Atlanta Falcons

The Atlanta Falcons finished 8 and 9, missing the playoffs for the eighth straight year as the Panthers took the NFC South on tiebreakers in a three-way divisional deadlock. The year started with real belief — a Week 2 road win in Minnesota, a statement Monday night upset of the Bills in Week 6 — then cratered into a five-game losing streak where Atlanta could not finish close football games. Week 11 defined everything: Michael Penix Jr. tore his ACL, and Kirk Cousins was back under center for a franchise that had paid a hundred million dollars hoping never to need him. A Week 14 home blowout against Seattle officially eliminated the Falcons and ended the Raheem Morris and Terry Fontenot era — both fired hours after the Week 18 win over the Saints. The tone of the year: a historic Bijan Robinson season and a franchise-record pass rush, wasted by a broken offense and a quarterback room held together by tape.

The numbers tell the story. Atlanta's offense finished with minus 7.5 total passing expected points added — that metric measures how much every snap moved the needle toward scoring, and minus 7.5 across a full season is below average — and minus 14.6 in the run game despite a 1,478-yard back. The Falcons converted just 34 percent of their third downs and scored touchdowns on only 22 percent of their red-zone snaps, a bottom-tier finishing rate that showed up in every close loss. This team was boom-or-bust in the worst way — shut out 30 to nothing by Carolina in Week 3, blown out 34 to 10 by Miami in Week 8, hung on by Seattle 37 in Week 14, but also scoring 29, 27, and 26 in wins down the stretch. The defense was genuinely good: minus 16.9 passing expected points added allowed on the year, and on defense, that negative number is the side you want. Takeaways were the weak link — just 21 on the season, roughly 1.2 a game — which kept this unit from being elite.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. Atlanta threw for 217.8 yards a game with 19 touchdowns and 16 offensive turnovers, and the per-play passing expected points added landed at minus 0.01 a dropback — the numerical definition of league-average, split between two quarterbacks. Penix started the first stretch, went down in Week 11, and finished with 1,982 yards, 9 touchdowns and 3 interceptions across 9 games; Cousins took over for 1,721 yards, 10 touchdowns and 5 picks across 10 appearances, with a completion percentage over expected of minus 4.5, meaning he completed passes at a rate four and a half points below what an average quarterback would on those same throws. The unit's ceiling was Drake London, who in just 12 games caught 68 balls for 919 yards and 7 touchdowns on a 30 percent target share with a plus 24.8 receiving expected points added — a genuine number-one smashing when he was on the field. The variance was brutal: 34 points on Washington in Week 4, zero on Carolina in Week 3, 9 on Seattle in Week 14. Boom-or-bust — when it clicked it was explosive; when it didn't, it disappeared.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. The Falcons rushed for 126.9 yards a game and 17 touchdowns, but the rushing expected points added came in at minus 14.6 on the season and minus 0.03 a carry — productive in raw yards, inefficient per play, because the big runs masked a lot of nothing in between. This paragraph belongs to Bijan Robinson, who had the year of his life: 1,478 rushing yards on 287 carries, 7 rushing touchdowns, 79 catches for 820 yards and 4 more scores, and the single longest run of the entire NFL season — a 93-yard touchdown against the Rams in Week 17 that set a new Falcons franchise record. He also broke William Andrews' 1983 team record for scrimmage yards in a season. The unit was boom-or-bust — the explosives came from Robinson hitting home runs — and Atlanta averaged just over three explosive plays a game across offense, with too many drives dying on third down.

Next up, the pass defense. This is where the Falcons smashed. The pass defense posted minus 16.9 expected points added allowed and a per-dropback rate of minus 0.03, both firmly above-average, and the headline was 57 sacks — a single-season franchise record, powered by rookie edge rushers Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr., both first-round picks who should be in the Defensive Rookie of the Year conversation. The secondary was elite in its own right, with 14 interceptions on the year, fifth-most among all NFL secondary groups. You saw the identity in Week 9 at New England, when Walker strip-sacked Drake Maye and Pearce recovered it at the Patriots' 6-yard line — a defense creating points, not just stops. Steady week to week in a way the offense never was, and first-year defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich drew glowing reviews for building a real foundation. The one hole: only 21 takeaways total and a 41 percent third-down conversion rate allowed, meaning when the pass rush didn't get home, drives extended.

And the run defense. Here the story flips — Atlanta allowed 126.8 rushing yards a game and posted plus 12.9 rushing expected points added allowed, which for a defense is on the wrong side of the ledger, along with plus 0.03 a carry. The front held up against the pass but got muffed against the run, especially in the blowout losses to Miami in Week 8 and Seattle in Week 14 where the game script tilted early and the ground game buried them. They did hold opponents to just 12 rushing touchdowns and a 16 percent red-zone touchdown rate, so when the field shrank this defense tightened up — bent on early downs, steadied in the red zone, but could not carry a broken offense by itself.