Atlanta will have to face off against a talented but discombobulated team.
The Atlanta Falcons ripped the bandage off in 2024, firing their head coach and bringing in a new regime. It’s still too early to say they made a home run hire in Raheem Morris, but the Falcons are 5-3, atop the NFC South, and looking compelling even if they have enduring and frustrating weaknesses that we’re watching warily.
The Dallas Cowboys let the wound fester. It’s not just that Mike McCarthy wasn’t fired despite doing some high-level McCarthy bumbling last year; it’s that Dallas mysteriously decided not to attack their weaknesses through free agency and trade despite Jerry Jones making noise about the team being all-in. Somehow, Jones and company seemingly reasoned, the arrow was going to be pointing up despite the very real and obvious flaws dotting the roster. Those flaws have derailed this season thus far, with the Cowboys at 3-4 and falling behind in the NFC East despite having real talent and a recent history of success.
When these two teams meet on Sunday, the Falcons will try to continue showing that their trajectory is a positive one and they’re ticketed for a playoff berth in 2024. The Cowboys will try to rescue what looks like a lost season by beating a struggling NFC team and running their record against the conference to a sparkling 6-1, proving that their offseason declarations and lack of spending created road bumps but not dead ends. As matchups go, it’s a fairly compelling one, especially because a loss to the Falcons will keep the clock toward McCarthy’s firing ticking.
Here’s what you need to know about Sunday’s matchup.
Team rankings
Falcons – Cowboys Comparison
Week 9
There’s a massive gulf between the Cowboys who drew so much interest and praise for going 12-5 in three straight seasons from 2021-2023 and the Cowboys we’re seeing today. These Cowboys are legitimately one of the worst teams in the league, and while they certainly have the talent to turn this thing around, I would argue that their 3-4 record undersells how they’ve played this season.
The Falcons are superior in basically every category listed above, and with the Cowboys dealing with significant injuries in their secondary, they’re simply the weaker team. The Falcons need to be careful not to come out listless and mistake-prone in the way they did against the Seahawks a couple of weeks ago, but on paper this isn’t that close.
How the Cowboys have changed
They added Ezekiel Elliott, Eric Kendricks, and some quality pieces via the draft. That’s basically it.
Elliott has looked every bit as cooked as you’d expect from a 29 year old running back who last averaged over four yards back in 2021, but he’s been involved and plodding along, with Dalvin Cook perhaps joining him at some point as Rico Dowdle kinda languishes. Kendricks has been more solid, which has been necessary with injuries cropping up in the heart of the Cowboys defense. Meanwhile, rookies Tyler Guyton and Cooper Beebe been drawing starts at left tackle and center, third round linebacker Marist Liufau has been getting some early run, and fifth round rookie cornerback Caelen Carson has been pressed into action. Those guys look like long-term building blocks, at least.
Otherwise, this Dallas offseason was defined by what they lost. They let Dante Fowler, Neville Gallimore, Jonathan Hankins, Dorance Armstrong, C.J. Goodwin, and Noah Igbinoghene from the defense, Tyler Biadasz and Tyron Smith from the offensive line, and Tony Pollard at running back in what might be the biggest mistake of the offseason. Jerry Jones doubled down on this team having success with Mike McCarthy and a largely familiar roster, and that gamble has not paid off thus far.
What lies ahead
The Cowboys aren’t really built to attack Atlanta’s weaknesses, which makes them a rare opponent. The team’s strengths lie in their dynamic outside receivers and to a lesser extent a plodding tight end in Jake Ferguson; A.J. Terrell and Mike Hughes match up well against those top options (even if CeeDee Lamb is likely to be some trouble even so). Ferguson isn’t the yards after the catch bulldozer Cade Otton is. Their ground game is one of the weakest in the NFL, with an aging Ezekiel Elliott leading the way, and thus they are not primed to run the day away even if they’re likely to have a frustrating level of success against Atlanta.
Their own defense offers up a quality pass rush to harry Kirk Cousins, but Cousins has an array of outlets and a good offensive line to help him survive that. Their pass defense isn’t great overall, but it’s still vastly superior to the Cowboys run defense, which is among the very worst in the NFL. Atlanta can challenge them with Tyler Allgeier and Bijan Robinson early and often, setting up Cousins to run play action and look for chunk plays over the middle of the field, where the Cowboys are bottom-third in the league in defense, interceptions, pass deflections, and more. Hell, the lack of discipline on the Dallas defense may well translate to free first downs for the Falcons, given that they’re fourth in the NFL in defensive penalties thus far. There just isn’t much here to suggest the Cowboys can shut down this Falcons defense outside of their pass rush.
That’s not to say the Cowboys don’t have formidable strengths; it’s just that those strengths have largely been pale shades of their past glory in 2024. Lamb is a legitimate gamebreaking talent who will have to be accounted for, and Dak Prescott has stretches where he’s a potent passer who can punish lapses. Rico Dowdle is a solid, well-rounded back who should not be splitting time with the zombified Elliott. That pass rush, when it’s humming, can be game-wrecking.
But barring Dallas digging deep and capturing the form that made them a playoff contender in years past, this is one of the more straightforward matchups left on the schedule for Atlanta. The Falcons should be able to attack this defense in ways they prefer to attack defenses, they should be able to be operate defensively with the knowledge that the Cowboys don’t have the compelling rushing attack to push them off their gameplan, and they can take advantage of an increasingly erratic Prescott and his eight interceptions and four fumbles in just seven games. The path to victory here is easy to see, and based on how Dallas has played thus far in 2024, straightforward to achieve.
The unwelcome twist here, if there is one, will be the Falcons shooting themselves in the foot as they’ve so often done in 2024. There’s always the possibility that a non-existent run defense and pass rush will allow Prescott and company to look more like they once did. There is the unsettling addendum that a Cowboys team fresh off three straight 12-5 seasons, a team that is not bereft of talent, might find their footing in the same frustrating way the Seahawks did a couple of weeks ago.
If the Falcons can limit the mistakes and squeeze a little more out of this frustrating defense, the offense should be well-positioned to deliver the victory. Taking on a weakened, struggling opponent at home is an opportunity the Falcons can’t pass up, not if they want to run away with the NFC South as they so desperately do.