There’s a specific question on the mind of pretty much every Falcons fan: Who’s the starting quarterback for Week 2? Kevin Stefanski spoke to the media Monday afternoon (I was in a meeting and couldn’t join the Zoom call, but I caught part of it on NFL Network), and confirmed he will not have an answer to that question today.
“Today’s a big day for our football team,” Stefanski said about the opportunity to review what went wrong in Sunday’s loss to the Steelers, and to correct those things.
“It was
a lot of little things,” that went wrong for Atlanta on Sunday, and those little things add up to big things like the Week 1 loss.
The turnover margin was the first element of Sunday’s game Stefanski mentioned. Rush threw two picks, including TJ Watt’s pick-six. Bijan Robinson also fumbled twice — though he recovered one, and Jahan Dotson recovered the other. The turnover differential wasn’t huge — just -1 — but Stefanski noted that teams that end up on the wrong side of that turnover margin do not tend to win those games. This will be a point of emphasis for the Falcons this week and beyond.
The most important news that came out of Stefanski’s Monday presser is injury-related; chiefly that the team is not ready to name a starter for Week 2 vs. the NFC South rival Panthers. I expect that announcement will come Wednesday, because they need to decide who’s taking those first-team reps in practice.
In addition to the injuries up and down the quarterback depth chart, Stefanski shared two other major injury updates.
- Right guard Chris Lindstrom is in the concussion protocol.
- Da’Shawn Hand suffered a torn quad and is expected to miss the remainder of the season.
While I do expect a starting QB to be named Wednesday, Stefanski made no such promises. “I need to get through today,” before committing to a starter, Stefanski said.
I will be in Flowery Branch on Wednesday reporting on the quarterback situation and all other Falcons-Panthers related information right here in The Falcoholic’s Feed.
