Play Sheet

by Playoff Predictors

Week 2 Game Changing Plays: Atlanta Falcons, NFC Front-Runners?

9 min read
1 year ago Bryan Knowles
Week 2's biggest plays of the week sees Bijan Robinson put the Falcons on his back, Jared Goff put the Seahawks into the end zone, and the referees put a shadow over Washington's win,

Falcons RB Bijan Robinson

PlaySheet’s look at the most significant plays of Week 2 finds itself focusing in on the NFC playoff picture. Despite the preseason hype that claimed the AFC was the stronger of the two conferences, only three undefeated teams remain in the junior conference. The NFC, meanwhile is tied in a tight knot, with seven undefeated teams shoved into three divisions; separation is hard to come by.

With that in mind — and some very tight games down to the wire on that side of the playoff picture — eight of the ten biggest plays from Sunday involved NFC teams scrambling for early playoff position. While Week 2 is still very early overall, wins in September count just as much as wins in December, and a key win over a big divisional rival while things are getting settled can make all the difference when breaking ties in three months. Here are your game changing plays from Week 2.

10. Isaiah Oliver Takes the Game in Hand

If you ignore preseason projections, the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams played in the most important game of the day — a battle of undefeated teams in the same division? Fantastic. And while the Rams were expected to be terrible and the 49ers expected to be Super Bowl contenders, Los Angeles gave their rivals to the North all they could handle behind what has been a surprisingly strong offense through two weeks. But in the second half, free agent nickel corner Isaiah Oliver stepped things up for San Francisco. He blew up potential Rams conversions on 3rd and 4th down with solid tackling, and came up with this interception on a ball that ricocheted off of Kyren Williams’ hands.

This was hardly Matthew Stafford’s fault, and he had gone 163 straight attempts without an interception, but this has been a common theme against the 49ers for him. Stafford has now thrown eight picks in his six starts against San Francisco since joining the Rams.

9. Nick Folk Does Not Miss

The Tennessee Titans gave up a seventh-round pick (in 2025, but still) to make sure they brought Nick Folk in to replace Michael Badgley. So far, so good — Folk has gone 7-for-7 on field goals, including this 41-yarder to win the game in overtime against the Los Angeles Chargers. It’s Folk’s 13th game-winning kick, including his fourth in overtime, as the veteran remains a steady, reliable presence. After 304 days, the Titans finally found themselves back in the win column.

We’ll get to what this means for the Chargers in the DOOM Index on Tuesday. It’s not good!

8. Antonio Gibson Redefines “Slip” Screen

In arguably the wildest game of the week, a massive Denver Broncos lead became a convincing Washington Commanders win became a nail-biter at the finish, and we’ll get to that last part in a moment. But we’ll start in the middle, as Washington capped off their comeback from down 21-3 as the fourth quarter began. The success rate on little screens thrown a good seven yards behind the line of scrimmage on 2nd-and-14 is very low, but Antonio Gibson gets a few blocks and goes off to the races, sending Essang Bassley and D.J. Jones sprawling to the turf before Justin Simmons is just able to grab him down after a gain of 36 yards. The play was well-designed — only one Bronco was on the left side of the field when Gibson caught it — but it was well-designed for a gain of, say, six or seven, not 36. That set up the Brian Robinson touchdown two plays later, and the Commanders never trailed again.

7. Don’t Draft Kickers (Except Jake Moody?)

The 49ers’ drive after Isaiah Oliver’s interception petered out with a 4th-and-7 at the Los Angeles 39. In the past, this was a probable pooch punt from Kyle Shanahan. Since arriving in San Francisco, his 49ers have only attempted four field goals of 55+ yards, and they’ve punted 22 times from inside the opponents’ 40 yard line, third-most in the league. That was before he used a third-round pick on kicker Jake Moody, however. If he’s ever going to possibly justify that draft pick, Moody is going to have to make a lot of kicks like, well, this one.

The 49ers never trailed again after the 57-yarder, the second-longest in franchise history. Moody also joined a pretty elite group. Since the merger, he is one of five kickers to make at least six field goals and six extra points without a miss in his first two games, joining Justin Tucker, Jason Elam, David Treadwell and Eddie Murray.

6. Keep Chopping Wood, Justin Fields

Now, fair is fair. This was an athletic play by Shaq Barrett to snag this Justin Fields pass, plunge into the end zone, and essentially end the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ win over the Chicago Bears — to go to 2-0, no less! Great play, good day for Tampa Bay.

But man, Justin Fields. He does not look significantly better in Year 3 than he did last year, or as a rookie. He’s still holding on to the ball for way, way too long, taking six sacks on the day. He’s not pushing the ball downfield, with a -5.7 ALEX — his average pass attempt is targeted nearly six yards in front of the line to gain. And this? The idea of throwing a middle screen from your own end zone down three isn’t great, showing a lack of faith in your line to block and your quarterback to get the ball out. And Barrett had it read all the way, putting a capper on this one.

5. Joe Burrow Isn’t Right

Joe Burrow says he tweaked his calf again during the Cincinnati Bengals’ loss to the Baltimore Ravens. But even before that, the Bengals were in a dogfight, struggling to find their offensive footing. They gained just 70 yards in the first half, but had begun to get things straightened out as the second half began. A big gain from Joe Mixon got them into Baltimore territory, a key Burrow throw got them into the red zone…and then he floated one up there that backup safety Geno Stone read all the way. Stone could have turned it into a pick-six, too, had he cut back inside. No matter — Lamar Jackson hit Zay Flowers for 52 yards on the next play, and found the end zone three plays after that. A 10-point swing, at least, in what ended up being a three-point Baltimore win.

4. Denver’s Hail Mary Goes Unanswered

This really a two-fer. Denver roared all the way back against Washington with a miracle Hail Mary; a Russell Wilson pass bouncing off of multiple hands into the arms of Brandon Johnson. That brought the score to 35-33, with the Broncos going for two and tie tie with zeroes on the clock. But Wilson’s pass to Courtland Sutton hit the turf, and Washington held on to win and go to 2-0.

That’s…that’s pass interference, right? Benjamin St-Juste seems to put a hand on Sutton’s shoulder too early and disrupts his ability to go get the ball. It’s not as clear-cut as Broncos fans would have it, but we have absolutely seen similar plays get flagged before. It’s hard to feel too bad for Denver after they gave up the 21-3 lead, but they probably should have had one more play here. Instead, they fall to 0-2, staring up at the rest of the division. And yet another win gets shuffled away from the AFC, as the NFC starts 6-0 against the other conference.

3. No Record for Jared Goff

Jared Goff was approaching history. He had 383 consecutive pass attempts without throwing an interception, third-most in NFL history behind 2018 Aaron Rodgers (402) and 2022 Tom Brady (399). Goff’s ability to avoid turnovers has been a major factor in Detroit’s recent success, both in the second half of 2022 and in the win over Kansas City in Week 1. But, just as Brady finally snapped his streak against Seattle, Goff’s record hopes were dashed by the Seahawks — his pass went behind Jahmyr Gibbs, and Tre Brown was ready to go off to the races to give Seattle a 10-point lead.

Detroit would tie the game up before Seattle won in overtime, and if we were doing game-changing drives, then Seattle’s overtime possession would slide here over the pick six. But Tyler Lockett’s game-winning six-yard touchdown only improved Seattle’s win percentage by about 17%; they could have at least kicked a field goal to take the lead and kept playing. The pick-six improved Seattle’s win percentage by just under 27%; Detroit was driving with intentions of at least tying things up if not taking the lead. While the 10-point lead would eventually be erased, at the moment, it was the bigger play.

2. and 1. Bijan Robinson and the Falcons Win the Day

We’re taking two plays from the Atlanta Falcons’ final drive as the biggest two of the day, in a battle between undefeated teams who very easily could end up in head-to-head competition for a wildcard berth in a few months.

It was a pretty darn good day for Bijan Robinson overall — 124 yards rushing on 19 carries, plus 48 more yards on four receptions. While he’s rotating with Tyler Allgeier more than his fantasy managers probably like, Robinson’s 6.5 yards per carry went a long way into helping a, shall we say, sluggish Atlanta passing attack come away with a victory over the Green Bay Packers.

The Falcons got the ball with 6:07 left, down two points. And they almost immediately ran into trouble, facing a third-and-3 on just the fourth play from scrimmage, just over midfield. The Falcons went empty, with Robinson splitting out wide against De’Vondre Campbell. Campbell, however, gave Robinson a huge cushion, and Desmond Ridder was able to find him wide open on a short slant to move the chains and keep the drive alive. Weird choice from the Green Bay defense to have a linebacker out there 10 yards off the ball on 3rd-and-3, and they got punished for it.

Four plays later, things got really interesting. Atlanta had the ball on the Green Bay 23, facing 4th-and-inches, with 2:07 remaining, with both teams having two time outs left. It is an entirely reasonable decision to attempt a field goal there, take the two-point lead (and hopefully drain the two-minute warning on the ensuing kickoff), counting on your defense to stop Jordan Love from throwing his fourth touchdown of the day. It was a very short fourth down, however. Per Ben Baldwin’s model, the Falcons had a 51.2% win probability by going for it, and just a 47.2% win probability with a field goal attempt. Smith went with the analytics and went for the kill, and while a pitch outside may not be the highest-odds play when you just need an inch, Robinson made it work. They didn’t end up getting the game-ending touchdown on the drive, but by converting, they bled both of the Packers’ remaining time outs and an additional 1:10 of clock. That put Green Bay in a much more perilous situation, and they were unable to rise to the challenge. Ballgame, 2-0 Falcons.

And you could argue that the win puts Atlanta first in the NFC. Tiebreakers are a little nebulous and ill-defined in September, but the Falcons are 1-0 in the NFC South compared to the Buccaneers’ 0-0, so that would put Atlanta on top there. And they are 2-0 in the conference, while the Cowboys and 49ers are each only 1-0. If you go by win percentage, Atlanta falls behind Dallas on the strength of victory tiebreaker, but two conference wins are better than one. One way or another, Atlanta has given notice that they’re legitimate playoff contenders this season, albeit in part because their division isn’t stellar.

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Bryan Knowles

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