Bradley’s Buzz: It shocked me as Falcons laid another opening-day egg

It was a start so wretched it made you question any warm thoughts you’d had. The Falcons lost as a home favorite to an opponent of questionable worth, and the opener appeared the most winnable game of the first three. Adding comedy to shame — that’s a John Cale line — they lost to an opponent employing as coordinator a former Falcons head coach named Smith.

All that happened Sunday. All that also happened to the 2016 Falcons, who lost to Tampa Bay in a Georgia Dome display so fraught it prompted this observer to lump that Week 1 with the second half of the 2015 season and proclaim, “They’ve become a bad team.”

Five months later, that bad team held a 25-point lead in the Super Bowl.

If it seems I cite the 2016 game every time the Falcons lose an opener — since 2016, they’re 2-5 in openers — I apologize. And this isn’t to suggest that subsequent Week 1 duds have become similar footnotes in banner seasons. The Falcons have finished above .500 once since 2016, the “once” being the very next year. If Sunday’s monstrosity prompts you to label these the Same Old Falcons, feel free.

Tempting though it is, yours truly won’t go that far just yet. After a winter/spring of mass changes and massive spending, the Falcons believed they’d positioned themselves to Win Now. Turns out they couldn’t win against a Pittsburgh team reduced to its No. 2 quarterback. Behind their new QB1, for whose services they paid $180 million while bending NFL rules, the Falcons generated these second-half totals:

Three first downs. Fifty-one yards. Zero points.

Kirk Cousins will have better days. (If he doesn’t, he’ll be the worst signing in the history of professional sports.) It didn’t help that he was coming off a torn Achilles and a preseason that entailed nary an exhibition snap, but the timing was what it was. And the Steelers can harry a passer. And even Kyle Shanahan’s schemes required a full season of communal adjustment. For Zac Robinson, this was Year 1, Week 1.

Nor did it help that the Steelers’ offensive coordinator — Arthur Smith — could offer insight into what his former charges could and couldn’t do. (In Week 1 of 2016, the Falcons were blunted by Mike Smith’s Buccaneers defense, which turned out to be nothing special over the long haul.) Nor did it help that Cousins, given a surfeit of options, kept looking toward Ray-Ray McCloud.

“(You) can’t be surprised in the National Football League,” said Falcons coach Raheem Morris, though he couldn’t have expected his star-spangled offense to produce one gain of longer than 16 yards, that by McCloud, working for his fifth NFL team in seven seasons. The Falcons’ second-half possessions: fumble, punt, punt, punt, interception, game-ending sack.

On paper, this is the best assemblage since the Super Bowl bunch slid into post-Super mediocrity. As noted, ESPN named six Falcons among its top 100 players. We can’t call Sunday an aberration, Game 1 being the only data point we have. Still, this should get better, if for no other reason that it can’t get worse.

Up next: Philadelphia there on Monday night, then Kansas City here on Sunday night. These are the sort of marquee games the Falcons haven’t played in a while. They won’t be favored in either prime-time tilt, meaning they’ll have to upset somebody to keep from starting 0-3. Here, though, we return — yes, AGAIN — to 2016.

After losing to Tampa Bay, Dan Quinn’s team faced this run: At Oakland, at New Orleans, Carolina (coming off a Super Bowl) here, at Denver (coming off a Super Bowl win), at Seattle. That had “0-6 start” written all over it. Had Richard Sherman been called for interference against Julio Jones, those Falcons might have won all five games. As it was, they were 4-2 and flying.

After such an opener, two options exist: Either the Falcons play better or they go 0-17 and position themselves to add Carson Beck to the league’s most interesting quarterback room. I’m going with Option 1, though that’s more guess than conviction. Even if you can’t be surprised in the National Football League, Sunday shocked the heck out of me.

MONDAY’S GAME

Falcons at Eagles, 8:15 p.m., ESPN, 92.9 FM

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