Falcons fall to 2-4; Dream aim to even WNBA Finals in Game 2

Joined now by the Waterboys, the Atlanta Falcons suffering a disastrous 31-23 loss to Chicago in Week 6 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, falling 0-3 at home on the season. Let's bring in B. Rich and Trey to break it all down, guys. They were off to kind of a good-ish start, 2-2. Now they're 2-4 with these home losses. This season is kind of slipping away pretty fast. The team, are they fundamentally broken now, or how do we reclaim the momentum for the remainder of the season? Well, Tom, they're not fundamentally broken. We just hit a hot offense, man. Caleb Williams is a good quarterback, man, and the Falcons had to run up against that. And remember last week, as I said, last Friday, we had to have ball control to keep their offense off the field. We wasn't able to do that, so we just had to clean up some things on the offensive line, clean up some of the things with everybody. Blitz and Penix, and Penix is not able to get the ball out under pressure. That was the issue. We only ran the ball nine times to Bijan. Bijan had 60 yards. If we could have given Bijan more rushes at that, we probably would have done better. We did make a slight comeback, but it wasn't well enough. The thing that bothered me the most, Tom, is it was so many Bears fans in the Mercedes-Benz stadium. It was like a Falcons away game, so we got to improve on that, Atlanta. Trey? Yeah, And so, Tom, I wouldn't say that we're fundamentally broken. I agree with B. Rich on that, but we're fundamentally bruised. I will tell you that. People not blocking our quarterback is living on the ground. I don't know how he throws passes sometimes because he's looking up at the dome, looking outside of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium when he needs to be looking at receivers. But that's because he's on his back because our O-line is not keeping him up clean. And it's just some things that we need to be able to get done. We ran the ball well against Green Bay and the Saints, but we faced a couple of tough defenses and we weren't able to impose our will and that's something we have to do moving forward so hopefully Stefanski and the boys will get the guys together, get everything right and we can get back on the right side of the winning column. Well guys let's talk about, let's break the game down a little bit. We're talking about four fumbles five sacks for the Falcons against Chicago so what about our offensive line failing to protect Pennix what can be done to kind of shore up the offense here moving forward well jake matthews has been one of the guys has been with our o-line for a long time i mean he he is he's a pedigree his father played uncle played cousin played the matthews name is very well known uh and i won't say he's been the worst offensive lineman but we need better out of jake matthews we need better out of the unit as a whole we expected this o-line to continue to open up holes and see we praise them when they have 190-some yards on the ground by Bijan, 190-some yards receiving by Drake London, and then we're just running all over people like Green Bay and the Saints. But in these tough games, we've got to shine light on that as well. We have not blocked and kept Pennix as clean as we need to. That's part of the reason that he's getting hurt. That's part of the reason he's being banged up. I mean, D-line, when they're coming through like water through a paper bag, this O-line has to get it together if we want to continue the season in the right direction to keep our quarterback upright. I feel like I feel like Tommy Reese had his worst game-calling experience as a Falcon this last week. I feel like we need to figure out how to get the ball out of Pennix's hands fast enough so he can beat these blitzes that's coming in. The NFL has kind of figured out, hey, if you blitz Pennix, he will make mistakes. And so we have to clean that up. He has to learn how to read the blitz and hit the hot route. Once we do that, we'll be fine. And we've got to figure out how, when they are gearing up to stop Bijan, we've got to figure out how to keep him going and get him on positive yards so we can keep the clock moving and keep the chains moving. All right, let's shift gears a little bit, talk about our Atlanta Dream. The ladies out on the West Coast losing game one to Golden State. We'd love to leave the Bay Area with a 1-1 split, right, to come home with a little momentum and a little confidence. What do they got to do differently tonight to make that happen before heading back to Atlanta? Well, as me and Trey were talking earlier today on our 11 a.m. stream that we do on YouTube every Monday and Thursday, Trey said something that he heard the girls say. We started playing the way that Golden State wanted them to play instead of playing what they normally play. I think the Dream needs to go in and play the ball dominance. They can play with Angel Reese down low, with Ryan Howard and Alicia Gray. They just need to keep doing their thing and just worry about them. Once they do that and not worry about Golden State trying to dictate on how they want to play, the Dream should be all right. Well, you know, anytime you talk about basketball or any sports period, you don't want to turn the ball over. And like Beers was saying, Ryan Howard, she said that, you know, they ended up playing Golden State's game. They played the way Golden State wanted them to play and let them dictate at the end of the game how the Dream was moving the ball or should I say the lack thereof of the ball moving around. And they took a lot of threes at the end. They went down to low shot clocks and probably some shots they'll want to get back. So don't get caught up in that situation the next time. Just close the game out. Play the way that you've been playing. But I will say this. It may actually be something that turns out to be good for the Dream because they pretty much dominated in this playoff so far. And sometimes you have to get punched in the mouth to realize, once again, I'm in a fight. And I think that these ladies, I think that this team, with the heart they have, they are ready and prepared for any fight that comes their way. I expect the Dream to come out punching and swinging tonight. So let's go Dream. Let's bring this thing back 1-1. All right, Trey, you've got to sing us out real quick. We've got a ton of breaking news today, but we need some confidence and some inspo as our Atlanta teams move forward here. I got you, Tom. I got you. See, it was all good just a couple weeks ago. We beat the New Orleans Saints, and we were laughing at the score. But after getting beat down at home twice back-to-back, our Falcons are sitting at a disgusting 2-4. But the season's not over yet. The blood pressure birds better fix it as fast as they can. So let's regroup, get this thing together, come back and bring home a win against San Fran. Let's go. Let's beat the Bay all the way around. Falcons dream. Beat the Bay. that's the theme of the week beat the Bay, they can hear you all the way on the West Coast, Trey um i know they can remember plenty of places to get your sports content from our Water Boys on YouTube, look for Water Boys Show 404 and on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok go to the Water Boys with a Z show guys thanks so much for joining us we'll talk to you on friday