Game 8: Jagwires 20, Falcons 17

I'm calling my first audible of the Challenge and sticking by today's NFL Network schedule, getting back to the games aired yesterday later on. The first game they're showing this morning is Atlanta at Jacksonville, with Paul Burmeister and Tony Boselli handling the first half for Jaxville.

Thomas Brown returns the opening kickoff to the 26 for Atlanta. Starting QB is Chris Redman. First play is a deep pass up the sideline for Roddy White, but Reggie Nelson has it blanketed. White takes a short pass. Redman's throw in the face of a blitz on 3rd-6 comes up way short. Falcons commit a face mask to top things off. Atlanta's punt is awful, as if the punter felt the pressure coming, and rolls only to the Jax 47.

Atlanta's off to almost as bad a start as the Rams last night.

David Garrard brings the Jagwires out. Maurice Jones-Drew starts at RB, takes a swing pass for 6. 7 yard run up the middle. Is there a reason the whole Jacksonville crowd sounds like it's in a tin can? Three straight incompletions from there, though, including a near pick on a 3rd down pass intended for Matt Jones, who I'm surprised is still on this team, with or without the recent drug accusations.

Falcons start from their 10. First handoff to Michael Turner nets 9 on a sweep right. Man, does Falcon HC Mike Smith ever look like John McCain. Turner plunges for a first down. After grinding out a couple more first downs, Redman goes deep for a well-covered Michael Jenkins, and when Drayton Florence breaks up the pass for the Jags, he ends up tipping it to Nelson the trailing safety for an INT.

Jags are at their 6. MoJo bursts up the middle for 11. Falcon line is getting pushed around like the Rams last night. Garrard flings another wild pitch; he's 1-for-5 to start. 3rd-and-9, RICHARD ANGULO drops a pass that wouldn't have gotten him a first down anyway. Adam Jennings fields the punt at his 42.

Matt Ryan's entered the game for Atlanta. False start, two incompletions, dumpoff probably not how he imagined his first series in the NFL, but anyway. Fair catch will start Jax at their 23 this drive.

Slant from Garrard to Jones for 9. MoJo bounces outside for the first. Greg Jones rolls forward for 13. Mike Walker drops a bullet from Garrard. With the Jagwire LG getting away with a brutal hold, Garrard takes off and scrambles for 25-30 yards to the Atlanta 30. Nice pass finds Jones at the sideline at the 10. Garrard hits Walker diving in front of the goal line to set up 3rd-and-goal from inside the 1. Garrard sneaks it in to put Jacksonville up 7-0. It took Garrard a couple of series but he looked good once he got warmed up. The Rams, ER, Atlanta, are putting on very little pass pressure.

Ryan tries to get the Falcons moving from their 26. Turner gets splattered by Clint Ingram but still gains 3. Might be time to put the Burner in mothballs. No, he goes off the left side for 3-4 more. Great diving catch by White just past the marker for the first down as the first quarter wraps up.

Ryan starts the second quarter by fumbling the snap, but recovering. The jumpy Jagwires go offside back-to-back plays and have gone offside 3 times. Uh oh, Atlanta's in trouble now - Jimmy Kennedy has entered the game. Jerious Norwood has stepped in as Atlanta's RB. Ryan's just throwing bunches of short stuff, good enough for now to get them to the Jag 40. Couple of plays later, Ryan finds White WIDE open up the seam for a 25 yard TD to tie the game at 7.

Cleo Lemon becomes the new Jagwire QB. Jag backs are finding lots of running room just up the middle, which Jones does for 8, then 7 out to the Jag 40. ANGULO keeps the chains moving with a catch at midfield. Draw to Jones for 10. When the Rams and Falcons meet in the last week of the season, there may not be a pass thrown by either team. In the name of balance, Lemon throws on 3rd-and-2 and hits Walker for 12 at the 20. Brent Grimes makes a great leaping play for Atlanta to break up an end zone pass. Walker flatout drops a pass over the middle that he would have taken for a QB. That wasn't Walkers first drop tonight, either. A Falcon blitz forces Lemon out of bounds for no gain. Josh Scobee narrowly scrapes the 37-yard FG in. Jags 10, Falcons 7.

The Jagwire cheerleaders take the early lead in one of the hottest competitions of the summer. Those are some nice unis. Falcons only return the kick to the 19. Groves drops Norwood for a big loss, but Ryan hangs in tough and hits Harry Douglas for a first. Ryan next hits Jenkins across midfield for 20, and we hit the 2:00 warning. Ineligible downfield takes away a good gain for Norwood on a screen and puts the Falcs at their 45 instead of Jax's 30. Falcons have to punt after Ryan's stripped for a fumble on 3rd-and-long. Good news for Atlanta on the punt: Brian Witherspoon coughs the ball up on the punt return and Atlanta gets it back. Falcons don't do anything with it, though - Ryan's pass is deflected on 3rd down for an incomplete. Two surprises on the 48-yard FG attempt: Jason Elam is a Falcon now, and he misses the FG so far right, if it had been a golf shot, it would have been ruled out of bounds.

Jags do nothing with the ball after the missed FG and still have to punt with 20 seconds left in the half. Ryan then gets sacked near midfield to end this death march of a first half with the Jags still up 10-7.

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I won't be surprised if Ryan is starting for the Falcons soon, not because he's that great, but because he's still better than Redman. I think Turner delivered as promised, and if White gets the huge chip off his shoulder he played the whole first half with for some reason, the Falcons may have the big three a successful offense needs. They held Jax to only 10 points, but got run on really, really badly, something that's going to be a sore point for them all season at this rate. Jax's WR corps still does not impress at all, with lots of bad hands, bad routes, bad fundamentals. If they're going to take the next step, that's an area that has to improve. Their o-line dominated Atlanta's d-line, a good foundation for successful football.

Witherspoon brings the opening kickoff all the way out to the 45 for Jax. Lemon still behind center for Jax with one Chauncey Washington at RB. Two handoffs to Washington get little. Lemon hits Claude Edwards in front of soft coverage for a first, then Atlanta commits DPI to move the chains again, to the Atl 30. On 2nd down, Lemon audibles to a draw to Washington, who comes up just short of the 1st. He converts on third and 1 to get inside the 20. Very solid pocket lets Lemon hit the TE for 8. Washington spins down to the 4 before driving his way in for a TD on 2nd-and-goal. Jagwires ahead 17-7.

Joey Harrington reports for duty for Atlanta. Jason Snelling bangs up the middle for 8. Harrington gets away with a poor quick hitch pass for a 1st. Groves grabs Harrington later on 3rd-and-long to create a sack as the typical Harrington series ends the typical way.

Todd Bouman and Lavarius Giles are the new Jagwire backfield. Washington comes back in on 2nd down, just in time to fumble back to Atlanta. Fumble forced by rookie Curtis Lofton.

Falcons in prime position at the Jagwire 24. Harrington throws a bad dumpoff pass under pressure. Incomplete for Brian Finneran, a nice comeback story. 3rd down pass gains only 7 as the Falcons squander a golden opportunity. No coffee for Harrington. Coffee is for closers! Elam's FG attempt looks much better this time. 17-10, Jacksonville.

Jags only return the kickoff to their 15. For the second time, Bouman nearly gets sacked trying to find a receiver but gets an incomplete pass off. Facing a third-and-8, Bouman gets ALL NIGHT and throws a fastball with absolutely no touch on it. Chevis Jackson breaks the pass up to create a 3-and-out. Adventurous punt return by Douglas sets the Falcons up at the Jag 43.

Falcons start this drive with a false start and an illegal shift. Quick hitch gets very little. The Jags next jump offsides yet again, and on the free play, Snelling takes a screen pass, breaks some tackles and rumbles all the way down to the 2. Harrington earns his coffee this time with a QB sneak TD. We're tied at 17 with about a minute left in the third quarter.

Chauncey Washington gets to add a 30-yard kick return to his career preseason total yardage tally. Bouman leads the Jags across the 40 as the third quarter ends.

An end-around to Clyde Edwards gains about 18, followed by Bouman hitting TE Charles Davis for 20 more. They're at Atlanta's 22, with Bouman getting copious amounts of time to throw. On 3rd-and-1 Giles dances for 5 to get inside the 10. 3rd-and-goal from the 7, Bouman overthrows the receiver badly in the back of the end zone to bring in the Scoby Gang. He makes it 20-17, Jags. 9:19 left.

Atlanta starts from their 20. And ends there. A rapid 3-and-out.

Witherspoon fields the punt and turns on the jets to cross the field and turn the corner. He gets up the sideline all the way to the Falcon 27 before crashing into the punter, Koenen, who forces Witherspoon out of bounds with his back turned to him. That turns out to be a key screwup by Witherspoon - NEVER get tackled by the kicker - when the Jags fumble the ball away the next play. Probably Washington - it happened so quickly I nearly missed it.

Another great comeback story sees TJ Shockley in at QB for Atlanta. Thomas Brown breaks a tackle and turns up the sideline for 15. Falcons are across midfield quickly. Brown takes a pass in the flat and jukes Lamar Myles out of his jock to gain about 15 more. The still very-mobile Shockley avoids a sack by doing two loop-de-loops in the backfield, but the Falcons then get back to their pattern of committing presnap penalties, two in a row. Eric Weems drops a slant pass on 3rd-12 from the 35, but who knows if he would have gotten the first down. Elam attempts a 52-yard FG but just barely misses it. Jags maintain their 3-point lead with 4:40 left.

After a short Washington run, the Jagwires, the team THAT WOULD BENEFIT FROM EATING UP THE CLOCK, call TIMEOUT. Now we've got the usually-abortive naked bootleg, which Bouman has to throw away, STOPPING THE CLOCK AGAIN. Dump-off on third down is incomplete, STOPPING THE CLOCK. Why the Jagwires weren't running the ball at least twice here completely baffles me. Only a minute or so came off the clock, and Atlanta didn't have to expend any timeouts. Awful, awful clock management.

The Falcons start from their 20 again. Jennings puts together a couple of hard runs to get to the 41. With about 1:30 left, Shockley spears Chandler Williams for a 20-yard catch and run. Of course, Mike Smith realizes they're obliged to go for the TD, right? Shockley loses a yard under pressure; timeout, Atlanta with 0:47 to go. 2nd down, Shockley lobs a very nice pass into the end zone for Williams, who drops this one. 3rd down, Shockley barely avoids a sack and fires a 100-mph fastball that's nowhere close. 4th-11, 0:35 left, Smith does the heroic thing and goes for it, and Shockley slaloms around for 14 yards. First and goal at the 6. Out route pass thrown too low at the goal line. 2nd-goal, 0:23 to go. Shockley throws it through the back of the end zone under pressure. What a refreshingly smart, old-school thing to do with nobody open. Jag blitz forces Shockley to double-clutch, and he throws a pass into the end zone with absolutely nothing on it that Preston Prioleau picks off to end the game in a Jagwires win.
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For Atlanta, Ryan's the best QB they have already - the others are terminally mediocre - and I'd make him the starter quickly. I see major potential in Turner and White but wonder if the Falcons can put enough pieces around them, especially offensive linemen. The Falcon pass rush was pretty dreadful, and any improvement they're to make on defense has to begin there. Jacksonville is always a weird team for me to read. This game was evidence that they'll rely on their running game and an offensive line capable of dominating to win games. The game doesn't tell me it's time to open up the playbook for Garrard or anything, particularly because the WRs they have right now are nothing to write home about. Maybe that changes if and when Jerry Porter gets healthy. The Jagwire defense has a significant problem with offsides penalties they'd better get fixed.

Next game: HELL NO I'm not watching the Rams again on NFL Network. I'll go to Browns-Jets until the Colts-Panthers game comes on at 3:00.