After using the bye week to self-scout, one thing Atlanta Falcons coach Raheem Morris would like to see more from his offense: play action.
In 11 games, the Falcons have run play action on just 14 percent of dropbacks, tied for the league low (eight percent of all Atlanta plays were play-action passes, making them the only team under 10 percent through Week 12), per Next Gen Stats.
"It's something that we want to increase, something that we want to do better, something that we want to make more important, more a part of our game," Morris said, via the team's website.
Early in the season, Kirk Cousins' lack of mobility coming off an Achilles injury could have explained some of the club's lack of play-action passes. At this stage, that's not of concern.
Given that offensive coordinator Zac Robinson came from a Sean McVay-led offense that historically uses play action liberally, it's a surprise that the Falcons would use so little at this stage. For comparison, through Week 12, the Rams play-actioned at a 27.6 percent rate of dropbacks, the seventh-highest. It's of little surprise that the Detroit Lions, with a potent run game and Jared Goff at the helm, lead the NFL with 38.1 percent of dropbacks containing play action, per NGS.
With the run-action forcing linebackers to respect the potential handoff, the fake has proven to make life easier on quarterbacks. It's also something that Cousins does well. Since 2016, Cousins has a 24 percent play-action rate on dropbacks, 10th among all QBs over that span, per the Falcons' website.
Morris noted that the offense has built-in play-action passes but simply hasn't gotten to many of those calls.
"It just so happens that we have had success in so many different areas on offense when it came to passing the football in our dropback game, in our quick game or even running the football in any particular game," Morris said. "We didn't necessarily get to some of those calls.
"We have 'em, we got 'em. They've always been in our program and always will be a part of our program but its something that we definitely neglected it."
Given the presence of Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier, it's surprising the Falcons have neglected those plays. Coming out of the bye week against the Los Angeles Chargers, it makes sense to finally get them more involved as Atlanta clings to a one-game division lead.
