The gloom was pervasive, and it wasn\u2019t just the weather. This Atlanta Falcons team had everything to play for\u2014a small chance to climb the ladder in the NFC South, pride, their coaching staff, one another, and even not handing a top ten pick to the Rams in 2026\u2014and they simply weren\u2019t good enough to beat a Jets team that entered the day at 2-9. The list of failures was long, but what\u2019s most remarkable is how many times the Falcons could have simply won this one outright against a Jets team that only had a couple of big plays on the day. They couldn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n
You can, of course, point to the impact of injuries, something that will surely tempt this coaching staff, front office, and perhaps even Arthur Blank himself. But even with that accounted for and the team\u2019s lack of playing time in rain and cold, this was a game where execution and planning doomed the Falcons more than a lack of talent. Kirk Cousins had plenty of zippy balls that were just dropped by Darnell Mooney, David Sills, and Dylan Drummond. The Falcons had enough success with Bijan Robinson, Kyle Pitts, Tyler Allgeier, and others straight up to make a third and short swing pass and 3rd and 8 screen look foolish. Nobody made Mike Hughes start running late and then slip working on a deep ball against AD Mitchell, or Kaden Elliss miss multiple open field tackles, or multiple defenders lose contain and eyes on Tyrod Taylor during his productive scrambles. And Jamal Agnew muffing a fair catch and Zane Gonzalez missing a 50 yard field goal were just mistakes, mistakes, mistakes.<\/p>\n
The Falcons lost because, despite the individual acts of brilliance from Bijan Robinson and James Pearce Jr. and Tyler Allgeier and even for a brief shining moment David Sills, they were not very good. That could be their epitaph for the last eight years of Falcons football, frankly, and the sweeping changes sure to be ahead after this game do nothing to inspire fans watching this product at the moment. The Falcons are 4-8, have lost to the Dolphins and now Jets, and have an uncertain future at quarterback and a present defined by questionable coaching and a roster with more holes than pest-gnawed lumber. There\u2019s no reason to think they\u2019ll give us livelier efforts down the stretch, even if the return of Drake London will add something to the offense, and little reason after nearly a decade of losing to assume the decisions ahead will be the right ones.<\/p>\n
There are worst places to be than passionately angry about a team you love; there is the lukewarm embrace of outright apathy and deep, cool cynicism, where you can\u2019t be bothered to care what the Falcons do because you know in your heart of hearts they\u2019re going to mess it up. Most of us will be here every week and all throughout the offseason regardless, foolishly holding on to some version of this team that may or may not ever arrive, but it has become increasingly difficult to tell ourselves the Falcons can do this, that, and this and be okay again. It feels like okay is a distant star.<\/p>\n
The Falcons still have to play out the final five games of the season, and I\u2019ll hope for signs that better days are indeed ahead. But with the 2025 season well and truly lost and no idea about what\u2019s coming next, we\u2019re just clinging to driftwood and hoping to float to a tropical island. Some dreams are necessary but not particularly wise to have, nonetheless.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Bijan Robinson. As good as Tyler Allgeier, Kyle Pitts, and even Kirk Cousins were, Robinson had nearly 200 yards and a score and was stellar on the ground and through the air.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve said it so many times this year and then hoped to be able to eat my words, but this is who the Falcons are. They do have talent and they do have potential, but they are too mistake-prone and lackluster when it counts to believe they\u2019ll pull out of their tailspin for very long. I don\u2019t envy the next staff that has to try to pull something bigger and better out of a team that is less than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n
A much stiffer challenge looms against the Seattle Seahawks, who will head to Atlanta. If the Falcons follow a pattern they\u2019ll be frisky in this one, but there\u2019s no reason to expect them to be able to triumph in that one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The gloom was pervasive, and it wasn\u2019t just the weather. This Atlanta Falcons team had everything to play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[223,254,79029,61299,2554,224,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-568088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-falcons","10":"tag-atlanta-falcons-analysis","11":"tag-atlanta-falcons-scores-and-results","12":"tag-atlantafalcons","13":"tag-falcons","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115644648929223250","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568088","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=568088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}