When the victories are hollow in the big picture, you can only make them a little fuller and sweeter by diving into the details. Atlanta\u2019s season was already over on Sunday, but they capped off the year by moving to 2-0 against the Saints for the first time in a while, wrecked Tampa Bay\u2019s playoff dreams in the same afternoon, and capped things off with a four game winning streak. Those who were worried that would save jobs needn\u2019t have done so; the team announced last night that both Raheem Morris and Terry Fontenot had been fired.<\/p>\n
Of course, it wasn\u2019t easy, because nothing has been easy with the 2025 edition of this team. The offense labored, gasped, and scraped its way up and down the field, with a Kirk Cousins-to-Drake London touchdown pass and four Zane Gonzalez field goals representing their 19 points for the day. The defense was by far the better side of the ball, but they still allowed several big plays and near-misses, which resulted in the Saints being down just two points on their ultimately failed onside kick attempt in the late fourth quarter. It was ugly, borderline watchable football for much of the day, befitting of a game that would decide the ugly, borderline unwatchable NFC South\u2019s fate; we give massive props to James Pearce Jr., Jammie Robinson, and especially Dee Alford for giving us exciting moments to enjoy. Easy or not, though, the Falcons triumphed and ended up with the same record as the NFC South leaders, despite not having a prayer of making the postseason. It was that kind of season, but at least it ended with a bit of a bright spot.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s now time for Atlanta to ensure that we have more to get excited about than just beating the Saints in 2026, a tall order and one we\u2019re already apprehensive about but also intrigued by. There are decisions to come on a new football czar (Matt Ryan?), new general manager and head coach, and plenty to re-tool and build up the roster. Working with more limited resources than they had the past two offseasons, the Falcons will need to build on their 8-9 finish by heavily improving from within, something they have repeatedly failed to do in recent years. We can have optimism for the pass rush, the ground game, and a handful of other spots and still acknowledge there\u2019s much work to be done, and a single offseason in which to do it. We\u2019ll start finding out about some of those decisions very soon, perhaps even before this article publishes.<\/p>\n
Tough one, but given how important that Dee Alford interception was to the outcome and how well he played overall, I\u2019m giving it to him. Honorable mentions to Drake London, James Pearce Jr., and of course Zane Gonzalez.<\/p>\n
The Falcons have enough talent to be difficult, but not enough to stomp inferior teams, and that has to change in 2026 lest they find themselves right back here in January 2027.<\/p>\n
A pivotal offseason where rumors are put to rest and reality arrives. I\u2019m a little nervous about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the victories are hollow in the big picture, you can only make them a little fuller and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655847,"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-655846","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\/115842448697930557","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655846","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=655846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}