With owner Arthur Blank making weekly proclamations about his dissatisfaction about the team’s play, it feels like coach Mike Smith is going to need a winning streak to break out pretty soon if he’s going to assure himself of having a job come 2015.
One thing that would make such a winning streak more likely is a bigger contribution from wide receiver Roddy White. That’s according to White, who feels that his play hasn’t been up to snuff in the early part of the season. White says he’s “gotten off to a really slow start” and said he hasn’t been playing “Roddy White football” thus far.
“When you go out there and practice and execute plays and things come up that way in a game and you don’t get it done, it’s frustrating on your behalf because all my career I’ve made those plays,” White said, via ESPN.com. “Right now, I’m just not making them. It’s frustrating for me that I feel like I’m letting my team down in those circumstances. I’ve got to do a better job of just helping everybody else around the offense; just going out there and making the plays that they design for me to make.”
White turns 33 next month, an age that sees many receivers start to slow down. The Falcons didn’t think that would be the case when they signed White to an extension through 2017, but his middling production -- 19 catches for 253 yards -- and recent history of nagging injuries have told a different story so far in 2014. With the offensive line already an issue that’s hard to fix on the fly, Atlanta needs that story to play out differently the rest of the way.