Why Falcons kept throwing passes in the rain, struggled in run defense at Bucs
MADRID — The first Falcons off the bus before Sunday’s game against the Bengals at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid very well could be kicker Nick Folk and punter Jake Bailey.
The Falcons’ specialists will be on the practice field early Thursday at Ciudad Real Madrid to test the turf, and they’ll do the same Sunday at the home venue for one of the nation’s premier soccer clubs. But they also have a strong resource at their disposal.
Falcons special teams coordinator Craig Aukerman coached in the NFL’s first Madrid game last season when he was with the Dolphins, who beat the Commanders 16-13 in overtime in November 2025. He knows the turf, the sight lines, all of it.
His players have capitalized.
“The guys have been asking me questions about the dome, what an iconic stadium this is and how it’s gonna be — the lights when you walk out there, it’s unbelievable,” Aukerman said. “It’s pretty cool to let them know that, ‘Hey, they could open the roof, it could be closed at any point in time.’
“But my biggest thing is just telling them, ‘Hey, let’s get out there early, try to find the footing, what you feel comfortable with,’ because of the different type of surface that it is. Those are the biggest things that I end up telling them.”
Here are four other things we learned from Aukerman, offensive coordinator Tommy Rees and defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich from their news conferences Thursday.
Why Falcons kept passing in the rain against Buccaneers
In the Falcons’ 16-0 loss to the Buccaneers on Sunday, quarterback Michael Penix Jr. threw 24 passes. His counterpart, Baker Mayfield, attempted three and completed none under a heavy downpour. The Buccaneers became the first team since the 1974 Giants to win without completing a pass.
Penix went 2-for-10 passing with three interceptions in the first half and 6-for-14 passing with another interception in the second half. Rees consulted with Penix after drives to decipher whether throwing the ball was a viable option.
Early in the first half, it was. Later, it wasn’t.
Eventually, the rain mostly stopped in the second half. But the damage was done.
“I think there was a time, in that first half, where throwing it was not as much of an option,” Rees said. “Early in that first half, we felt like, from the communication with Mike, with everybody, it was like, ‘Hey, we’re OK right now.’ There came a point where it was like, ‘Hey, this is gonna be really tough sledding.’
“And when you do call passes, you’re trying to keep them off-balance a little bit. They’re in a loaded box, you’re trying to set one guy free and see if we can get one down the field, because to go 80 yards in that weather is hard when you’re not throwing the ball. So, you’re trying to find an explosive — steal one.”
Thus, in short: The Falcons rode with the flows of the weather, the game and how Penix felt.
Falcons’ run game seeing loaded boxes, still trying to find answers
Rees nodded at the numbers, perhaps knowing them verbatim, perhaps knowing through lived experience they were quite drastic. Through the first four games of the season, the Falcons averaged 181 rushing yards per game.
Over the last four, that number has dropped to only 88.5 yards per game.
“We got to do a better job of getting back to who we are in the run game,” Rees said. “It starts with me and what we call and how we design it. Teams have done some things to limit some explosives and limit some of those opportunities.
“I think our run efficiency has still been pretty good, but we’ve lacked some of those explosive runs that really propelled us early in the season. So we got to find our opportunities for that, and we’ve got to execute when those looks come.”
The Falcons are seeing more loaded fronts — with defenses putting seven or eight players in the box — in recent weeks. When defenses take that approach, the Falcons need their passing game to hit a rhythm and force teams to lighten their boxes.
But Rees and the Falcons also know defenses are steadfast on slowing the run, and no matter how much Penix rolls, those loaded boxes remain prevalent.
“Part of our challenge is finding ways to run the ball, even when those boxes are loaded, because there are ways to do it,” Rees said. “We got to continue to find those and find ways to cut the defense, and it takes all 11 guys to make sure that we have the right identification, right process to make sure that things are able to stay intact in the run game.
“But if we have the right balance and we have the right attack that way, then we should be able to lighten some of those.”
How the Buccaneers dominated Falcons defense on the ground
With Tampa Bay refusing to throw the ball, the Falcons defense knew for the final three quarters it only had to slow the Buccaneers’ run game. That additional knowledge didn’t seem to help.
The Buccaneers ran for a franchise-record 324 yards, and while it required enormous volume — they logged 56 rushing attempts — they remained efficient. Tampa Bay averaged 5.8 yards per carry, its second-most this season.
“Whenever you give up that many rush yards, that is a failure of mine, everyone, in a lot of ways,” Ulbrich said. “My part of that is I could have definitely had more multiplicity, more six-man fronts, different safety rotations. We came into the game plan getting ready for a Tampa offense that had been fairly balanced in a lot of ways.
“And, obviously, the weather turned it into a four-minute game, probably midway through the first quarter on. So having more run answers, more run bullets from my perspective. And then from a player’s perspective, tackling, run fits and really the fundamentals that it takes to be a great run defense.”
The Falcons were the NFL’s best run defense through Week 4, holding opponents below 50 rushing yards per game on average. They now rank 18th in the league, giving up 118.3 rushing yards per game.
“We had put that on tape for the vast majority of the season,” Ulbrich said of the team’s fundamentals in run defense. “It was disappointing in a lot of ways that we underperformed, and I look forward to this week to get back on track.”
Happy birthday, Nick Folk! Your present? A confidence boost.
The Falcons’ kicker turned 42 on Thursday, and his experience — this is Year 19 as a pro — helps to minimize the mental effects of a trying start to this season.
Folk led the NFL in field-goal percentage the past three years. He missed only one field goal each year.
Through eight games this season, he’s already missed four. He’s 12-for-16 on field goals and missed an extra point for the first time since 2023, snapping a 67-try streak of perfection.
The Falcons sent out Folk for a 53-yarder right as the rain intensified. He had plenty of leg, but he missed wide left.
“It’s a little bit of the rain, it’s a little bit of distance, it’s the weather — it’s all these different types of things,” Aukerman said of the reason behind the miss. “And Nick will tell you the first thing, it’s no excuse. Same thing with me. But it just went over to the left a little bit and it’s unfortunate the rain started coming down really hard at that time. But it is what it is.”
Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski backed Folk on Monday, and Aukerman doubled down Thursday.
“We feel 100% confident with Nick anytime he goes out there,” Aukerman said. “It’s one of those things, though, that Nick (is a) professional. He’s ready to get back to work. So, we’re excited to get him back out there, and I know he’s raring to go again.”