{"id":964131,"date":"2026-08-04T16:06:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/964131\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T16:06:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:06:44","slug":"b-r-dissects-atlanta-falcons-playoff-chances-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/964131\/","title":{"rendered":"B\/R dissects Atlanta Falcons playoff chances in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 31, 2026, 2:00 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

The last time the Atlanta Falcons<\/a> made the NFL playoffs was the year coming off their all-time Super Bowl collapse. They managed to get past the Wild Card round, defeating Sean McVay in his first season with the Los Angeles Rams<\/a>, 26-13 before falling to the eventual champion Philadelphia Eagles<\/a> 15-10 in the divisional round.<\/p>\n

That gives the Falcons the league’s longest playoff drought outside of the New York Jets, who don’t even count. What would it take for them to get back to the postseason this year?<\/p>\n

According to Brad Gagnon at Bleacher Report<\/a>, Atlanta is in the “need everything to go right'” tier to make the playoffs, the second from the bottom – and No. 25 overall.<\/p>\n

“Not a great start to camp from a health perspective with both Tua Tagovailoa and Michael Penix Jr. out. Still, the talent those quarterbacks possess combined with Bijan Robinson’s game-breaking abilities keeps them in the picture with a new coaching staff in a soft division.”<\/p>\n

Making the playoffs without an established franchise quarterback is difficult, but not impossible – especially when you’re playing in the NFC South.<\/p>\n

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year the Carolina Panthers<\/a> technically “won” the division, but they also finished with the same record as Atlanta and Tampa at 8-9 and their scoring differential was a pathetic -69 for a playoff team.<\/p>\n

The real question isn’t if the Falcons can “win” the NFC South this year, it’s if they could actually upset whoever they’d wind up hosting in the Wild Card round – likely a team with a better record that played in a much tougher division. The biggest gap in the NFL is between teams that just missed out on the playoffs and those that actually have a chance to advance in the postseason.<\/p>\n

On that score, Atlanta is pretty far from being able to upset any of the conference heavyweights they’d be likely to face in the first round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 31, 2026, 2:00 p.m. ET The last time the Atlanta Falcons made the NFL playoffs was the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":964132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[95878,7,6,84,119355,96607,96608,95882,96609,96193,96059,95924,96194,95896,95888,95895,95897,96191,95925,95883,95950,95881],"class_list":["post-964131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl-playoffs","tag-accessfree","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-playoffs","tag-sourcefalcons-wire","tag-sstssportsnflfalcons","tag-sstsnfalcons","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagatlanta-falcons","tag-tagbijan-robinson","tag-tagcarolina-panthers","tag-taglos-angeles-rams","tag-tagmichael-penix-jr","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-negative","tag-tagphiladelphia-eagles","tag-tagsean-mcvay","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtua-tagovailoa","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117038100253751163","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964131","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=964131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/964132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}