Atlanta’s margin in the NFC South is thin, and so every game means everything.
The Atlanta Falcons have placed many bets in recent years. They placed a bet on Terry Fontenot and Arthur Smith over the other candidates available, which included Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes (and presumably Dan Campbell). They placed a bet on Matt Ryan that turned into a failed bet on Deshaun Watson that turned to a bet on Desmond Ridder that became a bet on Kirk Cousins. They bet on early draft picks and major free agent signings and trades. All of these swings are not exactly unusual for NFL teams, obviously, but we know what some of the more impatient moves have been about in Atlanta.
The Falcons want to win. They are desperate enough to win that you can smell it on the breeze on the right day, and they are that desperate because despite all their coaching changes and signings and big bets, they haven’t done much of it since the 2017 season. That’s a tiny lifetime ago in the NFL, where things shift rapidly and unpredictably, and it has led this team to continually declare that success is just around the corner.
We said before last season that this should be a playoff team and were disappointed. A second straight season of that would be unlikely to lead to huge shakeups—Raheem Morris is a first year head coach and Terry Fontenot seems to be tied tightly enough to him to avoid the axe—but it would be a nightmare for this team and fans who are tired of losing and excuses alike. The Falcons need to give everyone a reason to think they’re a franchise headed in the right direction, and a playoff push this year might give way to something better in the future, with Cousins or Michael Penix at the helm of the offense and an underachieving defense receiving some boosts.
It starts now. At 6-5 and having beaten the Tampa Bay Buccaneers twice, the Falcons have the luxury of being more than a game up on their divisional rivals, but the margin is thinner than anyone would like with Tampa Bay hitting the soft part of their schedule. Both teams have six games left—so do the Saints, if you think their recent revival means they can make a late push—and it seems obvious that anything under .500 ball the rest of the way will leave the Falcons with not just a losing record but yet another season without a postseason berth. Hell, that might not even be enough.
For all the impressive late rallies and major stops, for the game-winning drives and field goals, and the fact that Atlanta is 6-5 and on the cusp of matching their win total from the past three seasons, this team is obviously flawed. The defense has stunk for long stretches, Kirk Cousins and company have been inconsistent, and a comedy of errors has at times doomed the Falcons, just as it has so many times before. The Falcons know they have to be good and rack up victories in a stretch with three good football teams in their final six games—and a legitimately improving Carolina Panthers squad—to reverse years of losing football. Anything less will have this franchise heading into yet another offseason where the ground seems shaky, where questions about job security and who will be under center for the Falcons bubbling to the surface yet again.
We can point out that things would be less dire if the Falcons took care of business against the Saints (a narrow loss) or the Chiefs (an agonizingly close one), or if they could have shown up in a meaningful fashion against the Seahawks or Steelers instead of laying eggs. That is eminently fair, but it lingers on the past at a time where the Falcons most assuredly cannot afford to do so. The bye week has given them the breather and opportunity to get healthy that they clearly needed, and they don’t have any “if team X does why, we might get in” scenarios to muck around with. If the Falcons win at least four of their final six games, they’re very likely to make the playoffs, given that the Buccaneers would have to win every one of their final six games to pass them. If they fall short of that, they’re going to be reliant on luck and a Tampa Bay collapse, and fortune rarely favors these Falcons.
Every game matters in the NFL, and we always knew this division would likely come down to the wire. What we didn’t know coming into the season or even a month ago was that the season would hinge on this final stretch, but it does. With the bye week over, it’s time to see if the Falcons have what it takes to make this a season worth remembering for the right reasons.