Falcons: 3rd Down Defense Still A Problem

[AUTiger7222]

I was just looking at some numbers and came across that the Falcons 3rd down defense is still a problem. Opponents have faced 3rd down against the Falcons 39 times and have gotten 20 first downs. That's a 51% conversion rate. That's the 2nd worst in the NFL. The only defense that is worst is the Jets at 56% conversion rate.

So while our defense has seen major improvement there is still much room for more improvement.

[Radical]

Like I said before... most don't know about the X's and O's, and most of those don't care to begin with. Success is the only thing they care about. People will fill in the blanks as to why we are or are not successful as they go. Right now, we're winning, so nothing else matters.

[AUTiger7222]

(09-25-2012 11:10 PM)Radical Wrote:  Like I said before... most don't know about the X's and O's, and most of those don't care to begin with. Success is the only thing they care about. People will fill in the blanks as to why we are or are not successful as they go. Right now, we're winning, so nothing else matters.

It just surprised me when I saw the numbers because I thought we had done much better this year just from watching the games. But the numbers show that we are still giving up first downs on 3rd down way too much. But turnovers have been able to mask it.

[AUTiger7222]

We've been much better since the 1st half of the Chiefs' game. They started out 5/6 on 3rd downs, and since, we've held all teams to 13/31, which comes to 42%. Not including the Chiefs game, we've held our other opponents to 9/23, coming to 39%.

[juraitwaluzka]

Yeah I was going to ask about the Chiefs game, figured that skewed the numbers a bit.

[ATLBound]

It's only been 3 games so one game can fux it up, especially if we force turnovers on 1st or 2nd down. I wonder how many of our turnovers were on 1st or 2nd down

[Shelley#37]

Only numbers that matter are 24, 21 and 3....and we had more each time!!!

[juraitwaluzka]

Sure if all you are looking at is that we are winning, but if you are interested in why we are winning things such as this are good indicators. Defensively, compared to last year, 3rd down defense was the place we could get the biggest improvement, glad to see that it is getting better.

[AUTiger7222]

(09-26-2012 11:03 AM)ATLBound Wrote:  It's only been 3 games so one game can fux it up, especially if we force turnovers on 1st or 2nd down. I wonder how many of our turnovers were on 1st or 2nd down

Correct. Which is why I posted the game-by-game breakdown to show that it's getting better.

[TeamPlayer1]

Nolan will fix this.