2. Running back Bijan Robinson is the key to the Falcons’ offense.<\/p>\n
Robinson was the No. 8 overall selection in the 2023 NFL Draft, and through two games this season, he’s certainly playing like it. The former University of Texas star has rushed for 165 yards on 32 attempts, averaging 5.2 yards-per-carry. He was also particularly effective in Atlanta’s victory over the Eagles last week, rushing for 97 yards on just 14 carries.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old Robinson averaged 6.9 yards-per-attempt in that game while ripping off four runs of double-digit yardage and breaking three tackles along the way.<\/p>\n
He’s been effective, and the Falcons haven’t been shy about using him. In fact, Robinson \u2013 who also has nine catches for 68 yards \u2013 has been responsible for 48 percent of Atlanta’s offensive advancements this year. In other words, Robinson has touched the ball on half of the Falcons’ offensive plays through two games.<\/p>\n
It’s all to say that in order to slow down the Falcons, the Chiefs will have to contain Robinson’s production, and for what it’s worth, Kansas City has been effective against opposing running backs this season.<\/p>\n
The Chiefs have held opposing tailbacks to a combined average of just 3.8 yards-per-carry on 30 attempts, and on those carries, Kansas City has yielded just one run of 10+ yards.<\/p>\n
Here’s a player-by-player breakdown of that production, with the only outlier being Bengals’ running back Chase Brown, who found some success on limited carries:<\/p>\n
Derrick Henry: 13 carries for 46 yards (3.45 yards-per-attempt)<\/p>\n
Zack Moss: 12 carries for 34 yards (2.83 yards-per-attempt)<\/p>\n
Chase Brown: 4 carries for 31 yards (7.75 yards-per-attempt)<\/p>\n
Justice Hill: 1 carry for 3 yards<\/p>\n
If the Chiefs can put together a similar performance against Robinson, it would go a long way toward containing the Falcons’ offense as a whole.<\/p>\n
3. The Falcons’ play-action passing game will be something to watch.<\/p>\n
The importance of stopping Atlanta’s rushing attack is even further amplified by the presence of Kirk Cousins at quarterback, who has historically thrived within the play-action passing game.<\/p>\n
In 2022, Cousins’ last full, healthy season for the Minnesota Vikings, he ranked second among all quarterbacks with 203 play-action dropbacks. Additionally, from 2022 through the first eight games of 2023 (before Cousins’ season-ending Achillies injury), he threw 17 touchdowns off play-action \u2013 the third-most of any quarterback behind only Josh Allen (21) and Jared Goff (19).<\/p>\n
Conversely, on non-play-action snaps during that same span, Cousins threw 15 of his 19 interceptions.<\/p>\n
Cousins has simply thrived in play-action situations during his career, but for whatever reason \u2013 whether it be adjusting to a new offensive scheme or due to his injury recovery process \u2013 Cousins has led a Falcons’ offense that has posted the third-lowest play-action rate in the NFL through two weeks (13.6%). Only Geno Smith (11.8%) and Brock Purdy (12.8%) have tallied a lower percentage of play-action dropbacks so far, but Cousins’ inclusion on this list may be somewhat misleading.<\/p>\n
Atlanta ran zero play-action snaps in Cousins’ Falcons debut vs. Pittsburgh, making him the only starting quarterback to do so in Week 1. Last week against the Eagles, however, was a different story. Cousins ran play-action on 26 percent of his dropbacks in that game, completing 5-of-8 passes for 53 yards.<\/p>\n
It’s likely the Falcons will continue that trend as Cousins continues to get more comfortable in Atlanta’s offensive scheme, and the Chiefs’ defense will need to be ready for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2. Running back Bijan Robinson is the key to the Falcons’ offense. Robinson was the No. 8 overall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[501,223,254,2554,346,224,7,497,118,110,6,498,499,505,503,502,504,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-295113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-andy-reid","9":"tag-atlanta","10":"tag-atlanta-falcons","11":"tag-atlantafalcons","12":"tag-chiefs","13":"tag-falcons","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-geha-field-at-arrowhead-stadium","16":"tag-kansas-city","17":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-nfl-football","20":"tag-patrick-mahomes","21":"tag-super-bowl","22":"tag-super-bowl-iv","23":"tag-super-bowl-liv","24":"tag-super-bowl-lvii","25":"tag-travis-kelce"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115043626371708490","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}