It was one blunder after another for the Atlanta Falcons special teams unit in 2025.
Have you ever felt like the team is personally attacking you with their actions? That’s what watching this special teams unit felt like for me. The team went through three kickers, but it wasn’t just the specialist that struggled; the coverage units turned in their worst outing in years.
The performance left fans and coaches feeling helpless; no one had answers to the problems at hand. The team finally got its kicking
situation under control, but all the other issues remained. Ultimately, they couldn’t find a way to salvage the unit.
The Kickers
If your season went as planned, you’ll only be talking about the performance of one kicker on your team, but the Falcons ended up deploying three a year after the position struggled.
Younghoe Koo was once a legend in this town, but he quickly became public enemy number one after his 2024 slump carried over into 2025. There’s nothing worse than watching someone who was once prolific at their craft struggle to do the basics. Koo’s final kick in Atlanta was a heartbreaker, and he was off the roster before the end of September.
Insert John Parker Romo, who had the aura of Scrappy Doo. Parker Romo was integral in the win against the Minnesota Vikings, but the inconsistency that had him out of a job previously would rear its ugly head again. Romo’s leg couldn’t be trusted from distance; he would go 2/4 on field goal attempts beyond 40 yards, but in the end, it was a costly extra point miss against the New England Patriots that would end his time in Atlanta.
When all hope seemed lost, Zane Gonzalez stepped in and provided the consistent kicking the team had been lacking for the last two years. Gonzalez was perfect (8-8) on kicks between 40-49 yards and went 7-9 on kicks from 50 or more. Gonzalez was on the street for a long time, and who knows what could’ve happened if the Falcons took their kicking competition more seriously from the jump, but they were complacent in their belief that Koo would rebound, and it cost them.
Lenny Krieg was supposed to be that competition, but after Koo started struggling, it became clear the team didn’t view him as a realistic option. This rubbed many the wrong way, as the talk all summer was that he was a real threat to take over the job; however, the idea that an IPP player would immediately make an impact was always misguided. The team ended up wasting time, and it cost them in the end.
The Aces
When you constantly rob from future drafts, you have to make a flurry of free agent signings to fill special teams holes, and that’s what Fontenot did in 2025 with signings like Mike Ford, Feleipe Franks, Teagan Quitoriano, and Jordan Fuller. This approach did not go well for the Falcons. Ford proved that he’s still got the goods, but the rest were busts. Atlanta’s coverage units were abysmal, making life more difficult for the other two units on the team.
KhaDarel Hodge was considered one of the best special teams players in the league going into the season, but was made a healthy scratch for poor play (we were unable to pinpoint the exact issue) before being placed on season-ending IR with a shoulder injury. DeAngelo Malone’s season ended against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 10 after suffering a broken ankle. While both were significant losses, the unit’s performance with them still fell short.
Constantly losing the field position battle made every drive more difficult than it needed to be, and it left the team asking too much of its offense and defense.
The Returners
Jamal Agnew was another highly touted offseason signing, but his season would be so pedestrian that the team cut him loose in December, leaving the Falcons with next to nothing in terms of proven talent in the room. Nathan Carter showed off his long speed in the preseason, but when given the chance to return kicks against the Carolina Panthers, he struggled with the knuckleball and was never given a shot after that.
Deven Thompkins would end up handling return duties after Agnew was released. While he was visibly more explosive than his predecessor, the results didn’t produce anything spectacular or any hope that it would be his job in the future.
Bradley Pinion
2025 was the final year of Pinion’s deal, and he did everything he could to earn a new contract. Pinion turned in a great season as a punter; he led the league in punts pinned inside the 20 with 36, which equates to 56.3% of his punts, and only three of his punts resulted in touchbacks per PFF. Pinion has certainly earned a new contract as the Falcons punter, but his performance on kickoffs left little to be desired.
While most of the issues fall on the coverage unit as a whole, Pinion never seemed to find his groove on kickoffs. In fairness to him, this was not his job when the season started, but he had to take over when the team started shuffling the kicking position. He doesn’t have a deep bag of tricks, such as knuckleballs or screwballs, that he can fire off with confidence, and while this isn’t a necessity, the teams that have those players on their roster had an advantage over their opponents. Gonzalez took over these responsibilities after Week 13.
2026 Outlook
Special teams have changed, and the Falcons 2025 approach proved inadequate. You need as many high-caliber athletes as possible on kickoff. It’s not about running in a lane anymore; you need players who can quickly disengage from blocks and close space. Tight ends on the roster bubble aren’t going to cut it. Ian Cunningham will have to find a way to balance positional depth with special teams impact, something Terry Fontenot completely missed the mark on in 2025.
Bradley Pinion and Zane Gonzalez should be priority re-signings, but the team shouldn’t stop pushing to improve. The team needs to push Gonzalez in the summer to make sure he’s not a one-season wonder. It wouldn’t hurt to bring someone into the building who can do kickoffs at a high level; someone with location control and the ability to pull off multiple kicking techniques. Someone who could be a significant upgrade on kickoffs would force the team to ask tougher questions about the specialists they have penciled in for the starting jobs. Everyone should feel like they’re competing the moment summer workouts begin.
The new staff did not retain Marquice Williams, and the Falcons hired two special teams coaches with experience running their own units, but both have had tenures riddled with failure. The Miami Dolphins fired Craig Aukerman due to his unit being one of the least disciplined groups in the league, and his top assistant, Chase Blackburn, was fired by the Los Angeles Rams midseason, who were one of the few units worse than the Falcons.
The two don’t inspire much confidence; the team is banking on them learning from their failures and turning it around with a fresh start in Atlanta. This group will have a lot to prove in 2026, and if they fail to make significant improvements, they’ll continue to cost the team games.
