Atlanta Falcons Should Take Advantage of Down 49ers
By John Buhler
The Atlanta Falcons (6-2) will travel to Santa Clara, California to take on the San Francisco 49ers (2-6) on Sunday at 4:05 PM ET. Even if the Niners are starting backup Blaine Gabbert at quarterback, the Falcons need to play hard to beat San Francisco.
Not that long ago, the San Francisco 49ers were the toast of the NFC. The four-year Jim Harbaugh Era in the Bay Area pushed the struggling franchise back into relevancy from 2011 to 2014. The Niners went to three straight NFC Championship Games (2011-13) and lost the Super Bowl to the Baltimore Ravens in 2012.
It hasn’t been three full seasons since the Harbaugh Bowl, but both the 49ers and the Ravens sit at a tepid 2-6. Neither team seems playoff bound in the slightest in 2015. Their rapid decay is a testament to the amount of parity in the National Football League.
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While the Niners are on the decline in 2015, the Atlanta Falcons need to kick their former NFC West rival when they are down to make up for the many beatings the Niners put on the Dirty Birds over the years. The Bill Walsh/Joe Montana Era of the 49ers was a cruel time for Falcons fans. Neither were the two most recent games between these former division rivals.
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The 2012 NFC Championship Game best epitomized the pitfalls of the Mike Smith Era in Flowery Branch. While the Atlanta Falcons pitched a 17-0 shutout in the first half, they let a 17-point lead evaporate and missed out on a Super Bowl berth. 10 yards short!
Though 2013 was a dismal season for the Atlanta Falcons, they had their opportunity to beat the 49ers in the final game in Candlestick. That would have been a nice consolation prize in what was an otherwise terrible season of Atlanta Falcons football. Instead a weird turnover occurred in the red zone for the Falcons as Atlanta was orchestrating a potential go-ahead two-minute drill in the fourth quarter, helping get the Niners back to the Playoffs in the process.
2015 is a different season, so can we expect better results from our Falcons against a reeling 49ers team? I certainly hope so. Despite looking lackluster since Week 4’s evisceration of the Houston Texans, the Atlanta Falcons enter their Week 9 matchup against the San Francisco 49ers as a 7-point road favorite. The reason San Francisco is a touchdown underdog at home is that they are probably the second-worst team in the NFC, ahead of only the 1-7 Detroit Lions.
The mass exodus of coaches and player personnel has ultimately decimated one of the proudest franchises in the National Football League. San Francisco’s offense has looked disastrous in 2015. QB Colin Kaepernick won’t start on Sunday after playing terribly against the St. Louis Rams in Week 8 in favor of former Jacksonville Jaguars’ bust Blaine Gabbert. TE Vernon Davis talked his way out of town via a trade to the Denver Broncos. HC Jim Tomsula inherited a completely disjointed football team.
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Losing to the New Orleans Saints always stinks. Falling at home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has been an embarrassment over the last several years. However, the two losses the Atlanta Falcons have are to two middle to lower-middle NFC teams. Tampa Bay is a better football team than the 49ers at the midway point of 2015.
Atlanta can play a very aggressive and physical brand of football in Week 9 despite it being a West Coast road trip because the Falcons will have their annual bye next week before playing the Indianapolis Colts at home in Week 11. Players can lay it all on the line, knowing that they will have an extra week to recover/prepare for the Colts at home nonetheless.
Next: Atlanta Falcons: NFC Power Rankings, Week 9
HC Dan Quinn’s former employer, the Seattle Seahawks, are the arch rival of the San Francisco 49ers. Don’t think for one second that DQ still doesn’t get fired up for Niners Week. I have a feeling that the competitive firepower we wanted to see in division games from Quinn will shine through on Sunday in Santa Clara. The Atlanta Falcons will feed off their coach’s energy and could enter their bye at 7-2 after a convincing road victory. Rise Up!