Raheem Morris, Falcons hope they flipped the script: From the notebook

And we’re back.

My apologies for missing last week’s installment of this ongoing series. With the news of Dan Quinn and Thomas Dimitroff’s departure, a notebook going over the Carolina game just didn’t seem worthy of my time when there were many more pressing questions to be answered. But I did want to say thank you to everyone who asked about the notebook throughout last week even with the craziness of the week and its news.

This is one of my favorite things to do postgame because it’s a little fun, a little chill. As I told you all when I first started this ongoing series, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. So, I am glad that you have become accustomed to it and are enjoying it.

This “from the notebook” isn’t nearly as doom and gloom as the previous installments have been (thank goodness, we all needed a little bit of positivity). Now, I know some of you are still upset. I saw a tweet yesterday, and I so wish I remembered who tweeted it so I could attribute it because it was so funny. But it said after the Braves lost the sports gods only gave Georgia teams one win this weekend, and of course, the Falcons took it. I know some of you are on board the #TankForTrevor movement. I know beating a 1-4 Minnesota team isn’t your idea of a turnaround or a dynamic win. But it’s better than the alternative because truth be told, it was getting tough to get anyone to care about the Falcons. Now, at least there has been a little life breathed into this Atlanta team as the wind was knocked out of others this weekend.

I guess we take the good, or the OK, with the bad? If you follow Georgia sports teams, that’s just another day, right?

Matt Ryan coming in with the rent payment

Ryan had to answer a few tough questions in the week leading up to Sunday’s win. He was asked about a poor performance against Carolina. He said looking back on his lat interception in the end zone, he made the wrong decision and it cost the team.

“I know I’d like to play better than I did today for sure and give our team a better chance specifically late in the game,” Ryan said after that loss.

Then, a few hours later, Quinn was dismissed. The next day, owner Arthur Blank and president and CEO Rich McKay addressed the media and the future of the Falcons, including Ryan’s future.

“I love Matt, much like I love Dan, I love Thomas,” Blank said. “Matt has been a franchise leader for us, a great quarterback, one of the leading quarterbacks in the last 13 years in the NFL. I hope he’s going to be part of our plans going forward. But that will be a decision I won’t make. Matt has the ability to play at a very high level even at this age. Whether that’s going to continue or not, I’m not sure.”

After that comment came the questions to Ryan about his future with the team. All week long, he was collected in his answers. He pointedly said Wednesday that the line in the locker room of an NFL team is that the players occupying said lockers merely rent them. They do not own them.

“So, you have to go out and pay that rent and earn your spot day in and day out. Regardless of whether you’re in Year 1 or Year 13 or wherever, that’s our responsibility as players all the time, to go out there and perform,” Ryan said. “That’s what we are paid to do.”

He went on to say that while he understands where the questions are coming from regarding his future and where he is in his career, he also believes in compartmentalizing the situation. He said this team has 11 games (now 10) to go and it has to have its focus on winning those games and getting back to a winning mindset. The conversations as players and coaches have to be different from what everybody else is talking about. The players, Ryan said, have no control over what comes next.

But then Ryan went and had 371 passing yards and completed 75 percent of his passes with four touchdowns against Minnesota just days later.

Goal-line stand, game changer?

Between Deion Jones’ interception to open the game and the goal-line stand by the defense in the opening minutes of the second quarter, Raheem Morris joked that he didn’t know which one was more important. All he did know was that the goal-line stand felt pretty good.

I don’t know how many of you believe in momentum. I used to have an editor who didn’t believe in momentum swings in games. He said it was a farce, something coaches and players say to make themselves feel better about the way a game turns out. But I do not agree. I do believe in momentum and its effect on a game. I think just about any person who has played the game (and it doesn’t matter which game) likely would say momentum is real. Players and coaches see its effects all the time.

Well, when you look at the opening interception and the goal-line stand in the second quarter, momentum played a factor, whether it was the start of a momentum swing or continuing it. The interception was the spark this defense needed. The goal-line stand was the breath the defense needed to stay ablaze.

Brian Hill had just fumbled the ball, and the first quarter morphed into the second quarter as Kirk Cousins hit Irv Smith Jr. for a 36-yard gain. Momentum was swinging, and it didn’t take long for the Vikings to march down the field and be in scoring position. But then, the Falcons’ defense stood up.

Alexander Mattison was dropped for a loss of 1 by Foye Oluokun. Mattison got 2 yards on the next play. On third down, Cousins threw incomplete as Mykal Walker came streaking through the protection, giving Cousins little time to make a good throw and giving Jones the chance to break up the pass. On fourth down, Dante Fowler slid through to get a hand on Mike Boone before Keanu Neal and Grady Jarrett finished off Boone for a loss of 2 and a turnover on downs.

Whether you believe in momentum, the Vikings had the chance to cut the Falcons’ lead to 10-7. Instead, and in large part because of this moment, the Falcons took a 20-point lead into halftime as the Vikings were still scoreless.

“I definitely know that felt really good especially when you stop them on the 1, and you get the ball back, and you’re able to punch outta there with your offense, you’re able to move down the field and pick up time of possession. … That’s called winning football,” Morris said.

OK. Go off, A.J.

Sunday was hands down the best we have seen A.J. Terrell look in his young career, and there has been a lot on his shoulders in his first year in the league. For starters, few fans seemed to want him in Atlanta after the draft. There was a loud outcry that the fan base wanted the organization to choose someone else with its first-round pick. Then, there was the pandemic-affected offseason in which coaches never had the chance to see Terrell play live … until he got to training camp and dazzled them.

But the dazzle was short-lived as the season started and the secondary seemed exceptionally flawed. While that wasn’t just on Terrell’s shoulders, the burden was heavy for the entire secondary. Then, he was placed on the COVID-19/reserve list and had to miss the Chicago game before being cleared Oct. 8 just before the Carolina game.

So things haven’t been sunshine and rainbows for the Falcons’ first-rounder, but he showed Sunday just why he was that first pick and why he can help this team.

Morris said Terrell finally showed everyone else what his coaches and teammates have seen from him since the first day of camp.

“Just fired up to see the young man get it going,” Morris said. “He was brought here for a reason.”

Terrell was the Falcons’ leading tackler Sunday. He also came up with the first interception of his career with an incredibly acrobatic catch when the ball bounced off his knees before he was able to bring it in for the catch.

Given a game ball postgame, Terrell said he planned to give it to his son.

Reversed roles

For so many games this season the formula has been so clear: The Falcons lose because their defense can’t get off the field and their offense can’t stay on it. So often the offense fizzled out in the first five games, starting the games slowly and struggling through with multiple three-and-outs. Or the opposite, it would start hot and fizzle late. On the other hand, we know the defense had the opposite problem: It struggled to force three-and-outs continuously. Well, the Falcons flipped the formula against Minnesota.

With the Falcons dominating the time of possession, holding on to possession more than 40 minutes, we can take a look at those three-and-out numbers (and turnovers, too) as a sign of potential we hadn’t seen before this game.

The Vikings had four three-and-outs, and Cousins threw three interceptions. The Minnesota offense couldn’t stay on the field, while the Falcons’ offense didn’t seem to have any problems stringing together long drives. There were, of course, opportunities for the Falcons to score when they had to settle for field goals. That has been something even Ryan has hinted to, that the Falcons can move the ball almost easily from one 20-yard line to the other, but once in the red zone, they fizzle out. On Sunday, they did a much better job of finding ways to get into the end zone. And even when Younghoe Koo came out for a field goal (he was perfect Sunday, by the way), the Falcons’ ability to score didn’t seem as dire as in previous games.

So, we’re going with the Dirty Birds, huh?

I wrote this down at the very end of Morris’ postgame news conference because I thought it was interesting that he brought up the old “Dirty Birds” tagline. He referenced the phrase when discussing the energy the defense, particularly, played with.

“It looked a little dirty today, man, like a little old-fashion Dirty Birds,” Morris said. “I loved it.”

Then, after holding up his game ball to the camera, he said it was a symbol more than anything else. Asked what it meant to him, he said it’s less about what it meant to him and more about what it meant to the team as a way of reinvigorating the roster, and the city, too.

“It’s the brotherhood with a little bit of the Dirty Bird with a little collaboration of a win,” Morris said. “(That) sounds good to me.”

The “brotherhood” mantra was part of Quinn’s philosophy. The “Dirty Birds” theme comes from when the 1997 team started out 0-5  (sounds familiar) before finishing 7-9. The next year, the Falcons finished 14-2 and went to the Super Bowl. In one year, a group that was known for losing turned things around. It makes sense why Morris called on the “Dirty Birds” tagline to try to make a connection or add a certain spark to this Falcons team by putting its foundation in an older one.

He’s trying, and these coaches and these players are, too. These next 10 games are an audition after all. If they aren’t auditioning to stay in Atlanta, they’re auditioning for other teams. These next 10 games matter, and Morris is trying to get that spark kindled.

That’s why he’s turning up the intensity in practice. That’s why he’s making things uncomfortable for these players, as I wrote Sunday night. That’s why he’s calling on the moniker of the “Dirty Birds.” These players and coaches know they have to be better, and they needed someone to light a fire under them. It seems Morris and the coaching staff are working to do that.

(Photo of Deion Jones, left, and Foye Oluokun: Jeffrey Becker / USA Today)