One of the most bitter rivalries in sports caps off the 2025 NFL season when the New Orleans Saints visit the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday. These hated NFC South foes squared off back in Week 12, with the Falcons taking a 24-10 win in New Orleans. Both teams will be wrapping up their season without a playoff berth. Atlanta will miss the postseason for an eighth consecutive year, trying to avoid double-digit losses for a fifth time in that span. The Saints have now gone five straight years without the playoffs, their longest stretch since 2001 to 2005.
While this game doesn’t have playoff implications, it could be one of the most entertaining games of the weekend. Each team is ending their year on a roll. The Falcons have won three in a row while the Saints are riding a four-game winning streak, their longest since 2020. New Orleans will also be trying to even up their all-time series with Atlanta in this closely contested rivalry.
These teams are no strangers to ending the year against each other. Here’s a look at the overall series records and the notable season finale showdowns.
Saints vs Falcons Series History56-57 overall27-29 awayLast 12 matchups: 8-4Last 5 matchups: 2-3Last 10 matchups in Atlanta: 6-4Last meeting (2025): Falcons (24-10)Last meeting in Atlanta (2024): Falcons (26-24)
Two franchises that were born just one year apart, Atlanta’s inception was in 1966 while the Saints came into existence in 1967. The Saints won the first game between the two in 1967, a 27-24 victory in New Orleans. After not playing in 1968, these teams have squared off every year since and have been division rivals since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. First in the NFC West from 1970 to 2001 then the NFC South from 2002. Atlanta has won seven division championships since the the merger, including four NFC South titles with 14 overall playoff appearances. The Saints have nine division titles and seven South championships with 14 overall trips to the playoffs.
New Orleans and Atlanta have met in the postseason once, during a 1991Wild Card showdown in New Orleans. The Falcons came away with a wild 27-20 victory. The Saints took a dominant control of this series between 2006 and 2022, winning 24 of the 34 matchups with the Falcons and owning a 12-5 record when playing in Atlanta. The Falcons have pulled even the last three years, winning three of the last five games against New Orleans.
Sunday will be the 11th time that the Saints and Falcons will meet to end the regular season. Just as with everything else about this series, the results have been pretty even. In regular season finales, New Orleans and Atlanta have a 5-5 record against each other, with the Saints 2-3 in Atlanta to end the year. The Falcons dominated the season ending showdowns against the Saints at first, going 4-1 against them in those situations between 1971 and 1985. Their average margin of victory in those games was over 10 points, though the Saints did take a 35-6 win to end the 1982 campaign.
New Orleans began to turn the tide in season finale face-offs against Atlanta with a 10-9 win in 1988. After that 1988 victory, it would be over two and a half decades before the Saints and Falcons squared off to end a season. However, Sunday marks the fifth time in the last 11 years that these rivals will clash to end their year. The Saints have won three of those four showdowns, including two of three in Atlanta, with the average score being 32.5 to 23.
Notable NumbersThis will be the second time rookie quarterback Tyler Shough will face the Falcons. The first time, Shough completed 30 of 43 passes for 243 yards with no touchdowns, 1 interception, and was sacked 5 times in a 24-10 Atlanta win. It equaled the most times Shough has been sacked in his eight starts.In five away games, Tyler Shough has thrown for an average of 235 yards with 7 touchdown passes and 3 interceptionsIn six career games against the Falcons, Saints wide receiver Chris Olave has 33 receptions for 421 yards and 1 touchdown with one 100-yard receiving gameIn 29 games against the Falcons, Cameron Jordan has 22.5 sacks, 42 QB hits, and 29 tackles for loss, and 2 fumbles forced. Jordan has 11.5 sacks, 20 QB hits, and 13 tackles for loss in 14 career games in Atlanta, and 7 of Jordan’s 9.5 sacks in 2025 have come in the last seven games, including one in Week 12 against Atlanta.