FLOWERY BRANCH – The Atlanta Falcons find themselves in a precarious position as they close out what has become a 2025 to forget. They have stumbled to a 4-8 record, and are staring down an eighth-straight year without a playoff berth or a winning record.
Those struggles have sparked a lot of national discourse around the potential for a change with the Falcons, but not so fast, says ESPN’s NFL insider, Jeremy Fowler. Take a look at what the NFL insider had to say about the situation at Flowery Branch.
“Another name that is coming up in conversation is Atlanta coach Raheem Morris, whose Falcons slid to 4-8 after a loss to the Jets. Would Falcons owner Arthur Blank be compelled to make a change after two disappointing seasons? What I have been told is that Blank respects Morris a lot, so I don’t expect a rash decision one way or the other. Any sort of in-season move would be a mild surprise from my view. While there’s at least some smoke around this job, this feels far from finalized. And Atlanta has enough talent to turn things around over the final five weeks. If Morris gets a third year, I would expect more staff or coordinator changes. Special teams have been a liability, and the offense has regressed despite playmakers on that side of the ball.”
Morris has currently lost 14 of his last 20 games, with several of those being close contests, but any in-season termination appears to be unlikely at this point.
But the Falcons would need to win all five of their remaining games in order to salvage a winning record. Even then, it would prove to be exceedingly unlikely that they would satisfy their preseason expectation of making the postseason.
A more likely scenario would be for the Falcons to win two or three games and finish in the six- or seven-win range.
Blank is eager to win, but he has also shown the ability to be patient with his head coaches, and it is unlikely that he would be looking to rush back into a coaching search at this point.
There is also the reality that the Falcons have been crushed by injuries this season, and that could serve to explain a lot of their shortcomings in 2025. They lost their starting right tackle and swing tackle on the last day of training camp, their No. 2 receiver in Darnell Mooney on the first day of training camp, their starting quarterback for the second half of the season, their star wide receiver in Drake London, and rarely had a full (healthy) offensive line to run their offense.
That might be enough to convince Arthur Blank that this regime deserves another chance in 2026 with some fresh eyes around him. Fowler says the expectation would be for “staff or coordinator changes” after special teams proved to be “a liability,” while the offense “has regressed despite playmakers on that side of the ball.”
What Blank does next will likely come after the season, but this team will have five games to give us an idea of what 2026 could look like.