It took the Falcons a while to get going offensively in both halves of Sunday’s game against the Giants, but that didn’t wind up costing them.
Matt Ryan threw a touchdown pass with 2:13 left in the first half and the Falcons scored 10 points in the final 4:13 of the game to beat the Giants 17-14 for their first wins since hiring Arthur Smith as their head coach. The Falcons played from behind for parts of both halves and Smith said the team “scratched and clawed and fought” their way to the victory.
“That’s who we want to be,” Smith said, via the team’s website. “It’s never going to be perfect. We know we have a ways to go but, when we needed the last two drives, guys stepped up. They went down the field and scored a touchdown. They kept swinging and found different ways [to win] in the clutch. That’s what we want to do. We want to be in games at the end. It’s a huge learning process, and this is a big step for our program.”
Smith said the team knows it has to improve in the weeks to come, but doing that off a win should be a pleasant change from the last couple of weeks in Atlanta.
