Coming into the Atlanta Falcons' Week Five game against the Houston Texans, quarterback Desmond Ridder had some doubters. Ridder largely struggled during Atlanta's Week Four loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, leading some to wonder whether he has the capability to be the team's franchise quarterback going forward.

Against the Texans, however, Ridder silenced many of the critics with arguably the strongest performance of his NFL career, completing 28/37 passes for 329 yards and a touchdown, including a late drive to set Atlanta up for a game-winning field goal as time expired.

After the game, Ridder spoke on the poise he was able to show down the stretch of the tight contest.

“When I'm straight faced, I'm locked in, just cool, calm, and collected,” said Ridder, per the Falcons. “…It's a two minute drill. There's a minute 50 left on the clock, two timeouts. That's an eternity in the league. We work the two minute drill every single day, so when we get in these situations we're comfortable, and that's just where I felt I was comfortable at.”

Ridder indeed looked quite comfortable in leading the Falcons down the field to ultimately set up the winning field goal. Ridder continues an impressive streak of being undefeated at home in his Falcons career (as well as his college career). Meanwhile, the win moved Atlanta to 3-2 on the young season, perhaps a bit better than most pundits predicted they would be at this point.

The Falcons are next slated to take the field against the Washington Commanders on October 15.