Falcons head coach Dan Quinn vividly remembers the last time his team traveled to Lincoln Financial Field. The nine-point loss to the Eagles stood as the Falcons' largest regular-season defeat of the year. Their other four losses came by a combined 13 points.
"They got us in a lot of everything down and distance. It was painful to watch for sure," Quinn said during his conference call Tuesday afternoon. "We definitely give them the credit. They played terrifically and we didn't give them our best version of ourselves and so that was disappointing in the game. But no disrespect to them. They certainly played better, coached better. That game was certainly some of our lows."
During the call, Quinn discussed the impact of not having to gameplan against Carson Wentz's playmaking ability out of the pocket but noted that the Eagles have a reliable backup in Nick Foles.
"Just knowing the competitor he is. His experience as a quarterback that really lends a hand," Quinn said of Foles. "It's kind of like the old Marv Levy line about depth 'doesn't matter until you need it.' So they've got a real capable man leading the way. We know he's really comfortable in that setting in that offense based on the time not only in Philly and Kansas City and certainly through some of the stuff with Chip (Kelly). He's definitely a guy who our players regard in how he plays and from as far as a team standpoint looks like from our watching most things stay similar and are not different."
When asked about the similarities between he and Eagles head coach Doug Pederson, Quinn stated that during his first playoff run he and his coaching staff placed an emphasis on avoiding noise from outside their building and taking each game one at a time.
"That's why I think it's really important to stay true and consistent to how you play because as there are less teams that play it seems that more people had an opinion about how to defend somebody and how to guard somebody and we just wanted to make sure we were going to do what we thought was best," he said. "We knew our team best and I thought to make sure you didn't allow the outside influences to affect the team inside the building and your preparation."
The No. 6-seeded Falcons are favored by most analysts against the Eagles but Quinn stated his team pays no attention to those opinions. The game will come down to which team executes best.
"I noticed being the six seed because we're traveling but when you play in the playoffs and you play a division game you just kind of throw any numbers out, stats out, ranking whatever because it's just going to be a battle for that game and I do love that format," said Quinn.
"When you step inside the white none of that stuff has any bearing on us. We just try to get locked in on who we're playing, how we want to play, and make sure our style comes across. But make no mistake, we're heading into a really cool place for football."
