I can't deny it any longer...this offense is one of the very best.

[Peyton]

Ok, before the season I wrote a big thread that saying this team wasn't going to be a GREAT offensive team because it didn't have enough playmakers. I was wrong. I mean. I still think this team needs more offensive playmakers but this offense is peforming at an extremely high level despite that fact.

Then, after the Steelers game, I started a thread that basically said "accept the team for what it is....pretty solid on offense and defense but not elite at either".

It's a position I somewhat defended up until yesterday. I mean, to me, the offense needed to be a top 5 offense to be elite, and the Falcons simply weren't.

So...there was a conversation about the Falcons defense, and I said to myself "the only reason the Falcons defense is 7th in scoring is because the Falcons offense limits the number of possessions in the game".

Well it occured to me that if the Falcons were limiting the possessions for the other team, they were also limiting the possessions for themselves. I thought it might be fair or me to look at things in a different light.

The first thing I looked at was total offensive scores - offensive TDs + FGs . The top 5:

Philadelphia 56
Atlanta 52
New England 50
San Diego 50
Houston 48
NY Jets 48


Then I looked at non scoring offensive drives - punts + turnovers + missed FG + turnover on downs: Those same 5:

Philadelphia 69
Atlanta 60
New England 56
San Diego 68
Houston 64
New York 86


From this information I calculated how often teams were scoring:

New England 47.17%
Atlanta 46.43%
Philadelphia 44.80%
Houston 42.86%
San Diego 42.37%
New Orleans 41.23%


Getting any kind of score is a psychological plus, but scoring TDs is better. Atlanta kicks FGs more often than anybody, so it was important to calculate the average number of points scored per offensive possession. The top 5:

New England 2.774
San Diego 2.424
Atlanta 2.393
Philly 2.368
Houston 2.357
New Orleans 2.254

To my point about the Falcons offense limiting the number of possessions, here are the 5 teams with the fewest number of possessions in the leauge and the 5 with the most:

Least
New England 106
Green Bay 111
Atlanta 112
Houston 112
New Orleans 114
Jacksonville 114

Most
Detroit 136
Oakland 134
NY Jets 134
Carolina 133
Washington 132

So, after I compiled this all:

The Falcons have the second most scores in the league on the 3rd fewest possessions.
The Falcons have scored more often than any team except New England.
The Falcons have scored more points per possession than any team except New England and San Diego.
Only the Chiefs and the Patriots have turned the ball over fewer times.

So..the Falcons offensive might not be explosive, and I might call them "living on the edge" because they are required to convert sooooo many 3rd downs, but the up until this point of the year they are performing at an elite level. At worst they have been the 4th best offense this year behind the Eagles, but they have arguably been the second best. I can't make an argument that they've been better than New England, who has scored the most offensive TDs in the league in the fewest possessions.

So there you have it.....after looking at all that...I can't deny this offense has been among the "elite" offenses in the NFL.

Let's hope that it continues.