By: Kenneth Harrison

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

We are more than halfway through the NFL season. We are learning who the contenders and pretenders are.

We have to classify the Atlanta Falcons as pretenders. They played the Colts (8-2) in Berlin and lost in overtime, 31-25. This is their fourth straight loss.

“We had plenty of opportunities to win it,” Falcons coach Raheem Morris said. “We’ve just got to find a way to get better, whether it’s stopping the run, whether it’s covering kicks better, returning the ball better or converting on third down — all the things that kind of hurt us today.”

Michael Penix completed 12 of 28 passes for 177 yards and a touchdown. That means he completed 43% of his passes. That’s not good enough. He also holds onto the ball too long.

“We’ve just got to stay together,” Penix said. “We’ve got to stay together, continue to trust in our game plan each and every week. We’ve just got to execute when it’s needed the most.”

The Falcons took a 25-22 lead with 1:44 left in regulation after Tyler Allgeier scored his second rushing touchdown. The defense allowed Colts running back Jonathan Taylor to have the best day of his career. He had an 83-yard TD run that is the longest rush of the season, his career and in Colts’ franchise history. He finished with 244 rushing yards and 3 scores.

“Mike played well,” Morris said. “Mike played well, like he always does.”

I’m assuming the head coach is trying to protect his second-year QB but Penix does not always play well. We can just take this last game as an example. We can also point to Week 3 when they lost 30-0 at Carolina.

Atlanta has now fallen to 3-6. I think one issue is they seem to play to the level of their competition. I used the blowout loss to the Panthers earlier as an example. In Week 8 they played Miami at home. The Dolphins were 1-6 entering that game and they beat Atlanta 34-10. Penix was injured so Kirk Cousins was the starter but that is still a team they should beat.

In Week 6 they beat Buffalo at home on Monday Night Football, 24-14. The Bills were 4-1 going into that game. Atlanta played much better against a team that is thought to be a Super Bowl contender. After this game Buffalo beat Kansas City then got blown out by Miami.

We are only in Morris’ second season but I think Atlanta needs to look at moving on from him as soon as possible. They finished 8-9 last season and came within one game of making the playoffs. The way this season is going I don’t think they have a chance of making the playoffs. I think the old Jim Mora rant about playoffs should be played if anyone on this team talks about getting to the post season.

Their next three games are Carolina (5-5), at New Orleans (2-8) and at the New York Jets (2-7). On paper these are games that they should win but we cannot count on that with this team.

I think they have to win all of these games before heading into Week 14 against Seattle (7-2). The following week is at Tampa Bay (6-3).

We will have to see how this plays out but I think the franchise would be smart to fire Morris and bring in a good coaching candidate sooner rather than later.