Jones Catches 2 TDs, Falcons Beat Panthers 31-23

He found it against the Carolina Panthers.

Jones hauled in fourth-quarter touchdown passes of 17 and 75 yards from Matt Ryan and the Falcons overcame a 16-point deficit to beat the Panthers 31-23 Sunday.

Jones bounced back after a rough outing against Houston last week in which he had two drops, including one of Atlanta’s final plays, and two costly penalties in a 17-10 loss to the Texans.

“He’s had some plays I’m sure he’d like to have done better, but that’s him maturing, and understanding what the NFL is all about,” Ryan said. “Sometimes, you’re not going to make the plays you want to make, but it’s all about how you respond to those situations. He did a great job for us today, but it doesn’t surprise me, because that’s been his deal the whole year.

“He’s worked real hard, and has been into it, and has done everything you could ask for from a rookie.”

Ryan finished with 320 yards passing and his four TDs matched a career high. As important, Ryan kept the Falcons (8-5) in playoff position in the wild-card race with three games left.

“We approached it as the first of four legs,” Ryan said. “We’ve knocked the first leg out and now we’ve got to move on and keep going.”

Atlanta closes the season with Jacksonville at home, at New Orleans and at home against Tampa Bay.

Ryan’s comeback shouldn’t surprise anyone — he seems to have Carolina’s number.

The first time the teams met, the Falcons trailed by three points in the fourth quarter but rallied for a 31-17 win on Oct. 16.

Down 16 points at the half, Ryan earned his “Matty Ice” nickname.

He came out of the locker room poised and calm but firing on all cylinders in the second half, throwing for 232 yards and three scores.

Jones, who finished with 104 yards receiving, was quiet for most of the game but caught a 17-yard touchdown pass from Ryan to give the Falcons a 24-23 lead early in the fourth quarter. After Olindo Mare missed a field goal that would have put the Panthers up by two, Ryan found Jones across this middle for a 75-yard, catch-and-run touchdown with 4:17 left in the game.

Carolina’s final drive ended with an incomplete pass on fourth-and-5 from the Atlanta 27.

“He just kept his poise,” Jones said of Ryan. “He kept it positive on the sideline, encouraged us to keep it going, keep it going. Eventually, we did, and we came up with a W at the end.”

Looking to push the tempo, the Falcons went to a no-huddle offense quite a bit in the second half and tried to take advantage of a matchup with reserve cornerback Darius Butler on Jones.

“We got a look where we felt we’d had a pretty good matchup on the backside with Julio (Jones),” Ryan said.

Both of Jones’ touchdown catches came against Butler.

“You know, they were coming at me a few times with Julio,” Butler said. “They like that matchup. I made some plays early and he made some big plays late. You’ve got to hold up. That’s the name of the game. You got to finish it out.”

For the Panthers (4-9), it was more of the same, marking the sixth time this season they’ve lost after being ahead or tied in the fourth quarter.

Cam Newton started strong, completing 9 of 14 passes for 147 yards and two touchdowns in the first half as the Panthers built a 23-7 lead. But Newton was intercepted twice in the second half, including once on a poor decision when he tried a shovel pass to running back Jonathan Stewart with his non-throwing left hand as he was falling to the ground. The result was a gift interception for Falcons linebacker Mike Peterson.

Ryan cashed in two plays later as running back Marquizz Rodgers beat linebacker James Anderson for a 31-yard touchdown.

A glum Newton called his decision “terrible.”

“I tried to get the ball to Stew and tried to avoid the sack,” he said. “I should have just ate the ball and taken the sack. Both interceptions were my fault. If you expect to win games you have to protect the football and I did a poor job of that today.”

Despite their struggles in the second half, the Panthers looked poised to regain the lead midway through the fourth quarter, but Newton couldn’t hook up with Greg Olsen in the back of the end zone and the Panthers settled for a 36-yard field goal attempt. But Mare, just as he’d done with a chance to tie the game late at home against Minnesota, pushed a very makeable go-ahead field goal wide left.

Coach Ron Rivera said he plans to sit down with Mare to talk about what’s wrong.

“It’s the second one he’s hooked left, pretty much from almost the same area (on the field),” Rivera said of Mare, who was given a four-year, $12 million contract this offseason.

The Falcons seized the momentum.

Two plays later, on second-and-11, Jones caught a pass over the middle and broke through a tackle by Butler and Sherrod Martin and raced 75 yards to the end zone.

The Falcons outscored the Panthers 24-0 in the second half.

“We just brought a different attitude out there in the second half,” safety Thomas DeCoud said. “They caught us off guard early with a couple of things they didn’t show us on film. In the second half, we bit down and did what we needed to get done.”

Notes: The Falcons are 21-0 when Ryan has a quarterback rating of 100 or more. … Panthers wide receiver Steve Smith became the 35th player in NFL history to reach 10,000 yards receiving for his career on a 16-yard reception in the second quarter.

Bookmark and Share

Ryan Throws 4 TDs, Falcons Rally Past Eagles 35-31

This is Matt Ryan’s house now.

Ryan tossed a career-high four touchdown passes, shaking off all the hoopla over Vick coming back to face his old team as Philadelphia’s starter, and rallied Atlanta from a 10-point deficit for a 35-31 victory over the Eagles in a Sunday night thriller.

Vick wasn’t around for the end, wobbling to the locker room with a concussion late in the third quarter.

Matty Ice was there to the end, celebrating a comeback win.

“He is a guy who will never give up,” Falcons coach Mike Smith said. “When you have a guy like that leading your football, it’s going to pay dividends in the long run.”

It sure did on this night.

Two of Ryan’s TD throws went to ageless tight end Tony Gonzalez, who went past Terrell Owens into the fifth spot on the NFL’s career receiving list. Then, Ryan hooked up with Ovie Mughelli on a 1-yard score that brought Atlanta to 31-28 with just under 11 minutes remaining.

The Falcons (1-1) completed the comeback with Michael Turner breaking off a 61-yard run, then powering over from the 3 with 4:48 remaining. Turner finished with 114 yards on 21 carries.

“It was a wild one, for sure, but we hung in there,” Ryan said.

Vick threw for a pair of touchdowns for the Eagles (1-1) but couldn’t go on after getting spun by a Falcons rusher into one of his own players, right tackle Todd Herremans. No. 7 staggered to the sideline and Mike Kafka came in for the first game of his two-year career.

Vince Young, normally the backup, was inactive because of a hamstring injury. Now, the Eagles have to worry about Vick’s health, though he was cleared to travel with the team back to Philadelphia.

“I know Mike is upset,” Kafka said. “When you’re hit like that, you can’t do anything about it. It’s out of his control.”

Kafka did a good job in a tough situation, guiding the Eagles down the field on a potentially winning drive in the closing minutes. But on fourth down from Atlanta’s 22, Jeremy Maclin dropped a pass over the middle that would have kept it going.

The buildup for the prime-time contest was one of the biggest in years for a regular-season game in Atlanta. Many fans in the sellout crowd wore Vick’s old No. 7 jersey from his Falcons days, but plenty broke out Ryan’s No. 2.

In some ways, it seemed like a head-to-head matchup — even though they were never on the field at the same time. Vick was the one-of-a-kind quarterback who put the Falcons on the NFL map before he was caught running a operation, sending him to prison.

Banished by the Falcons, he revitalized his career in Philadelphia and took over as the starter last season. He returned to Atlanta once before, as a backup in 2009, but this was different.

“I feel for him,” Maclin said. “Obviously, he wanted to come home and make a statement.”

Ryan insisted that he never paid much attention to the other team’s quarterback. He’s already led the Falcons to a pair of playoff appearances, making it much easier for Vick’s fans to move on.

“Not being here when he was here, not playing with him,” Ryan said, “I couldn’t allow myself to get caught up in those things.”

They even gave each other a hug in the center of the field after both came out as captains for the coin toss.

“Hopefully he’s OK,” Ryan said. “You never like to see anybody go down.”

Vick has said before the game that he wouldn’t make any Deion Sanders-like pronouncements about the Georgia Dome being “my house.” He certainly couldn’t after fumbling twice and throwing an interception, the Falcons turning two of those mistakes into touchdowns.

Still, Vick had seemingly done enough before he wobbled off. Kafka came on and handed off to LeSean McCoy, who scored his second touchdown on a 2-yard run with 1:59 left in the third quarter. McCoy had 95 yards on 18 carries.

But Ryan and the Falcons hung in there, even though the quarterback was sacked four more times after taking five in a 30-12 loss at Chicago to open the season.

“You just keep getting up,” Ryan said. “There’s a lot of tough guys on this football team and I try and stay in line with those guys and just keep bouncing up.”

There were plenty of big hits, most notably a shot by Atlanta cornerback Dunta Robinson on an Eagles receiver for the second year in a row. Last year, Robinson knocked out himself and DeSean Jackson with a brutal collision. This time, the defensive back leveled Maclin with a shot that drew a flag for slamming into a defenseless player with a helmet-first shot in the third quarter.

Smith disputed it was illegal hit, saying “that’s the way we teach it,” but the NFL could dole out a suspension after it reviews the play. Maclin went to the sideline to be checked but wasn’t out for long. Robinson insisted he did nothing wrong.

“It definitely wasn’t a dirty hit,” the cornerback said. “I’m not a dirty player.”

Gonzalez’s first TD catch was a thing of beauty — perhaps one of the best he’s ever made. In the back of the end zone, he reached up to snare the ball with his right hand and brought it down to his body just as he dragged a second foot inbounds

“I knew I had the catch,” said Gonzalez, who now has 1,081 career receptions. “I didn’t know if I had the feet down.”

Vick completed 19 of 28 for 242 yards, also going to Maclin on a 5-yard touchdown. In addition, the quarterback ran six times for 25 yards.

It wasn’t enough.

He’s just a visitor now.

___

Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at

Bookmark and Share