Three games in, I see a 1-2 team that has faced three opponents who are an aggregate 8-1. I see a team that, having met three of last season’s playoff qualifiers, has only three such games remaining. I see a team that has been better on defense than offense, which you wouldn’t have figured, but that has room to grow everywhere, which makes sense.
I see a team that, had Saquon Barkley not dropped the ball, would be 0-3 – but also a team that, had a better play been called on fourth-and-1, could be 2-1 and walking on air. I see a team that just faced the winner of three of the past five Super Bowls and didn’t seem overmatched. I see a team that has graced two prime-time games and hasn’t been dazzled by the bright lights.
I see the 2024 Falcons, who aren’t bad and who, by season’s end, should be quite good.
Not much separated the Falcons from the Chiefs on Sunday night, except that the Chiefs have become experts at winning that sort of game. Counting last season’s playoffs, Kansas City is on a run of six one-score wins. They’re called coin-flip games for a reason, except when Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes are involved the coin always comes up K.C.
The Falcons have heaped bags of money and stacks of draft capital on their offense. They’re 16th in yards passing, 15th in yards rushing, 26th in points per game. Much of that is a function of Kirk Cousins not being fully functional, though he seems less inhibited week to week.
Zac Robinson, the new coordinator, has had three games to put his stamp on this offense. We recall that it took Kyle Shanahan a season’s worth of wobbles before the 2016 Falcons became historic. These Falcons haven’t found the optimum mix of Robinson/Allgeier/London/Pitts, which is why they’ve scored as many field goals as touchdowns and have converted 22.2% of third downs, 30th-best in the 32-team NFL.
This is, assuming Cousins inches closer to peak form, correctable. The Falcons won’t see many defenses as stout as Pittsburgh’s and Kansas City’s. Not every minute of every game will be so fraught. (Biggest lead of the season – seven points.) We’ve seen flashes of what this offense might do. Over the fullness of time, we’ll get a fuller picture.
Is this taking too much on faith? Maybe. Counting his interim stint here in 2020, Raheem Morris is 22-39 as a head coach. Zac Robinson is a rookie OC. Cousins is coming off a torn Achilles. The Round 1 trio of Kyle Pitts, Drake London and Bijan Robinson has notched one Pro Bowl season, that being Pitts in 2021. It’s possible this assemblage, imposing on paper, won’t amount to all that much in real life. The belief here is that it will.
This schedule was front-loaded. Nobody could have foreseen how awful the Falcons were in their opener, but they’ve been better since. As deflating as last night’s fourth quarter was – they made 10 first downs to the Chiefs’ zero but mustered only three points – the Falcons’ fourth quarters should look different come November. The Chiefs have been great since 2018. The Falcons’ last winning season was 2017.
By winning in Philadelphia, the Falcons bought themselves time and the benefit of many doubts. They have the chance to rearrange the NFC South standings over the next 11 days. They play New Orleans and Tampa Bay – each is 2-1; each lost at home Sunday – in the house Rich McKay built. Neither is coached by Reid. Neither is quarterbacked by the GOAT-in-waiting.
After three weeks of schizoid results – epic flop/giddy win/return-to-Earth fizzle – the Falcons get the chance to settle into the season. The final 14 games offer no stretch like these first three. I’m a skeptic by nature, but I do not see a bad moon a-risin’. I see better times ahead.
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