Falcons hold off late Titans assault to win 23-17 in Week 11 game – NFL Recap
A close fought encounter at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta saw the Atlanta Falcons run out 23-17 winners with a less than spectacular performance over the Tennessee Titans in game week 11 of the National Football League.
Both teams came into the encounter with completely different results from the previous week. The Titans were in full swing as they brushed aside the Carolina Panthers 30-3 in game week 10 of the National Football League while the Atlanta Falcons had succumbed to a painful 26-23 overtime loss to fierce division rivals New Orleans Saints after Coach Mike Smith made an unnecessarily risky decision to continue play on the fourth down and not send on his punting side.
The Titans were highly ineffective till late in the third quarter with quarterback Matt Hasselbeck struggling to cope as he completed just 13 passes out of 25 attempts for 124 yards and later took an injury to the elbow leading to his replacement by Rookie Jake Locker who very nearly led the Titans to an unlikely comeback win as the Falcons made life difficult for themselves in the final half.
Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan put in a mature performance running 316 yards and completing 22/32 passes to help the Falcons claw their way to victory.
The hosts took the lead at the 10:41 mark in the first quarter through Tony Gonzalez who did well to catch Matt Ryan’s wonderful 17 yard pass to score the game’s first touchdown.
Kicker Matt Bryant then scored two field goals from 19 and 33 yards respectively to increase the Falcons lead to 13-0 in the second quarter in a seven minute period. The Titans however finally got on the score sheet just before the end of the first half with Rob Bironas’ 46 yard field goal making it 13-3 with just two seconds left on the dial.
The third quarter saw the Falcons increase their lead to 23-3 as Michael Turner made a four yard dash to the Titans end-zone scoring a touchdown at 11:56 and Matt Bryant kicked in his third field goal of the game from 24 yards three minutes from time. A fateful elbow injury to Titans Quarter Back Matt Hasselbeck who went off the field with an icepack covering his throwing arm late in the third saw Rookie Jake Locker sent on by the Titans and he immediately looked confident in his technique sending a wonderful 40 yard pass to Nate Washington who scored the touchdown with aplomb two minutes from time.
The Titans looked galvanized by the presence of Locker who got his second pass for the touchdown again to Nate Washington in the fourth quarter at 3:06 to make it 17-23 as the Falcons just held on to win the game.
Locker was ecstatic at the chance to show his potential saying, "It was a lot of fun," said Locker, who was 9 of 19 for 140 yards. "I would have liked a better outcome, but it was fun to be out there competing."
Falcon’s Coach Mike Smith said of his team’s performance after the game, "We made it a little harder than it needed to be. There's a number of things we need to address, that we need to get fixed."
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