Falcons owner 'concerned' about team's 1-3 start

The Atlanta Falcons were expected to be among the NFC's best teams and a Super Bowl contender prior to the season, but after losing several key defensive players to injury, Atlanta finds itself in the basement of the NFC South with a 1-3 record.

Following Sunday's last-second loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, Falcons owner Arthur Blank expressed his unhappiness with his team's lackluster start.

"Well, I am concerned about a 1-3 start," Blank told ESPN's Vaughn McClure on Tuesday. "I don't know anyone who would say that's where we had planned on being or that's where we had hoped to be, but we are 1-3."

Atlanta has lost safeties Keanu Neal and Ricardo Allen to season-ending injuries and will be without Pro Bowl linebacker Deion Jones until at least Week 11.

"This is not excuses, but reality is reality," Blank said. "We've had some very difficult injuries to really good players. All three of the players, people talk in baseball when the middle has to be good: your catch, your pitcher, your second baseman, and then the center fielder. So when you lose Allen and Neal and Deion Jones, those are kind of the middle of that defense. So that hurts."

The Falcons will get a chance to put their season back on track Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers before a divisional clash with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 6.

Copyright (C) 2018 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.