ATLANTA – The word “identity” swirled around the Atlanta Falcons’ locker room on Sunday evening. Winless at home this season and, more often than not, outnumbered in their own stands, the Falcons' defense knew the assignment started with them.
“Identity is a good word,” head coach Kevin Stefanski said. “You can talk about it until you're blue in the face, and you can put it on a T-shirt, but we gotta go do it. We gotta go be who we say we are, and I thought today we did that.”
They were tasked with slowing down an undefeated San Francisco 49ers team that, despite a depleted wide receiver room, was loaded with stars. Christian McCaffrey, Brock Purdy, George Kittle, and an overpowering offensive line are more than enough for Kyle Shanahan's wizardry. His unit was third in scoring offense (29.5) and second in EPA/play (+0.16).
“That’s a great offense, great coaches, and a quarterback and team playing as well as anybody in this league,” Stefanski said about the 49ers. “So, you’re not going to shut them out. We understood it was going to be a 60-minute game.”
After the first three possessions, it looked like the Falcons would be just another team the 49ers checked off en route to a playoff run. They raced to a 14-3 lead and piled up 150 yards, with Christian McCaffrey nearly hitting 100 yards on his own.
San Francisco was in full control.
The Falcons’ defensive identity had wavered in recent weeks. Against the 49ers, it held.
“We didn't have the first half that we would like,” defensive lineman Gervon Dexter Sr. said. “To come out and make those adjustments and do some of those things and fix some of those things and come out, that takes a detailed team.”
Atlanta never fully shut down the 49ers, but they punished them for every mistake. San Francisco outgained Atlanta by 105 yards, but the Falcons forced four turnovers, including on both of their final two possessions, plus another turnover on downs. They sacked Purdy twice, defended seven passes, and finished with six tackles for loss.
The Falcons’ defense gave the 49ers everything they could handle.
“We want to get off the field early enough, so we're going to be able to make the big plays, the game-changing plays,” Maason Smith said. “We want to continue on that road throughout the rest of the season.”
And after running for 105 yards in the first half, San Francisco managed just 18 rushing yards in the second. A hampered McCaffrey played a role, but so did this Atlanta defense's mentality.
“They're a team that prides themselves on running the ball, and everything we do is centered around stopping the run,” linebacker Josh Woods said. “They got some leaky yards, whatever. They had some good runs. But it was definitely an identity game. It was a heavyweight fight.”
The Falcons had plenty of heroes, including safety Jessie Bates III and rookie linebacker Kendal Daniels, but this was a total team win for this defense. Woods believes this group earned some of that respect on Sunday.
Now, the challenge is doing that again.
“It’s an identity game every week,” cornerback A.J. Terrell Jr. said, “and just being able to go out and do what we practice all week, and just going out there trying to prove us right. Prove we are who we are. So, every week is an identity game.”
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