Atlanta was embarrased last night on a national stage, and fans can blame one aspect. Coaching! The receivers played extremely bad. Crumpler dropped two TD passes (on the same drive so that would only account for 1 TD). The defense was spotty. Special teams gave up 10 points. However, those are exactly the kind of things you should have expected in a game like this.

Emotions were so high for New Orleans, and they were going to bring it. First of all, the Saints in a 4-12 year are still scary in that dome. They have ALWAYS had one of the best home field advantages. That was of course definitely true last night. So a sloppy close game should have been expected.

The most frustrating aspect last night was watching the Falcons refuse to adjust the offense. New Orleans brought their safeties and linebackers up to guard the corners and keep Vick boxed in. The Falcons should have been drooling at that. The beauty of a scrambling speedster like Vick is that defenses worry so much about his running, they leave huge gaps for the passing game. The corners did a great job manning up the WR. However, there were massive gaps 5-10 yards off the line since the safeties and linebackers were pulled in. The Falcons should have constantly had Vick rolling out looking for a quick screen or a quick out. If they began to pull back, he could finally run. 

The Falcons should not be at risk of being shut down by even a great defense. They should always be dictating what happens on the field. If they play a team like Chicago, they have to use their speed as a threat and dink them away. When they play Arizona next weekend, they should be able to just run over them. 

People want to try and blame Vick, but many of his passes were on the mark when he wasn’t getting hit. Also, I never saw receivers running any kind of comeback or quick out for a short easy gain. Everything was down the field. Even Crumpler was running all of his routes beyond 10 yards. You can out scheme yourself sometimes and that is what the Falcons did.

Maybe I just couldn't see what was going on with limited camera angles, but this is my opinion so I can't be wrong. Maybe the Falcons coaches were busy thinking about how cool Bono looks with a shaved head. Whatever the deal, it can and should be fixed.