The Falcons hit the practice field today to prepare for this week’s tilt against the Washington Commanders, and Raheem Morris and Zac Robinson both spoke to the media. Needless to say, people had questions
about Sunday’s shutout loss to the Panthers and how inept the offense looked.
Robinson had … a lot to say about it.
“I take full responsibility, full accountability for the performance we had on offense,” Robinson began. “That is not our standard, and as the offensive coordinator, we cannot have those types of performances.”
Robinson goes on to say what I’ve been wondering about since I got past the initial “what the hell just happened” reaction to Sunday’s game: It was just one of those weird days where nothing goes right and everyone’s off-kilter.
“You’re in this game long enough, and there’s games that happen like that — you don’t want them to happen,” Robinson said. “We have a ton of former QBs on our coaching staff — we can all remember games where things just weren’t … you’re not seeing it, you’re not clicking in the pass game, we had some drops, some missed opps early in that game especially, that it was just one of those off games.”
Morris was also asked about the loss, and he acknowledged that it was just bad.
“When you play as bad as we played last week, rightfully so,” Morris said. “Throw those things. Throw those stones. There’s no doubt. We were clearly predictable last week, that we could not do anything, so rightful stone throwers. Throw away. I have no arguments. No fights. No nothing against that.”
Morris also said he’s excited to turn the page to this week of practice and preparation … which will happen without WRs coach Ike Hilliard, who was fired on Monday. T.J. Yates will take over with the WRs, and Zac Robinson will move down to the sideline.
“We’re going in a different direction,” Morris said of Hilliard’s firing, which he said was performance-based. “… doing some things that we need to do in there as far as the detail, all the things we want to get done in there as far as from a bigger scale in terms of our offense and getting better and all those different things. Tough decisions. People business. Hard for me. Hard for the organization. Hard on Ike’s family. But it’s a decision I felt like I needed to make at this time and we did.”
On the decision to move Robinson down to the sideline instead of the booth, Morris said the goal is efficiency.
“We need to be able to be more efficient, faster,” Morris said. “… being on the grass, he provides a different type of energy when he is down there talking to everybody, wideouts, the quarterback, our o-line, our coaches all involved on the headset, but him being around everything will be good for all of us.”
And if you were hoping for a different answer on Michael Penix’s status as the Falcons’ starting quarterback … you’re not getting one, because it would be absurd to bench a first-round pick who just spent the whole offseason preparing to be the starter after one bad game — even though it was a VERY bad game.
Morris called the performance from Penix — 18 completions on 36 attempts, 172 yards, zero touchdowns, and two picks — “uncharacteristic,” and noted that it’s been a tough pill for the young QB to swallow. But there’s no plan to make a change at the QB position.
“Mike’s our quarterback and we have a lot of confidence in Mike,” Morris said. “We’re moving forward because Mike’s the guy. Mike is the guy until I let you know otherwise, but Mike is our guy.”
Morris did say that the quarterback position isn’t exempt from competition or from making a change if it’s necessary. He noted that Kirk Cousins lost his starting job last season as an example, despite the resume and the big paycheck.
“But we’re not even close to that moment with Mike,” Morris continued. “Mike had a bad game. We had a bad day. We had a bad day as a team. And it’s easy for everybody to pile on.
“He’ll bounce back. I’ve got a lot of confidence he’ll bounce back.”
It’s early enough in the season that there’s time for Penix to do exactly that, and he’s certainly demonstrated he has the maturity and poise to do exactly that. Fingers crossed that happens for Sunday’s home matchup against old friend Dan Quinn and his Washington Commanders.
