When news came this week that right tackle Kaleb McGary will miss the entire season, it was easy to wonder what that might do to the Falcons’ chances of winning the NFC South or making the playoffs.
There’s no doubt that McGary’s absence will have an impact on the team, but running back Bijan Robinson doesn’t want to look that far down the line. Robinson thinks the team’s 15-19 record over his first two seasons has been tied to a habit of letting their eyes start looking too far down the horizon when they should be focused on the five feet in front of them.
Robinson said that the team has worked to change that for the current season.
“For us, we’re not a team that looks ahead anymore,” Robinson said, via Bryan DeArdo of CBSSports.com. “I think the past couple years, since I’ve been here, we’ve always been . . . ‘We have to win the South. We have to win in the playoffs.’ And I think, for us, that wasn’t a good thing, because we would lose focus on who’s in front of us that week. So, I think it’s really important for us to just go one week at a time, focus on the team, who we have at hand, what we have at stake, and I think everything else will take care of itself.”
Focusing on what’s next is a good way for the Falcons to kick off the season. They open with the Buccaneers and a win over the team that’s won the last four division titles would be a good way to prove the effectiveness of the new approach in Atlanta.
