Make no mistake Atlanta Falcons Womens Hoodie , ladies and gents. Atlanta losing Keanu Neal and Deion Jones within a week’s time to the no man’s land of injured reserve stings like a horde of killer bees. But it should not sink Atlanta’s season. Microscopic miseryLooking at these injuries up close, it’s nasty. Neal will miss all of 2018 with an ACL tear, something he can bounce back from personally but something the team can’t do a whole lot about. He was an enforcer in coverage and in run support, a figure with no parallel on the roster. Neal’s absence changes the way the team will defend the ground game and in how they’ll cover tight ends. Thankfully, De’Vondre Campbell can take care of those pesky TEs, while Ricardo Allen will likely slide over to play Neal’s spot. Damontae Kazee will play free safety, a vision that some of you have been dreaming of for some time. Allen’s a good run defender and sure tackler and can contribute in coverage. ‘Twas not meant to be for Keke this year, and you can’t completely recover for what he brought to the table. But you could survive it and still win games. Jones’ injury is a much different story. The loss of Deion JonesHe’s the field general and the communicator of that front seven and an elite player. Besides Allen, he’s the reason the defense sticks together. He was getting better against the run and was already a nightmare in coverage. He could change games with his knack for big plays. Like Neal, this is not a player you replace. Plus, the plan to replace him is not nearly as comforting. Duke Riley will more than likely slide over to play the middle while Foye Oluokun will jump in at the weakside. Campbell reportedly will also man that spot, but we can’t imagine he’d go there permanently iwth his duties on the strongside also needing his presence. Neither player really has proven much to grant a boatload of confidence, though Riley looks to be improving and Oluokun has impressed in camp and preseason. There be uncharted waters for this unit ahead until Jones can perhaps get back in mid-November once his time on IR is up.That hope of an Atlanta behemoth on defense will have to wait while everyone heals up. There is still a lot of talent here, but it look like more of a solid defense without Deion and Keanu out there. Much better than those wet noodle defenses from 2015 and 2016, but not quite as intimidating as what the team fielded last season, either. Atlanta should pull through this...emphasis on should Look at the rest of the roster. On paper, the Falcons still have one of the league’s best offense, and the defense still has guys like Grady Jarrett, Desmond Trufant, Allen, Robert Alford Womens Customized Atlanta Falcons Jerseys , Kazee, Takkarist McKinley, Vic Beasley and Deadrin Senat. There’s still talent in them hills. Now, it’s up to the coaching to fill in the gaps. The best teams can survive injuries, even to some of their best players. Heck, the Eagles won a Super Bowl without its starting QB, middle linebacker and left tackle. The Patriots made the Super Bowl last year without MLB Dont’a Hightower post-October. The Broncos went to the Super Bowl in 2013 without Von Miller healthy. Good teams have found ways to overcome the losses of star players since the dawn of football. If, Freddie Falcon forbid, Matt Ryan or Julio Jones went down, I’d tell you to get your affairs in order for 2018. Deion and Keanu, well, those guys are sure important, but only Keanu is out permanently. You not only can survive these losses, you should be able to. The Falcons were never as good as we all hoped they were if they can’t figure out a way to at least survive these injuries. They should still be a really good football team with a great offense and good defense that can beat anyone in the NFL. If they’re not, that’s not because two guys are missing, though it’s a real factor. It’s because the coaching isn’t covering the cracks, as it does with all the best football teams. Steve Sarkisian should be able to field a top-10 offense with that roster. Dan Quinn and Marquand Manuel should still be able to field a top-15/20 defense with this talent. Sure, the expectations for the latter dwindle without two of its top players, but it shouldn’t fall back into shambles, particularly with Jones back hopefully sooner than later. The Falcons can’t always have it easy when it comes to injuries. They have to grind it out when the going gets tough and guys to down. Maybe these losses will make them tougher. Maybe these losses will expose more of a fair-weather Falconry than any of us hoped to see. Maybe they are up to this. Maybe they never were. If anything, losing Debo and Keke will reveal the truth about this Falcons team. Getting through this proves they really are (and were) one of the best football teams in the league. Floundering at the loss of two non-quarterback players proves that they were always a Philly end zone away from being where they want to be.Falcons-Panthers rapid reactions: The offense is back and the defense will shuffle It wasn’t even a full hour ago that we saw the Falcons beat the Panthers 31-24 www.falconscheapshops.com , but games this close and this interesting warrant some additional quick analysis, before we’ve had time to settle and let attitudes congeal. Here are some of our all over the place reactions to the Falcons-Panthers game in Week 2.The offense looked greatCarolina’s defense is no slouch, but the Falcons hung 31 points on them and ran for well over 100 yards, with Tevin Coleman alone piling up that total. Ito Smith looked tremendous, Calvin Ridley took off, and with the exception of a handful of annoying play calls, Steve Sarkisan wound up putting together an effective gameplan. That’s exactly what we all needed to see to feel better about this football team. Sark’s willingness to be aggressive and put the Falcons in position to run the ball against a strong Carolina front seven and take deep strikes against their secondary was a big part of the season the Falcons won, period. The execution was also miles better than it was against the Eagles, with Matt Ryan throwing more accurate passes and relatively few miscues, though I’m sure Austin Hooper wishes he could have that terrible block that caused Ryan to get hit and miss a deep Julio throw back. The Falcons play a worse defense next week in the Saints, and if they are relatively healthy heading into that one and Sark’s comfortable with this offense, we ought to see more of the same.The pass rush needs helpCam Newton is tough to bring down and can avoid pressure, but the Falcons were facing a laughably bad offensive line and managed less pressure than they should have had. For the second straight week, we saw Brian Poole and Takkarist McKinley get sacks, but we saw little else.The Falcons can’t survive on that against some of the NFL’s better defenses. They need more from Vic Beasley, more from the interior of the defensive line, and probably more from the secondary to let that pass rush get home. The defense wasn’t great but did a solid job today, but that lack of a pass rush is a problem that legitimately worries me. Duke Riley’s going to be contending for his jobIn a more leisurely season, Riley would be competing for a starting job over the course of weeks and even months. The Falcons would work with him on technique and angles, they’d give him extended run, and then determine if they needed to make him a reserve.In this season Atlanta Falcons T-Shirt , with so much at stake and so many injuries, that may not happen. I’ll need to watch the game again, but on first blush Riley had the kind of game that was once wielded as a cudgel against Paul Worrilow. He was around the ball a lot and piled up the second-highest number of tackles against the Panthers, but he also had at least one bad missed tackle and ceded playing time to Foye Oluokun on that last, crucial drive of the game. Nothing would make me happier than Riley proving to be an amazing third round pick, locking down the spot in Deion Jones’ absence, and then stepping confidently back into a starting WILL role on Debo’s return. While that possibility is still on the table, though, I think he’s going to be looking over his shoulder the next couple of weeks. The Falcons didn’t get dejectedThat last drive was terrifying, but we saw the Falcons exhibit resilience today, and that resilience certainly matters. At times last year and even in the first game, you could see the game slipping away from Atlanta, and it felt like despite their obvious talent they wouldn’t be able to catch up. In this one, they fell behind early and then fiercely rallied and blew by Carolina in demoralizing fashion, with everyone from Ryan to Robert Alford showing out to hold onto the lead. With the number of injuries they’ve had and the expectations for Sarkisian, the Falcons could’ve folded neatly into the narrative that has been built for them. But they didn’t, and that’s a good sign going forward.