The Rams had more yards, nearly twice as many passing yards, and outscored the Falcons 24-6 in the second half. If you skipped the game—in your defense, you were very sleepy—and woke up to that small assortment of facts, you’d assume Los Angeles destroyed Atlanta in primetime.
But that’s not what happened, of course. What happened was the defense putting on a masterclass performance in the first half, shutting out Matthew Stafford and that high-powered offense entirely along the way. They sacked him,
harried him, and picked him off three times, one from Jessie Bates and two from Xavier Watts. The passing game was sad, frankly, but a record-breaking Bijan Robinson ensured that didn’t matter all that much, as he scored two touchdowns, broke off a 93 yard run, finished with 195 rushing yards, and led the team in receptions and nearly in receiving yards. Zane Gonzalez shook off a blocked field goal and hit two clutch 50-plus yarders, a 56-yarder and the game-deciding 51-yarder as the clock ran down. The Falcons needed a little luck, but they helped themselves with some strong coverage on the game’s final drive. Under the bright lights, it was enough to beat one of the NFL’s best teams, and to extend Atlanta’s winning streak to three games in a row.
What’s maddening is that this kind of performance should have mattered a great deal. It should have sewn up the division for the Falcons, if not for bewildering blowouts at the hands of the Panthers and Dolphins, missed kicks that ruined late chances against the Buccaneers and Patriots, and one infuriating, listless loss to the Jets. Win even one of those games and you’re in the playoffs, but instead the Falcons only found themselves when it was too late. That makes even a stellar win bittersweet, and makes the future of this team as cloudy as ever.
Because let’s face it: This team is far from a finished product, and even further away from being a consistently great team. They failed to block Jared Verse on a scoop-and-score blocked field goal, left everyone from Puka Nacua to Colby Parkinson to Xavier Smith wide open downfield at some point, likely got away with a late pass interference that would have given the Rams a chance to win or tie the game, and got truly discouraging production from their passing game and both Kyle Pitts and Drake London in particular. It was a warty, uneven effort this team could have lost in a dozen ways, and that kind of effort is so familiar that it’s hard not to want the winds of change to arrive in Flowery Branch this spring.
But. We knew this Falcons team had talent and a certain amount of grit, and regardless of any very justified grumbling we might do, beating the Rams is no mean feat. Beating the Rams when you’re almost totally reliant on one player on offense, your kicker, and your young defense to do so is crazy work, especially when you pull off something like intercepting Matthew Stafford in the second half for the first time all year. It may be too late to make the playoffs a reality and it may or may not be too late for some coaches and executives to remain here in 2026, but the win itself is still impressive as hell. It matters because Xavier Watts is building toward a great career and will be here next year, it matters because Bijan Robinson is growing into even more of a juggernaut, it matters because Zane Gonzalez has been able to stabilize a bad kicker situation, and it matters because this team’s flaws and needs are still impossible to overlook even as they win, ensuring Terry Fontenot, Raheem Morris, Matt Ryan, or whoever else may be here next year can’t ignore them. It matters because hey, we still like to see the Falcons win, and suddenly they’re doing just that.
We have one game left, hopefully featuring a thorough shellacking of the Saints, and then it’s on to a crucial offseason. I increasingly suspect that Fontenot and Morris will be here, with Ryan or someone else joining the organization in the name of adding a fresh voice and accountability, and I have a lot of trepidation about that. But seeing wins like these and seeing the growth for this defense in particular still gives me a certain amount of hope that there’s something better that can come out of yet another lost season, and we’re not far away from learning what the Falcons think that should look like. In the meantime, we can enjoy some actual fun Falcons football, as stressful as it may be.
On to the full recap.
The Good
- We always talk about Bijan Robinson being a big play threat, but the truth is most of the time he’s turning negative or barely positive plays into significant gains, not ripping off dizzying long touchdown runs. There are exceptions, though, and perhaps they’ll start to arrive more often. In this one, Robinson pulled off one of the great plays of an already phenomenal career, slicing his way through defenders, making an unblocked safety miss entirely, and then getting loose late in the second quarter for a 93 yard touchdown run where he jogged off Roger McCreary’s desperate, last-second tackle attempt to make it 21-0 Atlanta. He would go on to rush for an absurd 195 yards on 23 carries and a score, reel in a team-high five catches for 34 yards and another score, and make a win possible en route to breaking William Andrews’ 30-plus-year-old single season franchise record for scrimmage yards. Raheem Morris calls him the best player in football because that’s his guy, but he also…might not be wrong.
- The line did a really nice job springing Robinson all night, with some help from Tyler Allgeier, Charlie Woerner, and Kyle Pitts, and they gave Kirk Cousins enough time to do better than he did. Given that this is deep in the season for an aging Jake Matthews, Ryan Neuzil is in his first year as a starter, and Elijah Wilkinson is the third-string right tackle, that’s work that deserves praise; it would even if these were all healthy, high-end starters.
- Jessie Bates is still the playmaker his reputation suggests when the opportunity arises. Sitting deep and watching Matthew Stafford, Bates was sitting in exactly the right position to take advantage of a high Stafford throw to Konata Mumpfield, intercepting it and then making a couple of guys miss en route to a 34 yard pick-six. It was the kind of play the Falcons need from Bates, and it came against a very tough opponent.
- Not to be outdone, Xavier Watts got his team-leading fourth interception of the year. With Kaden Elliss matched up against a receiver (and doing pretty well) deep downfield, Watts came in to snatch the ball away and end the Rams’ chances of scoring before the half. He had a coverage lapse later in the game, but more than made up for it in the fourth quarter by reading Matthew Stafford on a fourth down try and picking it off again, returning it to the Rams 31 yard line before he stepped out of bounds. The rookie ballhawk has had some growing pains, but looks like an impact defender already and has gotten better as the year goes on. The open field tackling and opportunistic defense make up for any shakiness in coverage, and I’m confident he’s going to get there.
- The Falcons legitimately rattled Stafford there off and on, which is not easy to do. Ruke Orhorhoro, Brandon Dorlus and Leonard Floyd all got sacks, but they also got in his face, made him feel pressure, and forced some uncharacteristically untidy throws that hurt the Rams offense. The pass rush is now just three sacks away from breaking the franchise single season record, too.
- Khalid Kareem had a phenomenal fourth down play. In past years, he’d be a player getting real snaps, but as a practice squad call-up he’s still a difference maker in limited opportunities; the Rams were going for it on fourth and short deep in Atlanta territory and he simply blew into the backfield and blew up the run for a loss to end the drive. It’s nice to see unheralded players making the most of their chances.
- Atlanta had a plan for Puka Nacua and it worked really, really well. The star receiver has been killing teams all year, but the Falcons used a heavy dose of A.J. Terrell and a little bit of rotation and safety help to hold him to five grabs for 47 yards and a touchdown. Nacua came close to making a couple more big plays and did score, but given the caliber of player he is, Jeff Ulbrich, Terrell, and the defense deserve credit for having a plan and executing it really, really well.
- Zane Gonzalez was not at fault on the blocked field goal, and he made the most of his other chances. The Falcons showed enormous confidence trotting him out there for a 56 yard try and barely trying to pick up additional yardage at the end of their final drive, resulting a 51 yarder he hit easily. It has been the better part of two seasons since the Falcons had confidence in their kicker to hit tries like that, and it bodes well for Gonzalez’s future that they do trust him.
- Bradley Pinion did a nice job of pinning the Rams deep, and his boot out of the back of Atlanta’s end zone was genuinely impressive.
- Building a 21-0 lead against the Rams, even if they gave it away, tells you how good can be at taking a look at their opponent and building an effective game plan. That and their ability to hang tough until the end are points in their favor; if only they were better at knowing what to do in between when they’re getting punched in the mouth.
The Ugly
- How is it that at home, with an extremely veteran quarterback, you nearly pick up a delay of game early and then pick one up inside your own five yard line? I’m sure Michael Penix Jr. being essentially a rookie this year factored into some of those delay of game calls early on, but happening in your own stadium in Week 17 indicates a problem from the offensive staff. Atlanta now has eight delay of game calls on the year, which is tied for the fourth-highest total in the NFL. Those kinds of mistakes can’t carry into next year, no matter who is under center and on the sideline.
- The offense was Bijan or bust all night, something that got worse as the game wore on. Kyle Pitts got one deep target he appeared to pull up on because he wasn’t expecting the ball and one intermediate catch; Drake London had a couple of solid grabs along the way and then disappeared as well. That left Darnell Mooney and David Sills to pick up the slack slightly, but Bijan easily led the team in receptions and the Falcons couldn’t get it cooking downfield despite Cousins having time most of the night. That made the offense extremely one-dimensional and led to a lot of stalled drives when Bijan wasn’t doing special things, and the team’s inability to get the ball to more than 1-2 playmakers per game remains deeply frustrating.
- The trust in Gonzalez is great, but the sequence leading up to it was baffling. Anything you can do to make a field goal try shorter for your kicker is a worthwhile goal, so the Falcons stuffing Tyler Allgeier up the middle on three straight unproductive runs felt like they were petrified of turning the ball over and didn’t trust their passing game. That may well have been true, but it’s pretty sad if it is.
- Cousins was due for a bit of a dud. This one started promisingly enough, but we saw a little bit of 2024 Cousins in action as the night went on, with a pair of panicky near-interceptions thrown in the general direction of a receiver, an unwillingness or inability to extend plays, and a couple of misses. He’ll be better against the Saints, I’m sure.
- Elijah Wilkinson has extended his career this year by being a durable, surprisingly solid right tackle option all year long, admirable work for a third-string option. One thing he has not done well is avoid penalties, in particular false starts, and those calls have proven to be annoying at best and costly at worse. Wilkinson got popped twice in this one, and has been called for far too many false starts this year.
- The Falcons have had special teams miscues all year long that have proven to be deeply damaging, from missed field goals and extra points to get them to overtime to long returns that have broken games open. They keep that streak alive in Week 17, with Zane Gonzalez’s late third quarter field goal try blocked by an unblocked Jared Verse, who picked it up and brought it all the way back to turn what could have been a 27-10 game into a 24-17 game; otherwise things were fairly crisp. The Falcons just can’t get it totally right in this phase, and it’s likely to lead to sweeping special teams changes in 2026.
- Dee Alford’s aggression on that second down shot at the end of the game to Tutu Atwell was understandable, and he got away with it; I’m obviously and selfishly okay with that. Alford has also been a real asset for the Falcons all year long and had another fine game featuring a pass breakup and a couple of nice tackles, but the gulf in outcomes between Atwell catching that and immediately getting tackled (the Rams had no timeouts and may not have had the time to get a play off; it would have been close) and pass interference (first down, Rams in field goal range, a chance to take one game-sealing shot at the end zone) was wide enough that it was a real risk I would have preferred he didn’t take. Blessedly, we all went home (or just sat up straight on our couches) happy.
- The loss of Brandon Dorlus hurt, and seeing him absolutely crushed emotionally on the cart hurt even more. I really hope that injury was not as serious as it looked, because Dorlus was having a phenomenal second season and was so crucial to this rejuvenated pass rush. If it’s a serious injury it could bleed into next year, which would leave the Falcons with a pretty massive hole to fill.
The Wrapup
Game MVP
Obviously Bijan Robinson. Did you see that game? Crazy.
One Takeaway
This is a pockmarked version of the team the Falcons want to be, all heart and fire and capable of using their ground game and defense to grind even great teams to dust. Whether they can get there without the caveats is the central question of 2026.
Next Week
The season will end with the Falcons and Saints jockeying for a little momentum heading into the offseason, and for Atlanta, it’s a chance to torpedo Tampa Bay’s playoff chances once and for all.
Final Word
Redhelmetmagic.
