Will the Atlanta Falcons stick with Taylor Heinicke at quarterback?

ATLANTA — There are a little more than two hours until kickoff and Mercedes-Benz Stadium is relatively quiet except for typical game day chatter among players, coaches, staff and insiders before until the music begins to sound.

Sitting alone on the Atlanta Falcons bench, Taylor Heinicke wears a camouflage Falcons hat and a football in his hands.

The other quarterbacks, Desmond Ridder and Logan Woodside, began their warmups on the field, but Heinicke was on the bench, seemingly pensive. Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings was his first NFL start with the Falcons in the metro area where he grew up, where he returned this offseason as Ridder’s backup.

He asked a staff member for the time. Informed that it was around 11 a.m., he got up and walked to the middle of the field and started getting ready.

Throughout the week, Falcons head coach Arthur Smith insisted Heinicke was the starter “this week” because the Falcons needed to win “this game” against the Vikings. There were no long-term plans – at least not publicly. This week would be Heinicke’s week. What happened from there was largely unknown.

After the match, that’s still the case. Smith declined to say who would start against Arizona in Week 10. Heinicke said after the game that he wasn’t thinking about that either.

“Not right now,” Smith said after his team lost to Minnesota, 31-28. “We’ll just have to come back and evaluate it. I’m not going to tell you that we haven’t sat down and looked at everything.”

Heinicke, however, made a reasonable case to start against the Arizona Cardinals before the team entered its bye week. He handled the offense pretty well with only a few questionable throws, including an interception in the third quarter where he threw it well behind his intended receiver and a few others that could have been intercepted.

He completed 21 of 38 passes for 260 yards and a touchdown. His completion percentage (55.3) is tied with Atlanta’s loss to the Detroit Lions as the lowest of the season. His 9.2 air yards per attempt was the highest average in a Falcons game this year. Atlanta scored a season-high 28 points. And with Heinicke in the second half against the Titans last week, the Falcons scored 20 points, more than they had scored in four games started by Ridder.

Smith liked the way Heinicke handled third downs – 10 of 18 (56%) – and that “he gave us some chances.” As in the last three games with Ridder as starter, the same problems remain: turnovers. Atlanta had two that helped turn the game around: Heinicke’s interception and a Bijan Robinson fumble. Atlanta has recorded at least one turnover in its last eight games and two or more turnovers in five of its last six games.

Heinicke faced 16 blitzes – tied for the Falcons’ season high – and took just one sack. Although almost all of the distance was carried by tight end Jonnu Smith and the offensive line, he completed Atlanta’s longest pass of the year with a 60-yard touchdown to Smith that began as a pass. ‘screen.

It was, in many ways, a very average performance.

“Pretty clean,” Heinicke said. “There are a few pieces here and there that I really wish I could find.”

Notably the interception and some passes in the fourth quarter where he said his feet were “getting a little excited” so he started throwing passes behind guys.

Atlanta has some big questions to answer now at 4-5. How can the defense stop allowing explosive plays? That allowed six plays of 20 yards or more to Minnesota, a team that had a quarterback in Josh Dobbs arriving this week who was essentially learning the run-and-run offense. How can his offense stop making critical mistakes at critical times?

Much of this will depend on who the quarterback is.