Falcons need to buckle down for playoff run

[CBAreject]

There's a lot of playoff and even superbowl talk for our Falcons these days. All that is fine and good, but I hope they focus on winning each of these last 5 games...every game is a big one now. The Falcons need to finish 4-1 to be sure of homefield advantage all the way through. Homefield advantage is especially important this year because Chicago is looming at Soldier field and GB is looming at Lombardi. One of those teams will win its division, and if we don't win ours, record won't matter. We'll be seeded below them and have to play them on their home turf. We could go 13-3, lose a tiebreaker to the Saints, and have to fly to Chicago in week 1 to face an 11-5 Bears team that gets home field by virtue of winning its division. Then we'd see a magical season flushed down the frozen commode that is an inevitable road playoff loss to the Bears at Soldier.

The reason I say 4-1 and don't mention the Saints matchup is that the Saints game actually doesn't matter at that point. If we beat everyone else, we could lose to the Saints, and even if they win out, we'd both be 13-3 and we'd win by virtue of better record vs common teams (since Saints lost to Browns and Cardinals). If we beat the Saints, then we can lose any one other game and win the division by virtue of better overall record. However, if we lose to the Saints and one other team, things don't look as good. If they win out, they win by record. If they also lose one other game, they'd likely win by virtue of better division record, since we have 3 opportunities to lose within the division and only 1 to lose outside it (Seahawks). The only scenarios in which we could lose to the Saints and one other team and still win the division are 1) the Saints lose to the Bucs, in which case we'd be tied in record and divisional record and win by virtue of better record vs. common teams and 2) the other loss is to the Seahawks and the Saints lose any one other game (in which case we'd win the division by better common game record or division record, depending on who the Saints lost to). In further scenarios, we could go 3-2 AND beat the Saints and win the division by head-to-head, or less likely things could happen, such as both the Falcons and Saints collapsing

So to reiterate the short version: we need to finish 4-1. If we do, we're assured of a division crown, a first-round bye, and almost certainly have home field all the way through until the SB. If we go 3-2, it needs to include a win over the Saints, and then we'd still almost certainly have a first-round bye, but we'd be less likely to have home field for the NFC championship game

[Blunt91]

Got to give a shout out to the Falcons today. Tough game but they showed their heart to win the game today.

Edited December 6, 2010 by Blunt91

[Gray Mule]

Somehow, they keep winning.

Bucs have a great team and, had it not been for that 102 yard TD return of a kickoff, they would

probably beat the Falcons. I believe the Saints will have to face this Buc team this season

before they can worry about the Falcons.

This Falcon team believes that they can win and then go out and do it. You don't see them giving up.

Falcons have a couple of running backs out right now. Great win today!!

:thumbsupsmileyanim: