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Falcons Will Retool for the 2016 Season
Julio Jones and Devonta Freeman Represent the Falcons at the Pro Bowl January 31 in Hawaii
The Atlanta Falcons will have to wait until the next football year to pursue a winning season after losing to their arch rivals the New Orleans Saints 20-17 at the Georgia Dome on Sunday and failing to reach post season play. The season started out very promising as the home team went 5-0 before losing six in a row.
A few bright spots emerged as stand out wide receiver Julio Jones completed the season with 1,871 yards and 136 catches passing Jerry Rice who had 1848 yards in 1995. He and Devonta Freeman who finished the season with n 1,061 yards rushing will represent the Falcons in the Pro Bowl January 31, 2016 in Honolulu,Hawaii . Falcons fulback Patrick DeMarco will represent the team in the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. The winner of that award will be announced during half time at the Super Bowl.
Ending with a record of 8-8 the team coach and quarterback acknowledged shortfalls and how the off season will be spent making changes to make the team better next season. Most of this season was marred by failure to execute in the red zone, turnovers,penalties and infractions.
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” That will begin tomorrow in terms of the evaluation process,” Falcons first year Coach Dan Quinn said in a post game press conference. “We’ve got a lengthy process that we want to go through in terms of finding ways to do things better in every way. That’ll be an important part of what’ll take place this week.
Falcons Quarter Back Matt Ryan who had a difficult season said “ When you don’t have an opportunity to keep playing into the playoffs and you didn’t play as well as you would like, obviously that’s disappointing. There will be some things that I think we can correct. I think there were a lot of positives, a lot of really good things we did this year, but at the end of the day, we didn’t do them often enough and I didn’t do them often enough.”
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The 2016 schedule has the Falcons pitted at home against their regular division opponents Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New Orleans Saints, Carolina Panthers and Green Bay Packers, Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers, Kansas City Chiefs and San Diego Chargers.
Away games are against the division teams Carolina Panthers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New Orleans Saints, and the Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks, St. Louis Rams, Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders.
Photos by Terrance Carter and Jerome Dorn.