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Harrington, Falcons hope to rebound against Jaguars

Sep 16, 2007 - 11:09 AM Atlanta (0-1) at Jacksonville (0-1) Sunday 1:00 pm EDT ------------------------------------------------------

JACKSONVILLE, Florida (Ticker) -- The Atlanta Falcons got their first glimpse of their offense without Michael Vick, and it was not a pretty sight.

Atlanta will look to rebound from an awful performance when it plays in its second straight road game on Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

With journeyman Joey Harrington leading the offense, the Falcons were drubbed by the Minnesota Vikings, 24-3, in Sunday's season opener, spoiling Bobby Petrino's NFL coaching debut.

Minnesota returned two interceptions for touchdowns against Harrington, who fell to 23-44 in his career.

Things do not figure to improve much against the Jaguars, who featured the league's second-ranked defense in 2006 but are coming off a 13-10 loss to the Tennessee Titans on Sunday.

Harrington, who became the starter in the wake of federal dogfighting charges against Vick, completed 23-of-32 passes for 199 yards in his debut with the Falcons, but he was sacked six times.

Atlanta also received little production from its running game. Warrick Dunn was limited to just 55 yards on 22 carries.

That would seem to be the one hope against the Jaguars' defense, which was gashed for 282 rushing yards by the Titans, including a career-high 175 on 19 carries by Chris Brown.

Jacksonville's backfield tandem of Maurice Jones-Drew and Fred Taylor, who combined to average over five yards per carry last season, were bottled up by the Titans' defense.

Jones-Drew managed just 32 yards on seven carries while Taylor had 16 yards on six carries.

The Jaguars likely will put renewed emphasis on the ground game this week after Vikings rookie Adrian Peterson rushed for 103 yards on 19 carries. He also had a 60-yard scoring reception.

David Garrard, in his first full season as Jacksonville's starter, finished 17-of-30 for 204 yards and a touchdown.

The Jaguars were hindered when placekicker Josh Scobee suffered a quadriceps injury during warmups, so on Tuesday they signed 18-year veteran John Carney.