This is the big week. The Falcons and Saints are squaring off, and that always brings out the burning bile from both fanbases. It’s just that both teams haven’t been quite this sorry in a long time.
But
there’s still plenty of invective to go around, and if the Falcons are dead in the water, they can at least ensure the Saints are toast too. Two wins over New Orleans would be one of the few celebrations left to us from this season, so we’d love to make it happen.
Can this banged-up, dispirited Falcons team get that done? Let’s look at the matchup ahead.
Team rankings
The Saints are worse than the Falcons and certainly less talented overall, but they’re not significantly worse. The record would indicate that, but it’s a little unsettling how far the Falcons have fallen from their reasonably-effective-but-slightly-concerning early season rankings to where they are now.
New Orleans turns the ball over too often but also forces plenty, hold the line well against the pass, and offer up a solid defense overall. Their putrid rushing attack and very average passing attack are the two best reasons to think the Falcons will win this one, particularly the first, but obviously little is guaranteed with the way the Falcons have played of late.
How the Saints have changed
Substantially, but in ways that have not made them substantially better.
They fired Dennis Allen and brought aboard Kellen Moore, a reasonably well-regarded offensive mind who has been trying with limited success to make chicken salad out of a big bag of chicken poop. Moore’s hand-picked second round pick, Tyler Shough, is an ancient rookie (even older than Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix, for those who loved to make fun of both) who is skittish under pressure, which we’ll talk about more later. He replaced Spencer Rattler, who beat him out for the starting job before struggling about halfway through the season. Very few people believe Shough is actually the quarterback of the future, but he’s been better than anticipated thus far.
They re-added Brandin Cooks, who barely did anything before they released him this week. They brought aboard Dillon Radunz to take over at left guard after letting Lucas Patrick walk, added safety Justin Reid and cornerback Isaac Yiadom (the latter has been overtaken by rookie Quincy Riley), and added Davon Godchaux up front to help a depleted defensive line. They also did, especially for the Saints, an unusually good job in the draft, adding Riley, Shough, safety Jonas Sanker, and a very good young tackle in Kelvin Banks. Banks and Sanker, at least, should be big pieces of the next successful Saints team, assuming that comes before 2040.
This is still an old, profoundly damaged roster, but they’ll have early picks and a little bit of cap space to work with for once while they try to climb out of the hole.
What to know about Week 12
It’s probably going to be a deeply annoying game.
The Saints have not been terrible defensively, and they’re getting a Falcons passing attack that features no Michael Penix Jr., no Drake London, a still-broken Darnell Mooney, and several WR/WR5 types who will have to masquerade as WR2/WR3 types in this game. They’re solid enough against the run with a disciplined front seven to believe that Atlanta can’t just hand the ball off 40 times and win this game, which is unfortunate.
To win, the Falcons need two things from Kirk Cousins: No ugly turnovers and a little bit of aggression over the middle of the field. Because the run game is unlikely to take over, the oft-memed short-of-the-sticks passes on manageable third downs can’t be a thing here, and Cousins has to be able to attack the middle of the field, something he hasn’t done successful this season and Penix rarely did either. That’s where the current personnel have a shot of winning and Cousins has done his best work in the past, and force-feeding Bijan Robinson and Kyle Pitts in space is probably the best play unless Darnell Mooney is ready to make some game-changing plays. it goes without saying that a fizzled-out passing attack or multiple Cousins interceptions will probably kill this team’s chances of winning.
And yes, they should try to run as much as possible. I don’t want to get to the end of this game and find out that Tyler Allgeier has 12 snaps and two carries; he averages nearly 6.7 yards per carry against New Orleans. Bijan also needs to get the ball as often as humanly possible, both to keep Cousins from needing to pass all day and because he’s easily the most dynamic, healthy skill position player the Falcons have. They’re a quality run defense, but hardly an excellent one, and Atlanta’s willingness to abandon the run has to go away unless they’re simply being stonewalled.
On the other side of the ball, the recipe for victory is exceedingly simple. If Divine Deablo is back and the Falcons continue rotating in Kentavius Street and LaCale London, I like their chances of bottling up one of the league’s most anemic rushing attacks. Alvin Kamara is largely cooked, Kendre Miller is out for the year, and Devin Neal has not shown much. That puts extra pressure on Shough.
Pressure is both Atlanta’s best strategy for disrupting passing attacks every week and Shough’s massive weakness. He has the second-lowest completion percentage in the NFL under pressure for passers with 10 or more such attempts, per Pro Football Focus, at a truly godawful 28.6%. This is a carryover from college, when he ranked 169th in the nation with a 42.3% completion percentage under pressure at Louisville in 2024, as his mechanics go to hell under pressure and he’s prone to bailing on the pocket or launching throws without his feet properly planted. When he’s not pressured, Shough has a big arm, sees the field well enough to be dangerous, and can make plays on the move when necessary; he’s also not the easiest quarterback to sack. Still, pressure turns him from a quality quarterback into one who misses close to 75% of his throws, and it will behoove the Falcons to bring it however they can to make him skittish.
If Shough can hang in there, he’s dealing with a severely depleted receiving corps. Rashid Shaheed was dealt away, Brandin Cooks was released, and only Chris Olave is producing at a high level. Taysom Hill lurks as an annoyance as always and Juwan Johnson can cause a ruckus as a receiver, but Shough’s going to have to put this passing attack on his back for the Saints to put up any real points. We’re not sure just yet that he can do that; the Falcons have to make sure he doesn’t.
If this game comes down to a kick—and it might, given that it’s Falcons-Saints—Blake Grupe is 31st in the league in field goal percentage. We haven’t seen enough of Zane Gonzalez to know if he can keep hitting these kicks, but if it comes down to Grupe needing to make a long one when he’s 2/4 from 40-49 yards and 3/6 from 50+, I like Atlanta’s chances.
There will be some ugliness and downright silly football in the mix because this is the nature of this rivalry and both teams are bad right now; the Falcons should be able to win even with their limitations if they actually show up. We’ll see.
