If the Falcons Play Defense, Look Out

ATLANTA -- It was one game. They kept saying as much on Sunday inside of the mostly business-like home locker room at the Georgia Dome.

"Yeah, it's one game, so we don't get too hung up on what we just did," said John Abraham, among the Atlanta Falcons defenders who spent the majority of their NFL season opener keeping the Miami Dolphins listless, clueless and scoreless.

It was one game, all right, but this was a scary game for the rest of the league in general and the NFC South in particular.

Here's the deal: You already know the Falcons have an offense. If you don't, then consider the explosive likes of Matt Ryan, Tony Gonzalez, Michael Turner, Roddy White and the rest. So, if the Falcons really do have a defense, and if they show as much beyond what they flashed often along the way to their 19-7 smacking of Miami, then the Falcons enter the elite conversation with the New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Giants and San Diego Chargers.

Well, uh, hold that conversation. Let's give it one more game, definitely two. The Falcons play host next week to a Carolina Panthers bunch with suddenly awful quarterback Jake Delhomme (nine interceptions in his last two games, including last year's playoff disaster against the Arizona Cardinals). Then the Falcons travel to meet Thomas Edward Brady Jr. in New England after that.

That's when we'll know.

As for now, we know the Falcons' defense is different -- which is good because it can't be any worse than it was. Despite shocking the world and themselves last year by going 11-5 after their ugliness in 2007 (Michael Vick's dog fighting mess, Bobby Petrino bolting near the end of his first season as head coach to call Hogs in Arkansas, four victories, etc.), the Falcons couldn't stop people. In fact, some opponents are still torching a Falcons defense that finished last year relinquishing an average of 347 yards per game. That was 24th best in a 32-team league -- which isn't good, by the way.

Falcons officials responded by whacking five defensive starters, including locally sainted linebacker Keith Brooking who once was a perennial Pro Bowl player. The results were so wretched during exhibition games that -- well, just listen to Brooking's replacement, Mike Peterson, talking about his gathering with fellow old heads for the Falcons before the start of the regular season.

"The coaches can only do so much, man, and all of the successful teams have the veterans run things," said Peterson, entering his 11th NFL season after joining the Falcons as a free agent this spring. "When I say run the team, I mean to say the veterans monitor the team, which is what we decided to do. We have some great veterans, and we all pretty much knew that if this team was going to be run in the right direction, it basically was going to be run by us."

Sounds good. Actions are better.

Peterson was among the Falcons defensive stars who caused the Dolphins to lose three fumbles and who pressured quarterback Chad Pennington into four sacks and an interception. In addition to seven tackles, Peterson forced one of those fumbles and returned that interception 39 yards. Said Peterson, "The d-line, they played a great game, and that goes from Kroy Biermann to Abe (Abraham) to Babs (Jonathan Babineaux), and when they play a great game, the linebackers will have a great game, right on up the secondary."

There were the two sacks apiece for Abraham and Biermann. Plus, Babineaux recovered two of the Dolphins' fumbles. The other one (forced by Peterson) was snatched by cornerback Brian Williams and returned 53 yards.

And get this: The Falcons did all of that despite Dolphins' offensive coordinator Dan Henning going from cover to cover in his massive playbook. Henning is the guy who started the NFL's recent Wildcat craze last season. This time, he took it a step further with speedy newcomer Pat White in the formation on occasion when holdover Ronnie Brown wasn't. He tried an end-around, and a reverse, and a couple of plays that looked as if he drew them up on the floor of the dome with a magic marker.

Nothing worked. Not until the Dolphins mercifully found their way into the end zone with a 76-yard drive inside the final five minutes.

"If I was grading us overall, I think we would have had an 'A' if we would have kept them out of the end zone," said Peterson, shaking his head. "Right now, I'd probably give us a 'B' or a B-minus. To be a championship team, it's always about stopping the run, creating turnovers and getting off the field on third down."

The Falcons did all of that -- for one game.