By Roddy White Thinks This Year’s Falcons Team is Different Because They Are More Focused and Have Better Players
December 12, 2012 – 8:45 am by Chris Fedor
The Atlanta Falcons are 11-2, they have wrapped up the NFC South, they have the inside track on the number one seed in the NFC and home-field advantage throughout the NFC Playoffs. However, it was tough to fully buy in to the Falcons, even before their embarrassing loss this past weekend against the Carolina Panthers. It’s tough to remove the playoff loss to Green Bay two years ago and the 24-2 butt-whooping they received from the Giants a year ago is also still front of mind. This weekend’s game against the Giants was supposed to be a bit of a revenge game for Atlanta after last season’s playoff loss but now, even though the Falcons have had such a tremendous season up until this point, they are trying to regroup and hoping to regain some momentum heading into the postseason.
Roddy White joined WCNN in Atlanta with Buck and Kincade to talk about whether he feels worse about the Falcon’s chances of making the playoffs after Sunday’s loss, on the offense not getting things going until he finally got the ball, what the difference is between this year’s team in December compared to teams of the past, on this weekend’s game against the Giants, whether he would like to rest late in the season if the team clinches early or continue to play and what he makes of Matt Ryan continuing to play well despite getting banged around a bit this season.
Do you feel any worse about your team’s chances of making the playoffs after Sunday’s loss?
“No, not at all. It’s just another game on the schedule. We always want to finish strong heading into the playoffs and that’s the thing that everybody takes away from us. Nobody thinks we’re going to win anyway, except for the guys in the locker room and the coaching staff. We don’t worry about the outsiders, we just know what we have to do in the locker room and the things that we have to fix. This Sunday will be a big game for us.”
On the offense getting it going when he finally got the ball:
“We just have to continue the flow. I think we got off to such a bad start and they did a good job of keeping the ball away from our offense. We sat there and going into halftime we only had 13 plays in the whole first half so it was kind of difficult for us to get anything going. We have a lot of problems we need to fix and when we have the opportunity to get the ball then we have to go down there and score.”
On the difference between this year’s team in December compared to team’s of the past:
“It’s just more focused and I think we have better players. Not to make any excuses, I don’t think we had all our guys, all our guns out there on Sunday so I’m hoping we can get all our guys healthy and back playing again right before the playoffs start so we can make a playoff run.”
On the importance of this weekend’s game against the Giants:
“Absolutely. This is a really, really big game for us, especially with them coming into our building and having to get the win. It would be a really big win for us because we will probably see these guys later on in the playoffs so we need to go out there and put on a good performance for our fans and for everybody, show everybody what we can do out there and what kind of team we are.”
If he would want to rest at the end of the year if the team clinches a playoff berth early or continue to put the pedal to the metal:
“I’d rather play pedal to the metal. You always want to go into the playoffs with your guns firing. You never want to go in with everybody relaxed and have that relaxed mentality, you want to get out there and get yourself going, get your energy flowing and go out there and win games. Have that confidence that you had running into the playoffs. That’s been the trend the last couple of years. Everyone has gotten hot at the end of the season and went on to win the Super Bowl so we want to continue to go out there and play well.”
On Matt Ryan’s play despite getting battered around recently:
“He’s doing a heck of a job. Week in and week out he takes a beating and gets right back up. He’s a special kind of guy. He’s out there every week and we depend on that guy because he is our leader and as long as he continues to do that, get back up and still make the throws that he makes then we will be fine.”
Listen to Roddy White on WCNN in Atlanta here
Tags: 2012 NFL Playoffs, Atlanta Falcons, NFL, Roddy White, WCNN
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