The Atlanta Falcons aren’t going to the playoffs. A six-game losing streak early in the season settled that issue.
However, to coach Dan Quinn’s credit, they aren’t blatantly tanking the season’s remaining games in an effort to improve draft positioning. They are 4-2 during the season’s second half with road wins over two playoff-bound teams, the New Orleans Saints and San Francisco 49ers.
Atlanta will try to keep its late-season run of success going Sunday when it hosts the Jacksonville Jaguars, another team looking for some wins to take the edge off another non-playoff year.
The Falcons (5-9) scored a wacky 29-22 win last week over the 49ers, scoring two touchdowns in the final 12 seconds. Julio Jones caught a 5-yard touchdown pass on a play in which he was originally ruled down inside the 1-yard line as time expired, and Olamide Zaccheaus recovered a fumble for a TD on a multi-lateral kickoff return on the game’s final play.
“That was awesome,” Quinn said. “At the end, game on the line, those are the moments as a coach that you totally live for. It makes you feel most alive.”
On paper, there seems to be hope for a turnaround 2020 season in Atlanta. The Falcons have a top-10 passing game and a defense that has made strides over the season’s second half, thanks to solid work from linebacker De’Vondre Campbell.
He leads the team with 117 tackles, including 68 solo stops, and has two interceptions to go with three forced fumbles. Campbell recovered one of his forced fumbles in San Francisco, quashing a 49ers drive deep in Falcons territory.
“He was just ready to answer every challenge thrown his way,” Quinn said. “Another good thing for him is the production that he’s had over the last few games. There have been sacks, there have been interceptions, forced fumbles.”
Meanwhile, Jacksonville (5-9) snapped a five-game losing streak last week with its own dramatic rally. Down 16-6 with just over five minutes left in Oakland, the Jaguars used two short touchdown passes from rookie quarterback Gardner Minshew to Chris Conley to grab a 20-16 win and ruin the Raiders’ farewell to the Bay Area.
It was a much-needed result for a team that entertained playoff hopes at midseason before getting blown out by at least 17 points during all five games of its year-defining skid.
“I’ve been on some teams where we’ve hit these types of losing streaks and one or two guys are shutting it down,” Jacksonville coach Doug Marrone said. “Then all of a sudden it’s three or four and it’s going through the team. My whole thing is the players have worked, and the coaches have worked.”
That Sunday win was greatly overshadowed Wednesday night, when Jaguars owner Shad Khan fired executive vice president Tom Coughlin. Khan said he was planning to make the move at season’s end, but recent events changed that decision.
News of the firing came two days after the NFL Players Association won a grievance against the Jaguars through an NFL arbiter, regarding whether the team had the right to fine players for not rehabbing at team facilities during the offseason. The NFLPA issued a lengthy statement condemning the Jaguars’ practices and advising future free agents to be wary of the team.
An NFLPA memo said that more than 25 percent of player grievances in the last two years were filed against the Jaguars and that former defensive end Dante Fowler was fined more than $700,000 for missing what the team termed mandatory rehabilitation and medical appointments during the 2018 offseason.