After a tense battle against a perennial NFC South contender in the Buccaneers and a primetime battle against a tough-to-beat Vikings team, Week 3 gives the Falcons something a little less intimidating with the Carolina Panthers. The danger is in overlooking Carolina, as the Falcons did to their considerable detriment a year ago.
I don’t mean to imply that the Panthers are hopeless, but nor are they a good football team. They’re waiting for pieces to gel, players to take the next step, and good fortune
to break their way more consistently, much like the stuck-in-the-mud Falcons of 2022. The difference is that Carolina may have their quarterback—the jury’s very out on that—and are pretty damn banged up already. I don’t have high hopes for their 2025 season, but then, I never did.
Nonetheless, the Falcons found out last year that Young is capable of catching fire, and there are roster changes and the specter of a divisional mudfight to make them justifiably wary of Carolina. Let’s take a look at the matchup ahead.
Team Rankings
Just like last year’s final game, the Falcons completely outclass this Panthers team on paper. Unlike last year, the defense is looking pretty good for Atlanta, which will hopefully swing the outcome.
Carolina has talent, but this is probably a pretty good reflection of who they are and how things will look the rest of the way. They can occasionally be interesting because of their pass rushers and ability to create turnovers and can pass their way back into games they’ve fallen out of to an extent, but every indicator is that they will once again be a below average team.
How the Panthers have changed
Since the last time we saw them, the Panthers have not changed a ton, but they have re-tooled their receiving corps and defense.
On offense, they added Rico Dowdle to back up Chuba Hubbard with prized draft pick Jonathan Brooks back on the shelf for the second straight year and added two new faces at receiver. The most important one is Tetairoa McMillan, a gifted 6’5” receiver who already looks like Young’s most compelling target. They also added longtime Raiders receiver Hunter Renfrow, who is coming off a dangerous game where he reeled in seven passes for 48 yards and two touchdowns. Billy Bowman Jr. will have his hands full with the veteran on Sunday.
Defensively, the changes were more sweeping. The Panthers added defensive tackle Bobby Brown and linebacker Christian Rozeboom from the Rams, safety Tre’Von Moehrig from the Raiders, and Patrick Jones from the Vikings. The hope was that they could rebuild a run defense that was terrible a year ago, but the early returns on that are mixed. The draft brought in interesting pass rushers in Nic Scourton and Princely Umanmielen and depth, and Umanmielen has Carolina’s lone sack to this point.
It wasn’t a transformative offseason, but McMillan figures to be good for a long time, Renfrow is helping now, and the defense should ultimately be more competent than it was during a pretty awful 2024. It’s just still not great, thankfully.
What to know about Week 3
Look, any given Sunday. The Falcons have overlooked this Panthers team multiple times in the recent past and paid the price, including a listless Week 18 effort earlier this calendar year. Doing so again after a big, emotional win against the Minnesota Vikings would be beyond frustrating, but it would not be out of character for this Falcons team, especially against a divisional opponent.
And that’s the biggest risk. Bryce Young can get on hot streaks as a passer, especially to dangerous new weapon Tet McMillan, and the Falcons have to watch out for a sometimes scary Carolina front led by the great Derrick Brown. We also know they’ve struggled to continue Chuba Hubbard on the ground in recent matchups, and that Carolina has been able to hang around a little bit the first two weeks thanks to a well-timed turnover here and there.
There’s talent here, but for yet another season, there’s not enough talent to fancy the Panthers as contenders. Being down two starters on the interior of the offensive line, where Young is least capable of handling pressure without making mistakes and where Chuba Hubbard will not have the level of blocking he’s accustomed to, magnifies the problem for Carolina. This is an extremely winnable game, but then, I said that last year about Carolina before the implosion. I’m trying to be reasonable despite being excited about this Falcons team and knowing this Panthers team is shaky.
Winning will likely include a mix of the following for the Falcons:
- An improved red zone offense. The Falcons have the third-worst red zone touchdown percentage in football through two weeks, company you really don’t want to be in when your offense is as touted as this one is. Getting a couple of touchdowns down the goal line would be a great confidence boost, and it would help the Falcons put the Panthers away.
- Continued pressure. Bryce Young has done a pretty nice job of escaping pressure and made the Falcons pay at the end of last year for not being able to get him down early in the play, but this Falcons pass rush is a lot more intimidating. Keeping the pressure ratcheted up against a weakened offensive line, especially against a quarterback who seemingly gets off to a slow start every week, will give the Falcons a chance to take a lead they can hold on to throughout. The fact that Carolina is down two key interior starters makes that task a lot easier.
- A stout showing from the run defense. In his last three games against the Falcons, Hubbard has managed 49 carries for 239 yards on the ground, or 5.5 yards per carry. Bryce Young, meanwhile, turned five carries into 24 yards and two touchdowns the last time he saw Atlanta. The kind of improved discipline we’ve seen from this team will be really important to containing Hubbard, and the pass rush getting home will help keep Young from taking off. Limiting Hubbard would have the added bonus of putting more pressure on Young, too, helping with the above.
- Limit the turnovers and mistakes. Last year, a Penix interception that came on a tipped ball off the hands of Ray-Ray McCloud followed by a missed Riley Patterson field goal, both of which gave way to Carolina scoring drives, played a significant role in the outcome. Avoiding those kinds of costly errors will be critical unless the Falcons can really start running away with this one early on.
If they can keep Young off balance, limit Hubbard, and avoid the costly errors that helped make Week 18 a fiasco in 2024, they should win this. If they can bring the kind of energy and discipline that defined the game against the Vikings, and pair it with better work in the red zone, they should dominate this one. We’ll find out soon enough if this Falcons team is ready to put on that kind of show.
