Running Game | Atlanta Falcons Tickets

Falcons Shoot for a Rarity: A Playoff Win

Since 2008, when Mike Smith became head coach and Thomas Dimitroff became general manager, the Falcons have had four consecutive winning seasons. But that next step for the franchise has been onto an ice-covered ledge. They are 0-2 in the playoffs, with a and a .

“It’s about time we won, it’s about time we got a W,” said wide receiver Roddy White, who has been with the organization since 2005. “Everybody wants to win really, really bad, and get that first one out of the way.”

Asked what a playoff loss to the Giants on Sunday would mean, White said: “It’ll be devastating because this will be our third opportunity and we came up short. It’ll be tough for a whole ’nother six months.”

The franchise did not give up four draft picks and swap first-round selections in the 2011 draft with Cleveland to sixth over all, only to be flattened against the same ceiling. The Falcons drafted the explosive Jones and signed the pass-rush specialist Ray Edwards to break through and close the gap with Green Bay and New Orleans, the two dominant teams in the N.F.C.

The , but they beat just two teams with winning records, Detroit and Tennessee. They were clobbered on the road by New Orleans, 45-16, yet fought the Saints and the Packers at home before losing close games to both.

The Falcons have skill on offense with quarterback Matt Ryan, tight end Tony Gonzalez, running back Michael Turner, and White, but the running game and the red-zone offense have wobbled at times, and the defense lacks a star in the secondary.

On Sunday at MetLife Stadium, the Falcons understand that they will be branded as just another team, or a really good team.

“There’s a lot of pressure to win, and to relieve that pressure, we need to win a playoff game,” offensive tackle Tyson Clabo said. “We’re not just trying to win one playoff game, we’re trying to win four. If we win one and then lose, it’s just as disappointing to us.

“The goal is the . If you don’t get there, what’s the difference between losing Sunday or losing another game after that?”

Turner said the Falcons could not let the stage Sunday overwhelm them. They cannot have wide eyes and rabbit ears, and become distracted.

He was asked what the Falcons learned from two playoff losses. “Play smarter in those games; we made some critical mistakes,” Turner said. “Don’t let the games get too big for us.”

Turner said that although the Falcons were a young team in the past, “I think we have the experience under us now that we can actually make a push.”

The Falcons went 43 seasons without having back-to-back winning seasons, but the climate has changed significantly. They are long past being lampooned, and are instead seen as reliable and trustworthy because of Smith, Dimitroff and the owner Arthur Blank.

The Falcons are not as beloved here as the University of Georgia football program, or Southeastern Conference football in general, but the momentum from season after season of being a Super Bowl contender — and a playoff win or two — can change the status of the brand. The organization wants to use some public money to build a $750 million open-air stadium in the next five to six years to replace the outdated Georgia Dome, and postseason success can only make that a smoother path.

White said the message from Smith this week was that the Falcons had plenty of seasoning to win a playoff game on the road. They have 41 players on their 53-man roster who have playoff experience, and that is something to lean on.

“It’s time for everyone to take their game to the next level,” White said. “We’ve all played in playoff games, so it’s time for us to go win one.”

THE FIFTH DOWN; Defenses Give Edge to the Giants and the Steelers

Lions (10-6) at Saints (13-3)

Saturday, 8 p.m.

Line: Saints by 10.5

From the birth of the N.F.L. until 1960, no quarterback ever threw for more than 3,000 yards. As recently as 1997, it was still possible for Jeff George to lead the league with less than 4,000 yards passing: 3,917, to be exact. For most of football’s history, a 3,000-yard season was an accomplishment, 4,000 yards were a feat and 5,000 yards marked the distance from home to the nearest hardware store, not an attainable passing goal.

Saturday will mark the first time that two quarterbacks who threw for over 5,000 yards in a season will face each other. While Drew Brees – who broke Dan Marino’s single-season record by throwing for 5,476 yards – is getting his due as one of the league’s best passers, Matthew Stafford (5,038) could not even muster a Pro Bowl selection. Stafford’s numbers are partially a reflection of passing inflation, but he has also been unfairly overshadowed this season, not just by Brees and Aaron Rodgers, the favorite to be the N.F.L.’s most valuable player, but by his own team’s tortuous climb out of a decade-long funk, the acrobatic excellence of his best receiver and his defense’s attempt to jump-start the economy by increasing the demand for yellow penalty flags.

When the Lions have the ball The Lions use shotgun formations on 68 percent of all offensive plays, the highest percentage in the N.F.L. (the league average is 40.1 percent). Stafford’s primary weapon, Calvin Johnson, was the third-most targeted receiver in the league with 158 passes. (Atlanta’s Roddy White and New England’s Wes Welker finished first and second.) Johnson compensates for the Lions’ poor running game by doubling as the team’s top threat in the red zone: he has caught nine touchdowns passes on plays that start inside the 20-yard line. Tight ends Brandon Pettigrew and Tony Scheffler also make great short-yardage options (10 combined red-zone targets), and they work underneath so the rookie receiver Titus Young can supplement Johnson as a deep threat. The Lions have running backs, but they ignore them, and you can, too.

Gregg Williams’s blitz-heavy defense yielded just 33 sacks and 16 takeaways this season. Only the Patriots and the Packers allowed more passing yards than the Saints, and they compensated by producing 31 and 23 interceptions to the Saints’ nine. Many of those passing yards were the result of opponents trying to keep pace with the Saints’ offense, but Williams does not have the same manpower he had when the Saints reached the Super Bowl two years ago.

When the Saints have the ball Whole articles can be filled with impressive Brees statistics, but we will settle for one: his completion percentage over the last three seasons is 69.9, better than all but three quarterbacks have ever mustered in a single season. Sean Payton’s offense makes the most of Brees’s accuracy and ability to distribute the ball to legions of potential targets. Nine different players have caught at least 10 passes for the Saints this season, led by Jimmy Graham, a college basketball forward turned mismatch nightmare at tight end. Despite their reputation as a pass-happy team, the Saints often line up in the I-formation and pound the ball. Saints running backs combined for 2,127 yards, and Brees’s long touchdown throws are often set up by play-fakes.

The Lions’ notorious defensive line recorded just 36 sacks this season, though they committed 43 penalties in the process. The Lions rarely blitz, so while their sack totals are low, Cliff Avril, Ndamukong Suh, Kyle Vanden Bosch and their linemates provide enough pressure for Jim Schwartz to keep seven defenders back in coverage, minimizing the risk of breakdowns.

Pick In what will probably be a shootout, the Lions’ inability to run the football and their tendency to spot opponents 100 penalty yards will matter much more than their lack of postseason experience. Saints

Bengals (9-7) at Texans (10-6)

Saturday, 4:30 p.m.

Line: Texans by 3

Michael Turner, Falcons Back, Still Shoulders Load

“I’m from Chicago,” Turner said with a grin. “I’ve played in some weather before. Finesse? Give me a break.”

The Falcons (10-6) have been nothing close to a finesse team in the four years Turner has played in Atlanta, including this season, when the team mixed into its scheme the fascinating and fast rookie wide receiver Julio Jones. There were assumptions that the Falcons were going to change their identity as a one-cut, downhill-run team when they acquired Jones, an all-American from Alabama, but Turner is still the 247-pound billboard of the Falcons’ offense.

Despite dealing with a groin strain, Turner carried the ball 301 times this season, second in the league to Jacksonville’s Maurice Jones-Drew (343). Because of Turner, who rushed for 1,340 yards this season, the Falcons have a varied offense that does not have to put every game in the hands of quarterback Matt Ryan.

“To me that has been the most misrepresented statement about us, that we lost our identity,” said Thomas Dimitroff, Atlanta’s general manager, who signed Turner to a six-year contract in 2008. “I started hearing that earlier in the season. We never lost our identity. We are based around a strong running game. We have always talked about working down the middle of the field. When we acquired Julio, we never had plans to go away from having Michael run the rock.”

Turner, who averaged 4.5 yards per carry this season, has run the ball more than 300 times in three of the four seasons he has been in Atlanta. Only Tennessee’s Chris Johnson (5,645) and Minnesota’s Adrian Peterson (5,411) have more rushing yards in the last four seasons than Turner (5,281).

When Turner went five consecutive games without a 100-yard game in the second half of this season, some theorized that he was wearing down and that maybe the Falcons needed to develop a more fancy offense. Turner is 29 and spent four years in San Diego (2004 to 2007) as a backup to LaDainian Tomlinson. Punishing blows make a short shelf life for an running back, and this is Turner’s eighth season.

“I’m not wearing down,” he said. “We just lost some of our chemistry there for a few games. It fell off a little bit; hopefully we have our consistency back.”

Ovie Mughelli, a Pro Bowl fullback in 2010, was placed on injured reserve Oct. 25 with a knee injury and the Falcons lost some traction in their run game. They seemed to reconstitute the running game last Sunday against Tampa Bay, when Turner ran for 172 yards, albeit against a team that lost its last 10 games of the season.

“It was great to see Michael Turner get back on track,” Coach Mike Smith said. “We knew that our run game had been trending down over the last four or five weeks. It was something that we looked at very closely.”

The Falcons put Turner on a routine in which he was not practicing Wednesdays and Thursdays, and he looked fresh against the Bucs. He dashed 81 yards for a score, and defenders tried to avoid head-on collisions on his way down the field.

Turner is the essence of the Falcons because they are designed to be a fourth-quarter team. They want to run the ball and limit possessions, keeping the score down, and to chew up a defense. Atlanta has a veteran field-goal kicker, Matt Bryant, so it can win those low-scoring games.

The running game is so effective that the Falcons are also able to use play-action on first down to fake a run and throw a pass. They patiently poke around with the run, and while other teams might want to show off their playbook, the Falcons will come back to successful rushing plays.

The opponents who have been successful against the Atlanta ground game, like Jacksonville, stay in a base front on defense and do not move around. They want to make Turner cut back abruptly and know how to fit against the Falcons’ blocking so they have two tacklers coming straight to the point of attack.

Turner is the antidote to the Giants’ pass rush because his early-down gains can keep the Falcons out of bad situations, like third-and-7s.

“Things have always worked out for me,” Turner said. “I was never worried this season about being that piece, not being that piece. I’m a guy who waits his turn and tries to be part of the team.”