re: Falcons are about to Falcon

What I don't understand is why these teams sit there and get a sizeable lead and then drop back into what basically amounts to prevent defense. Allowing the offense to nickel and dime their way down the field, which in I'd say 90% of drives end in points. Sure it takes time off the clock, but a couple of things happen with this defensive mind frame:

A.) Your defense still has to act like they care, and they stay on the field for anywhere between 4-8 minutes.

B.) Your offense gets the ball and does nothing more than simply run the ball on 3 downs taking up all of maybe two minutes.

C.) So now you have your defense back out there again looking to just bend but not break and not allowing the big play.. So they are out there for an extended time which makes them even more tired.

Now all of a sudden, after two possessions for each team, your offense has to throw the ball to move the chains but comes up limp dicking it and goes 3 and out on 3 incomplete passes. Your defense is extremely gassed, and the opposition has had two previous scoring drives and a ton of confidence. Who do you think wins in that scenario 9 times out of 10?

That is exactly what happened to Atlanta yesterday. They got way too comfortable with the lead and went into the bend but don't break defense and it came back to bite them on the arse hard. If we never run some variation of prevent defense with a lead ever again, it would still be too soon.