It’s time to say goodbye to the 2024 season.
One more game. The 2024 season has had its thrilling highs and its dispiriting lows, but it will end with the Atlanta Falcons winning more games than they had the previous five seasons whether they win or lose against the Carolina Panthers. A playoff spot? Unlikely, but still yet to be determined.
If the postseason were more certain—if the Falcons had beaten the Commanders, in other words—the fact that Carolina is fresh off an awful beatdown and diminished by injuries would be great news for Atlanta. As it is, it makes for one final test—can this team with Michael Penix at the helm best or even easily best a divisional opponent just trying to limp across the finish line? The hope is that they can and will, because this is not the draft class (and the Falcons aren’t in a top ten position regardless) to worry overmuch about positioning. Getting a victory and having something to build on heading into 2025 would be the best we can hope for, again barring a miraculous New Orleans victory against Tampa Bay.
Here’s what you should know about the matchup ahead.
Rankings
The Panthers were never going to be good this year, but the loss of key starters like Derrick Brown on defense doomed their defense to far worse than mediocrity. This is one of the NFL’s worst units, with some heroic performances in the secondary the only thing really lifting Carolina up in that regard. Their offense is also terrible, especially with Chuba Hubbard out for the rest of the year.
The Falcons will finish the year as a good but not great offense and a mediocre-but-not-terrible defense on a bit of a run at the end of the year, especially as a pass rush. This team’s performance suggests the 8-9 win range is exactly where they should have ended up, but they’re far better than Carolina.
How the Panthers have changed
We didn’t see Bryce Young last time because Andy Dalton was under center, so that’s a new wrinkle. When Young went to the bench after two weeks, he had three interceptions and zero touchdowns and looked like a non-viable NFL starter; since re-entering the lineup he’s at 12/6 and has piloted the team to three of their four wins this season. Baby steps, but Young is a more challenging matchup than Dalton.
Other than that, the Panthers have certainly improved from the bottom-of-the-barrel squad they were in the early days of 2024 to just a regular bad team, albeit one that has lost a lot of juice because of injuries. Chuba Hubbard is out, the team’s linebacker group has been absolutely destroyed by injuries, and so forth. That means this is a diminished team overall from the last time Atlanta saw them, even if they’re a little more competent because they’ve found their footing despite that raft of injuries.
Carolina at least looks like they might be able to climb out of the basement of the NFC South in a year or two, unlike New Orleans.
What to know
A couple of weeks ago, this looked like a strong test for the Falcons on their way to a playoff berth. Things change fast.
Now, the Falcons need Tampa Bay to lose just to have a chance, and the Panthers no longer look like a team poised to take Atlanta to the wire. Chuba Hubbard is out for the rest of the season, removing Carolina’s one standout threat. Bryce Young is a much better quarterback than he was earlier this year, but with a merely so-so receiving corps and still playing well short of an elite level, the passing game is a mid-tier problem. Atlanta can be victimized by deep shots and Young using his legs, something he has become more comfortable with, but the reality is that this is not a great offense when fully healthy and Carolina is not close to fully healthy. Compared to the challenge posed by Washington, this is a manageable matchup.
So is the one on the other side of the ball. The Panthers have not allowed fewer than 20 points since Week 10 and have allowed 30 or more points in their last three games running, including 48 to the Buccaneers just last week. This decimated, flawed defense is of the same caliber as the decimated, flawed Giants defense the Falcons just picked apart a couple of weeks back, and the Falcons shouldn’t hesitate to run Bijan Robinson early and often and take those Michael Penix deep shots in the hopes that he’ll be a little more accurate this week. The passing game is the trickier proposition given that the Panthers have largely held aerial assaults in check over the past month before Baker Mayfield picked them to pieces in Week 17; their run defense, meanwhile, has allowed over 200 yards on the ground for a mind-boggling five straight weeks.
On their best day the Panthers can beat this Falcons team, especially if the errors that have come to define the season creep in overmuch on Atlanta’s side. If the Falcons show up to play, though, they ought to earn their ninth win on Sunday, and it really should not be a squeaker.