It’s the first “easy” matchup of the year, but the Falcons can’t afford to treat it like one.
Alabama reminded us recently that there are considerable perils associated with looking past an opponent coming off a major win. Having just knocked off Georgia, the Crimson Tide were blown off the field by the Vanderbilt Commodores, a team they last lost to in 1984.
That’s a timely reminder not because the Falcons are Alabama-level dominant—god willing, but not yet—but because they’re fresh off a huge, emotional win against the Buccaneers and headed on the road to face the lowly Panthers. Carolina just got drubbed by Caleb Williams and D.J. Moore, the quarterback picked with the selection they swapped to the Bears and the receiver they swapped in that same deal, and they lost five starters on top of an already long injury list. They’re bad, they’re hurt, and none of that seems likely to get better anytime soon.
But the Falcons, fresh off five straight games against would-be contenders, have barely been on the road this year and have yet to navigate life against an opponent they’re expected to beat handily. The Arthur Smith Falcons lost these games all the time—the brutal Week 15 9-7 defeat at the hands of Panthers last year, the 24-16 loss to the muddled Commanders that same season, half of their losses in 2022—and we’d like very much to see the Raheem Morris Falcons break that habit. They’ll be reasonably healthy against an overmatched opponent, so this is a chance to send a message about who these Falcons are and what they’re capable of.
Will the Falcons triumph, will they squeak one out as they’ve done all season, or is a more sinister possibility on the table? Here’s what you need to know about the matchup.
Team rankings
This is the first week where the Falcons clearly outclass their opponent. The Panthers run defense is marginally better on paper, but Atlanta may get back Troy Andersen and/or Nate Landman this week and are shaking up their front a bit to get better results, so even that small advantage may be moot.
There’s not much else to say. The Panthers are the team that really needs some big turnovers and explosive plays to triumph this week, something we said about the Falcons against the Eagles (where they got them) and the Chiefs (where they didn’t quite get enough).
How the Panthers have changed
Andy Dalton is starting over Bryce Young now; the Falcons have faced Dalton just four times in his long career and he’s done well, going 4-0 (though he threw just one pass in one of those games) with six touchdowns and an interception. Dalton was phenomenal against the Raiders, solid against the Bengals, and pretty dismal against the Bears; the hope is that he used up his little bit of magic already.
Carolina spent this offseason to try to upgrade its roster, giving new head coach and reputed offensive mastermind Dave Canales more to work with as he sought to rebuild Young’s career. They traded for top receiver Diontae Johnson and drafted Xavier Legette in the first round, signed a pair of new guards in Robert Hunt and Damien Lewis, and drafted promising rookie running back Jonathan Brooks, who has yet to play in 2024 because of injury. On defense, they sought improvements up front via the signings of A’Shawn Robinson and Jadeveon Clowney, with linebacker Josey Jewell joining via free agency, linebacker Trevin Wallace coming from the draft, and safety Nick Scott also imported to shore up the back end. They were active and spent what they had, seeking something better than their basement-dwelling 2024 finish.
Very little of that has paid off in meaningful fashion for this 1-4 team, but if the quarterbacking settles down a bit and Carolina can stop fighting a raft of nightmare injuries, they might have something. Unfortunately for them, the losses of standout defensive lineman Derrick Brown, safety Jordan Fuller, linebacker Shaq Thompson, and wide receiver Adam Thielen in particular have taken a huge bit out of this team’s talent base.
What lies ahead
The easiest matchup of the year thus far, and by a wide margin. The Steelers had a tough defense, the Eagles were a talented mess, the Saints were fresh off a hot start to the season, and the Buccaneers are talented and tough, if banged up. The Panthers are simply a bad football team.
The defense does occasionally heroic work in forcing turnovers and making big plays happen, but down-to-down they’re missing too many pieces to be healthy and effective. The offense is Chuba Hubbard and a couple of talented receivers who need Dalton or Young to be effective for them to be effective, and Young is lost while Dalton is merely a solid fill-in starter capable of stretches of more. Hell, they have one of the lowest average and net punting yards on the season and are middle of the pack on returns, so aside from a reliable kicker in Eddy Piniero, they’re not anything special on special teams either.
This adds up to a really putrid team that’s still somehow better than last year’s version, but is ticketed for six wins as a ceiling and likely fewer than that. With arguably the league’s worst owner, a bleak quarterback picture, and injuries sapping them of their handful of actual strengths, Carolina needs a hard reset in so many ways. The likeliest outcome is that Canales gets fired if David Tepper loses his patience again and the team drafts a top quarterback hoping to change their fortunes. In a division with the disintegrating Saints and their woeful cap picture, the Panthers still have the most depressing outlook.
The Falcons, of course, can’t afford to take Carolina lightly despite all of this. The Panthers we bad in 2022 and took the Falcons to the wire twice, stealing a rain-soaked mess in one of them. Then they embarrassed Atlanta in the cold last season in their second matchup, winning despite being very evidently awful. There’s something about divisional play and Carolina’s ability to get the Falcons down in the muck with them that makes these matchups more dangerous than they ought to be on paper; a new coaching staff and new faces should fix that, but until we see it the need to be wary is alive and well.
Atlanta’s passing game got untracked against the Bucs in a way that feels repeatable. Kirk Cousins was lethal over the middle all game long against a tired, injured Bucs defense missing two key players at the second level; the Panthers have similar injury concerns and weaknesses that should allow Zac Robinson to dial up effective plays for Atlanta’s weapons. A weak run defense offers opportunities for the Falcons to try to find a working formula for Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier, with the former having scuffled for three weeks and the latter having done little a week ago.
Defensively, the Falcons match up well against one team strength and not so well against another. The Panthers don’t have any really threatening tight ends or running backs in the passing game—Hubbard is fine—and are heavily reliant on their top receivers. A.J. Terrell and Mike Hughes have played well and the Falcons have great safety nets and problem solvers in Jessie Bates and Justin Simmons. Even if the pass rush can’t go home, which is a depressingly real possibility, the strength of the secondary helps them. They’ll likely have more trouble with Hubbard on the ground, where he has been lethal thus far in 2024, and that more than anything is a reason to think Carolina can pull together a game little effort in this one.
To win, in summary, the Falcons will have to run (the teeth of the Panthers defense are filed down with the loss of Derrick Brown), work the middle of the field (where injuries and inexperienced are creating a rough picture and where Kirk Cousins thrived against the Bucs), and shut down Hubbard as best they can. Achieve that trio of outcomes and aside from a few nice Dalton passes and Carolina’s ability to create a frustrating turnover, the Falcons should be in the driver’s seat of this game.
A win is vital and what matters; get it and get out of Carolina and we’re all happy. It’s fair to say we’ll still be watching closely to see if these Falcons play down to their competition or can punish a bad football team after five tough opponents to kick off the season. I’m hopeful for the latter, but it’s another bridge we have to see them cross.