Reeling Falcons hope to stay in playoff contention with Bears coming to town

It was a rough five-day stretch for the Falcons.

Atlanta (4-6) lost to the Chargers and Panthers to fall out of first place in the NFC South Division and enter Sunday’s 1 p.m. home game against the Chicago Bears (3-7) in danger of falling out of playoff contention.

The Falcons are coming off playing perhaps their worst game of the season against one of the league’s worst teams. Atlanta couldn’t run the ball, throw the ball, protect the quarterback or stop the run in a 25-15 loss to the Panthers last Thursday.

The offense’s performance the past two weeks had gotten to the point that coach Arthur Smith reiterated to the media that he’s never considered benching quarterback Marcus Mariota in favor of rookie Desmond Ridder, who the team took in the third round.

“There is no situation,” Smith said. “There never was a situation. Ever.”

The Falcons’ final seven games are extremely favorable, considering just one of their opponents — the Baltimore Ravens (6-3), who Atlanta faces on Christmas Eve — has a winning record. The Bears have dropped three straight and six of their past seven games.

“We are right in the middle of it,” Smith said. “We’re not where we want to be. But the reality is we are right in the middle of a playoff race with a conference opponent coming in here in a game we need to win.”

The Falcons and Bears play similar styles offensively. The Falcons are fourth in the league in rushing, averaging 160.4 yards per game, while the Bears average a league-leading 201.7 yards per game.

Chicago and Atlanta also have struggled throwing the ball, as the Falcons rank 30th in the league at 156.8 yards per game, ahead of only the Tennessee Titans (148.2 ypg) and Bears (128.1 ypg).

Against the Panthers, Mariota went 19-for-30 passing for 186 yards with two touchdowns and an interception, but he was sacked five times, preventing the Falcons from establishing any rhythm offensively. The Falcons went 3 for 11 on third-down conversions.

“We need to avoid negative plays,” Smith said. “I don’t think an offense is going to be very effective if you’re off track. We’ve been pretty damn good when we’ve been on track. We just haven’t been as consistent lately. Those are things we can eliminate. And that’s not just on the quarterback.”

Led by Mariota’s three carries for 43 yards and Caleb Huntley’s 32 yards on five carries, the Falcons ran the ball for 138 yards on 25 carries against the Panthers.

Mariota has completed 61.9 percent of his passes for 1,747 yards with 12 touchdowns and seven interceptions, in addition to rushing for 347 yards and five scores on 76 carries. Tyler Allgeier, who has rushed for 443 yards and 1 touchdown, and Cordarrelle Patterson, who has 402 yards and five scores, power the ground game.

First-round draft pick Drake London is among four players in franchise history to have at least 400 receiving yards and three receiving touchdowns in his first 10 career games, joining Calvin Ridley (2018), Julio Jones (2011) and Ken Burrow (1971).

London has 38 receptions for 407 yards and three touchdowns. He’s also one of just two players, along with Minnesota’s Adam Thielen, who has been targeted more than 50 times and has yet to drop a ball.

“We saw certain characteristics,” Smith said of London. “That was part of the mindset that I liked about Drake other than the obvious. I always think the easiest part, when you look at it — all of us in here can look and see if somebody’s fast and whether they can catch — those are the easy ones. It’s the other stuff, the fit, some of it’s luck.”

For the Bears, Justin Fields continued to emerge as franchise quarterback in a 31-30 loss to the Detroit Lions. While he threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown, he went 12-for-20 passing for 167 yards and two touchdowns, in addition to running for 147 yards, including scoring runs of 1 and 67 yards, on 13 carries.

“You can definitely see his confidence growing,” Smith said “He’s strong as hell. He’s certainly probably the strongest guy they got in the backfield so he’s doing a nice job. We are going to have to stop the run, not just him.”

Fields has rushed for 325 yards in the past two games, the most by a quarterback in a two-game span in NFL history, besting Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson, who ran for 268 on Oct. 13 and 20, 2019, during his MVP season.

In the past five weeks, Fields has run for 555 yards the past five weeks, the most in a five-game span by a quarterback in the Super Bowl era.

For the season, Fields has 104 carries for 749 yards and six touchdowns, an average of 7.2 yards per attempt. He’s also thrown for 1,489 yards with 12 touchdowns and seven interceptions to go along with a team-high 749 yards rushing and six touchdowns on 104 carries.

Fields may have to shoulder even more of the running game after the team put running back Khalil Herbert (643 yards, TDs) on injured reserve on Tuesday. David Montgomery, who has rushed for 434 yards and two scores on 115 carries, will likely see an increased workload.

“When you’re looking at different types of places to go, you take spots for that reason,” Bears coach Matt Eberflus said. “The No. 1 spot you look at is quarterback. You study and look at that and I loved what I saw.

“I’m loving what I’m seeing even more since I’ve been here for this amount of time.”