The Falcons led the Panthers 21-13 at the start of the fourth quarter of what appeared to be a rather conventional game on Sunday in Atlanta, but things were about to get a lot more interesting.
The two NFC South teams traded blows over the final 15 minutes of regulation, including a run of four scores in the final three minutes of the game that was capped by Panthers wideout DJ Moore’s remarkable 62-yard touchdown catch with 12 seconds left to play. That catch tied the game at 34 and Moore was penalized for removing his helmet on the field, which led to Eddy Pineiro missing a 48-yard extra point and the game going to overtime.
Pineiro would miss a shorter field goal attempt to win the game and the Falcons finally ended things with a Younghoe Koo 41-yard field goal for a 37-34 win. After the game, Falcons head coach Arthur Smith said “it broke our way and sometimes you need that to happen” while left tackle Jake Matthews said the win showed him that the team can win games regardless of what goes against them over the course of the day.
“Art talks all the time, too: It doesn’t matter what it looks like. The goal is to win. No matter what it takes. However we gotta score, whether it’s defense, offense, special teams, we all gotta work together to find ways to win,” Matthews said, via the team’s website. “Sometimes it’s not always the prettiest, but this was a great team win. I think we learned a lot about ourselves, and we built a lot of confidence from it. . . . We have what it takes, no matter the circumstance. There are a lot of scenarios where a lot of teams would count themselves out, but we just kept fighting.”
The win has the Falcons in first place in the NFC South and that will make it easier to work on fixing some of what went wrong in Sunday’s wild fourth quarter because it’s always better to correct things off an unexpected win than a gut-wrenching loss.
