Mike Smith will now whittle down his roster and get ready for the Pittsburgh Steelers
Jacksonville outlasted Atlanta 17-9 Thursday night in the final game of the preseason with most of the marquis players for both teams sitting this one out.
Coach Mike Smith of the Atlanta Falcons decided to give most of his starters the night off in the final preseason game, giving players still fighting for spots on the final roster a chance to catch his eye.
All of his offensive starters watched from the sidelines, and seven of his defensive starters did not play.
The Falcons were able to move the ball on offense, outgaining the Jaguars 316-202. But the Falcons could only muster three Matt Bryant field goals to account for their points, going 0 for 3 in the red zone.
“We’ve got a lot of things we’ve got to correct,” Falcons coach Mike Smith said. “Preseason is for evaluating players, but it’s also for working on new things schematically that you want to integrate into your offense and defense and special teams for the upcoming season. We’ve got a lot of things we’ve got to get better at.”
Chris Redman started at quarterback and was able to move the ball, completing 15 of 22 passes for 142 yards.
Antone Smith and Jerious Norwood shared the load at running back, but Smith’s fumble in the second quarter led to the only touchdown of the game for the Jaguars and helped shift momentum.
Smith and the Falcons brass will now have to make their final roster decisions by Saturday and prepare for the team’s season opener against Pittsburgh next week.
“We haven’t started doing any game planning yet, Smith said.” We will start that tomorrow evening after we evaluate this tape and make our personal moves, but we have a lot of things we need to correct.