After notching their first win of the season, the Falcons have turned their attention to the Cleveland Browns, who will be making the trip to Atlanta in Week 4. This won’t be an easy game, even with Deshaun Watson suspended and Myles Garrett potentially out.
To win on Sunday, the Falcons will need all of their offensive weapons to step up, including running back Cordarrelle Patterson. In Week 3, Patterson racked up 153 total yards, with a career-best 141 rushing yards.
Coming into the season, few thought the 31-year-old would be able to replicate his 2021 success. Falcons head coach Arthur Smith said that Patterson’s declining play over the second half of the season didn’t concern him.
“You evaluate everything and put together a plan, really how we wanted to manage the offseason and training camp but there’s still an art to it right now,” said Smith. “He’s playing really good football and Tyler is doing a good job right now supplementing some carries.”
Patterson caught fire early last season but fizzled out down the stretch. The former kick returner only topped 50 rushing yards once over the final five games of the season. Smith said the numbers don’t tell the whole story.
“That’s why I think numbers can be deceiving at times and I don’t sit there and make excuses but, privately, I thought we had a lot of progress at the end of the season, we ran the ball better,” explained Smith. “You know, there was a couple stretches there, starting with Jacksonville, against some pretty good run fronts.”
Starting with the Jacksonville contest, the Falcons ran into three of the top four run defenses, which does explain why the running game would slow down the way it did. Despite these challenges, Smith explained that he could see the progress behind the scenes.
“A lot of things we changed behind the scenes. I won’t go into it schematically, but when you do that, I knew there would be a little bit of short term pain and that’s why you stick with it,” stated Smith. “You can see progress privately, and that’s why you don’t jerk the wheel all the time.”
