7, 10-6, even 11-5 coach but seems to have trouble going farther than that like playoff wins. Get Bill Cowher.
Hot Err
December 4th, 2011
4:53 pm
Hey look @ the bright side- if we don’t make the playoffs we’ll have a nice draft pick in the talent laden 2012 draft. Oh wait- we traded everything away for a WR we can’t get the ball to.
wayne
December 4th, 2011
4:53 pm
Honestly, Ryan looked like a deer in the headlights today, when he had the receivers open early, he missed them. Sure get tired of the coaching staff always talking about having to fix something (something new every week). What is wrong with fixing these things beforehand, we enter the fourth quarter of the season and every week still in fixit mode. Each of our past two seasons of big splash acquisitions cost us a TD today. I had a hard time determining who the rookie QB way, well maybe next week huh?
Falcon fan?
December 4th, 2011
4:55 pm
This is now the worst trade ever for falcons team!!!! JJ is not worth all the drafts picks, TD should have listen to the patriots 3 time super bowl coach and not draft JJ…dam…I feel like hell for gonzo who goes out every week and bust his ass and the other guys dont even show up. How can matty ice,ha ha, let rookie QB beat him. Now we got to listen to the bull on how we going to improve, oh yea nobody need to buy playoff tickets unless you want money go toward next years season tickets
Governor Perry
December 4th, 2011
4:55 pm
Sorry, i did not use my spell check either. Did Julio play for the birds last year when Matty Ice
“CHOCKED?”
falcon 1
December 4th, 2011
4:56 pm
This is a ” get by team “. Never win a big one, never win with talent, just get by by playing bums. 1st
issue on the list is do nothing coaching, man what a joke. How many draft picks for mister drop pass?
R3TRO_fitted
December 4th, 2011
4:58 pm
Can someone in the Front Office please pick up the phone and call T.O.?
Hot Err
December 4th, 2011
4:58 pm
The sooner the Falcons admit Ryan is a GAME MANAGER the better off the team will be. This is as good as he’s gonna get and any hope of him reaching “elite level” is just a pipe dream. He can’t throw deep to save his life.
Jay Black
December 4th, 2011
4:59 pm
Looked like TWO rookie QB’s out there today. After 4 years, Matt ryan is still scared of his own shadow! We need a fearless QB!
falcons fan
December 4th, 2011
5:00 pm
Today’s game proved how mediocre the Falcons really are. Dropped passes, more stupid penalities, defense could not stop the run. This loss is huge. Falcons go 3-1 at best the rest of the way, likely 2-2 and won’t make playoffs. The worse part is no future to look forward to. Falcons gave future away with the Jones pick. Jones was supposed to put Falcons over the top offensively and I would argue they are worse off this year because their line is not as strong. Worse move Dimitroff has ever made. That trade will be his undoing someday.
whodat1
December 4th, 2011
5:00 pm
It’s amazing that the offense coordinator ask Matt Ryan to play like Peyton manning and attempt to slow down the game, change plays at the line and take the entire play clock and then run for 2 yards, run for 3 yards and then throw 40 yards downfield while your receiver is 30 yards downfield. Whaaaat? You call that a QB?
Concern
December 4th, 2011
5:00 pm
Cam is waiting for the birds next week. They better be ready. Julio and Roddy need to focus!!! Bad game for them both.
bulletbob
December 4th, 2011
5:00 pm
Brian Finneran and Michael Jenkins would have caught the pass in the end zone for 1/4 the money we are paying Julio Jones!! He dropped the pass, don’t try and spin it any other way!
Governor Perry
December 4th, 2011
5:00 pm
Julio Jones would be putting up Big numbers with an accurate QB. Matt Ryan did not win at the Pop Warner level.
Hot Err
December 4th, 2011
5:01 pm
And by the way, has anybody ever seen a team have so many DUMB mistakes on BOTH SIDES OF THE BALL on 4th and short? Stellar coaching by Smith & CO this year.
painter
December 4th, 2011
5:02 pm
Smoke and mirrors. We need real coaches and real players. No more dreadlocks.
jlperry
December 4th, 2011
5:04 pm
i am a falcons fan from fredericksburg ,va and this team is a clown team can”t beat a team with a winning record can”t beat a rookie q.b. i keep saying this; this team is to soft. They really have not play tuff football since 1998 the superbowl year falcons need to get back to hitting people and moving the football and having fun …
Falcon fan?
December 4th, 2011
5:05 pm
GONZO PLEASE DONT SIGN WITH THIS SECOND RATE TEAM NEXT YEAR, gO SIGN WITH THE SAINTS. YOU AND GRAM WOULD MAKE A UN STOPABLE TEAM WIT DREW. I JUST WANT YOU TO GO OUT A WINNER AND THE FALCONS NO BETTER THAN YOUR OLD TEAM KC!!!! THINK ABOUT IT PLEASE….YOUR A WINNER ON ANOTHER SORRY TEAM U CAN DO BETTER..
rally
December 4th, 2011
5:05 pm
It was the lockout….players didn’t get enough practice….that’s what I blame it on!!! Oh and that earthquake in Japan……and the Tsunami….and the ATMS…..and the banks. They are all to blame for this wretched performance against a third FREAKIN STRING QB. WTF??????????
lamac66
December 4th, 2011
5:06 pm
WhoDat, they will NEVER blame Ryan for ANYTHING. 3 missed open WR’s that could have been scores or easily led to scores. But of course the blame will go elsewhere as we see. The other asset(getting downfield) is a non-factor because he won’t get the ball.
Great Falconi
December 4th, 2011
5:06 pm
Just one of those games for the Falcons today. Dudes were dropping balls left and right; Ryan was throwing the ball off his back foot because he wouldn’t stand strong in the pocket; Mularkey was calling QB bootlegs in key situations, thereby cutting off half the field; our defensive line couldn’t get consistent pressure; Dunta Robinson made a huge mistake; the running game was nonexistent, while the Texans’ running game was at its best on the game-winning TD drive.
Julio Jones had two total bonehead plays on that final drive. His total lack of awareness cost us at least 8-10 seconds when he needed to run back to the line of scrimmage. He went out of bounds on his own, costing himself a really nice reception. The drop on the last pass was bad, but if he hadn’t screwed up on the other plays, we would have had more chances. Julio better redeem himself next week. He stunk it up today.
We play the Panthers and Jags next. I figured we would lose this game because I feel like I understand our team pretty well. We are a 9-7 to 10-6 bunch. We have regressed in the areas that got us a 13-3 record last season (few penalties, few turnovers). If we ever stop shooting ourselves in the foot, we’ll be a team worthy of hype.
Clay
December 4th, 2011
5:08 pm
One consistent this season has been the lack of execution. Falcons lead the ,league in dropped passes. Ryan can’t hit a receiver down field even if he’s wide open. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the receivers and quarterback for the Falcons be so out of sync.
lamac66
December 4th, 2011
5:09 pm
Oh man, it’s bad when somebody bring up Jenkins and Finnerin…lol. Wow! But thats the Falcons history of either paying too much for a WR(Peerless Price), Jenkins, or not using them right (Jones).
Chicken Farmer
December 4th, 2011
5:09 pm
Sad to say, but Matt Ryan isn’t the answer to the Falcon’s woes. He can’t throw the ball accurately beyond 15 yards and probably 25 yards is his maximum range and at that distance, the receiver must be mobile enough to stop, turn on the speed or reverse his pattern in order to come close to catching a Matt Ryan thrown ball. A five year starter in college, beginning his first game today (T.J.Yates/UNC) beat a Falcon’s team with a 4 year pro starter who missed his throws miserably today. The few that were on target were of the 4 or 5 yard distance which doesn’t beat very many NFL teams.
jackson
December 4th, 2011
5:11 pm
pretenders
whodat1
December 4th, 2011
5:12 pm
Cam put up 38 on TB today. Houston’s 3rd string QB beat the falcons today. Here comes Cam next wee, or should I say the birds have to go to Cam. falcons fans, can you say 7-6 after next week? I know you can.
Cancel My Season Tix
December 4th, 2011
5:12 pm
The mental mistakes that have cost the Falcons so many games this year are deplorable. Pros don’t play this way, Pretenders do. Sad state of affairs in the ATL.
achybreakyheart
December 4th, 2011
5:13 pm
REALLY!? Where do I start? Offense..or lack thereof..stupid ass penality’s that cost us 2 touchdowns..dropped passes by all concerned! 9th ranked run defense could not get a stop when it counted..Matt Ryan has take another step backwards as has been stated throughout the year..Another rookie Q/B kicks our collective asses once again!
These birds are done..all that’s left to do is pluck their collective tail feathers! Once again they have proven that they can not play with the better teams..They were in trouble all day long! No run game..No passing game..very little up front blocking..where do they go from here? Back home to the couch and watch the better teams perform in the playoffs..
rc35
December 4th, 2011
5:13 pm
Sort of interesting to note that the Broncos now have the same record as the Falcons–7 and 5. While Tebow gets all the insults and Ryan gets all the accolades for his picture-perfect passing form, you can’t deny the results.
PlanB
December 4th, 2011
5:13 pm
steven A @ 4:46. You said correct you if you’re wrong. It is wasn’t, not wan’t.
Hot Err
December 4th, 2011
5:13 pm
4 years in the odor from this “process” is becoming unbearable. It’s true that u can’t judge a draft until several years later and now it’s really time to re-evaluate what we have in this dimitroff/smith brain trust. We drafted a QB that can’t throw with accuracy more than 25 yards down the field and gave up the world for a rook WR that can’t stay on the field.
THIS COULD TURN VERY UGLY OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS with Newton maturing in Carolina, Brees surrounded by weapons in NOLA and Tampa Bay continuing to stockpile young talent.
only the names change
December 4th, 2011
5:14 pm
T.D.,WE ARE LOOKING FOR HIGH CHARACTER FOOTBALL PLAYERS.Better keep lookin.
whodat1
December 4th, 2011
5:15 pm
Jumping off the “bus” are we, falcons fans? Call the NFL Network and tell them to cancel the commercial.