Matt Ryan, Arthur Smith Believe In Better Things For Grounded Falcons

"I'm not trying to be a martyr here. That's my job as head coach. I'm responsible for the entire team. When you go out there and you have those self-inflicted wounds right there, that's a problem."

There may have been no bigger disappointment in Week One of the NFL season than the Atlanta Falcons. (With apologies to the Green Bay Packers, Buffalo Bills and Urban Meyer.)

The Falcons really stunk up the joint in a 32-6 hammer job of a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. The team failed to generate any offense and barely put up a fight on defense. Other than that, things were great.

But hey, it's just one game, says everyone who lost in Week One. And Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan is no different.

"We’re capable of moving the ball efficiently," Ryan told reporters, via D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

You'd never know it, as the Falcons looked like an unorganized mess under new coach Arthur Smith, formerly the Tennessee Titans' offensive coordinator.

"I'm going to evaluate everything," Smith said after the loss. "Whether we win or lose, we gotta turn it around. We got 16 more of these things. ... I've been in worse situations. The narratives write themselves. We had won, you can write the narratives. You lose. Neither one of them are true because we got a long journey ahead of us, and we gotta get better."

Ryan seems to think the Falcons can do just that. But it will be interesting to see how quickly it happens. Sooner rather than later would be a good idea, as a date with the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers awaits Sunday.

This time, a loss won't be such a big disappointment. But a bad loss will make you wonder how far things have actually fallen in Atlanta.