Everything we thought the Falcons would be good at this year and everything they have actually been good at this year was absent Sunday, the latest in a growing series of deeply disappointing 2025 performances.
Atlanta has now lost in brutal, demoralizing fashion twice against two teams that are among the bottom third of the league in the Panthers and Dolphins, with complete team failure defining both losses.
A season that started with a vision of what the Falcons could be has quickly become another deflating campaign that has revealed what the Falcons are, which is a flawed team that can’t seem to survive injuries or adversity. It’s early in the season to say the Falcons are cooked, but they certainly look cooked. Their favor with the fanbase is burnt to a crisp, at the very least.
The quality of the opponent is what makes this truly unforgivable. The same team that handled the Bills and Commanders got the 1-6 Dolphins at home and were outworked, outplayed, and outcoached in every facet of the game. They lost by 24 points, and after two colliding Falcons defenders turned a would-be interception into an incompletion that enabled an easy field goal to extend Miami’s lead, it never felt particularly close. Tua Tagovailoa was able to follow up one of the worst games of his career with four touchdowns, the defense barely challenged Miami’s ground game for long stretches, and the offense appeared to be entirely made of go-nowhere carries, listless screens, and short passes. Throw in a bunch of penalties, especially on special teams and offense, and the Falcons had no shot to win this one. They looked, frankly, like the worst team on the field by a very wide margin.
As a result, it feels like a time where few takes are too hyperbolic. We’ve been frustrated with Terry Fontenot’s inconsistent track record in the draft in particular, with Raheem Morris’s in-game management and inconsistent ability to get his team playing at a high level, and Zac Robinson’s extremely iffy offense throughout the last year and a half, but they’re reaching new lows. The fact that this team feels as broken as the aging, creaky, and thin 2021 roster in year one of Arthur Smith’s tenure right now is a damning indictment of an entire organization, and I no longer think Raheem Morris and Terry Fontenot can survive a losing season when they’re losing like this. There is far more talent here than there was a few years back, certainly enough that the Falcons should not look like the league’s worst team two weeks in a single season.
There’s a slim but non-zero chance that Robinson is fired right now, given that Fontenot and Morris have handed him too many playmakers for the offense to be this anemic. The fact that it’s hardly all his fault is not really relevant to the outcome here; the Falcons can’t abide this kind of losing much longer without the need to make some kind of change taking over Arthur Blank’s thoughts.
We can point to the absence of Michael Penix Jr.—and Kirk Cousins did not look good enough to create any kind of controversy—and Drake London, as well as the clearly pivotal loss of Divine Deablo and Zach Harrison as factors here. The reality is that every opponent they’ve faced this year, including the Dolphins, has lost pivotal players; it informs the outcome but cannot be heavily blamed for how things went on Sunday. We have to point instead to coaching that isn’t up to snuff, execution that is sometimes laughably bad, and the vagaries of luck that cannot be controlled. When they combine as they did Sunday, you get terrible, indefensible results that challenge you to remember that the Falcons just controlled the Bills two weeks ago. Inconsistency has long been this team’s defining feature, but this is a particularly rickety roller coaster.
At 3-4, the Falcons are hardly dead, but their play suggests there’s a whiff of the grave about them nonetheless. I am challenged to find much of anything positive to take away from today’s game, something Raheem Morris echoed in his press conference, and if there’s nothing to build on it’s difficult to figure out what Atlanta can do to climb out of this hole with tough matchups against the Patriots and Colts on deck. Things seem like they can’t get much worse from here, but nor do they seem likely to get considerably better without the return of multiple key players and major shakeups to the way the Falcons do business on Sundays. For a team that told us they were tired of losing and pushed some chips in the last three years to find solutions, both in the short-term and long-term, that lack of winning and lack of answers seems likely to doom yet another regime if it’s not fixed very, very quickly.
That’s a grim spot to be in, and not one Falcons fans deserve to endure. All we can do is band together, give ourselves as much healthy distance from this team as we can reasonably achieve, and hope the latest in a long line of wake up calls is finally answered. If losing to this Dolphins team by this margin and looking this terrible in every facet of the game can’t get the Falcons to display urgency and heart, it’s not clear what can.
On to the full recap.
The Good
- Kyle Pitts was unstoppable early on, catching Cousins’ first three passes and seemingly getting open at will. The Falcons went to him in fits and starts the rest of the way, and for the second straight week, Pitts was a vacuum cleaner for a lot of short-to-mid-range targets, leading the team with nine catches for 59 yards. This offense needs to finds more deep looks to take advantage of what Pitts can do down the sideline, but with this passing attack foundering, Pitts has at least proven to be the one reliable target on a week-to-week basis. He’s now third in the NFL in receptions for a tight end and ninth in receiving yards for the position.
- The Falcons finally dusted off KhaDarel Hodge later on in this one, and unsurprisingly he looked like a more consistent option than Casey Washington or David Sills as a pass catcher, even though each of those players managed one nice grab on Sunday. Hodge was tied for second on the team in receptions and was second in yardage, and even though both those totals were modest, he has a little bit of after the catch ability and separation skill that the Falcons need, especially if London has to miss any more time. As much as I genuinely love Hodge, you’re not in a great place as an offense if he’s one of your best pass catching options.
- The Falcons would love to have Billy Bowman Jr. back and I’m excited about his career outlook, but Dee Alford continues to play well in his stead. He had the game’s lone sack, a couple of nice tackles, and some quality stretches in coverage. As we’re discussing the Falcons having depth problems, at least Alford has really stepped up when called upon.
- Brandon Dorlus and Kaden Elliss had multiple tackles for loss, showing up with big plays on a day where the run defense was worth very little overall. It was nice to see the outsized effort from Dorlus, Elliss all afternoon, and for stretches from the likes of Dee Alford and Ruke Orhorhoro. The Falcons need those sparks to translate to more than we saw today.
- The game did, in fact, end.
The Ugly
- Kirk Cousins looked like Kirk Cousins last year. Sometimes that was a good thing, like when he survived pressure to make some nice throws to Kyle Pitts early on and hung in there for some tough, on-target tosses while taking hits. More often, it was not, with miscommunications with receivers and visible frustration, an inability to escape or mitigate any kind of pressure aside from a couple of zippy throws out of danger, and inexplicable misses. There’s a big-time argument to be made that the lack of compelling receiving options and Zac Robinson’s offense dented his chances in this one, but Cousins did not look like a better option than Penix, and did not look comfortable at any point in this game. We’ll see if he gets another bite at the apple next week after at least not looking awful, but the Falcons will be hoping they can return to their much younger starter soon.
- Bijan Robinson was so careful with the football last year, but this year he nearly lost a fumble (erased by a call) earlier in the season and finally did lose one at the worst possible time against Miami. With Atlanta deep in Dolphins territory, Bijan stumbled a bit and basically threw the ball, giving Miami an easy recovery and ending a would-be scoring drive down 17-3. His magic-making ability only showed up a couple of times today, as he had little chance behind this line, but Bijan has to take care of the football and not make a back-breaking mistake like that regardless.
- The line was terrible, full stop, for the second week. We saw Cousins pressured, hit, and sacked like Penix was a week ago, we saw Allgeier and Robinson hardly able to get anywhere, and that all translated to another anemic day from the offense. Zac Robinson seems unable to figure out how to get by a struggling line, but in fairness to him and this cast of playmakers, there’s no chance anything’s going to work that well if it’s not well blocked for. The offense can’t function when they look like bad.
- Zac Robinson has shown a concerning inability to adapt to the challenges in front of him, and next to no ability to coax more out of this team when opponents stymie the things Atlanta wants to do early on. He couldn’t get Kirk Cousins easy reads, couldn’t overcome the loss of Drake London, couldn’t get the ground game rolling, and has a dedication to certain looks, formations, and habits that opposing defenses seem to have figured out how to exploit. If the offense continues to sink the team to this degree, I’m not sure he makes it all the way to the end of the year, and Robinson has to be able to find a way to get the passing game going when the ground game isn’t functioning and vice versa. When absolutely nothing is working, it’s not all on the players executing, and right now absolutely nothing is working.
- We hadn’t really gotten a mystery Raheem Morris challenge flag this year, but we got one Sunday. Ollie Gordon pretty clearly managed enough forward progress to get a first down on the first quarter on fourth down, and it felt more like wishful thinking than a serious challenge. Losing a timeout in the first quarter on a hopeless challenge is the kind of move we don’t want to see this coaching staff making, given how many other things are going wrong. The fact that this team didn’t look at all prepared for their opponent and any kind of real adversity for the second week in a row also reflects poorly on a head coach whose chief calling card is motivation and keeping his team together. Morris seems increasingly unlikely to get the three year grace that Arthur Smith got if things keep going south, given that there’s more talent on hand than there was in 2021 and 2022, so he has to find answers quickly and avoid frittering away timeouts and opportunities.
- The defense was abysmal on Miami’s second drive, a step late to everything and undisciplined throughout, and that leitmotif played over and over again all afternoon. The Falcons were blown off the ball regularly, surrendered major gains because of a lack of gap discipline, and endured coverage lapses that allowed Tua to slice and dice them on short and intermediate routes. There was no one player standing out as particularly culpable on Sunday, but this was inarguably the worst day of the year for Jeff Ulbrich’s defense, and personnel changes and scheme tweaks are going to be necessary to keep it from happening yet again next Sunday.
- One of those: JD Bertrand can’t start again. The Falcons promised mixing and matching with Deablo out, but we saw an awful lot of the second year linebacker, and what the coaching staff is saying about his ability is not what we’re seeing on the field. Runners went through his arm tackles, he was rarely in the right place at the right time on run downs in general, and his work in coverage is just not very good. On special teams and in situational looks where he can blitz, Bertrand can be an asset, but as a full-time player on defense his limitations are beyond evident. Getting Jalon Walker back and working in DeMarcco Hellams, Josh Woods, and maybe Jordan Fuller once he’s healthy is just something the coaching staff has to do.
- Jessie Bates has not had his usual caliber of year, and the lowlight might have come in the second quarter when he got so hyper-focused on trying to intercept a tipped pass that he intefered with JD Bertrand, who had it in his hands, and ensured nobody got the turnover. That could’ve been an incredible play for Bertrand, who otherwise struggled, and the friendly fire was so disappointing. Riley Patterson was able to knock through the field goal try, making that a really costly error for a player renowned for his awareness. He exited with an ankle injury that meant his day was a total wash only after taking a very bad angle on a Tua touchdown pass, but the Falcons are still going to be worse off without him than they are with a struggling version of him, so we’ll hope he’s back soon.
- Feleipe Franks getting called for unnecessary roughness to put the Falcons back on their own 5 after the defense forced Miami to punt early in the second quarter was the kind of penalty that this team has committed far too often for…well, close to a decade now. The fact that he was then called for holding in the third quarter on a return that would’ve put the Falcons near midfield means Franks is in the doghouse with the fanbase again. I will give him props for his diving effort on the onside kick; if only he had held on to it.
- Special teams continued to be an adventure, something that is deeply disappointing given that Marquice Williams’ group usually comes out of a rough 1-3 week stretch with sharper football. Bradley Pinion had one off the side of his foot that put the Dolphins in excellent field position, repeated penalties made life harder for Atlanta’s offense, and there was not a lot of particularly inspiring blocking or tackling aside from Mike Ford’s big hit early in this one. They have to be better, because all three phases sruggling means the Falcons are doomed.
- Getting blown out twice in one year by two forgettable football teams is difficult to forgive or overlook, and when it happens twice in the first half of the season, it’s downright alarming. That reflects poorly on every level of the organization, and with the Falcons set for an eighth straight losing season if this keeps up, the temptation for Blank to have to clean house is going to be very high. That’s not where anyone wants this team to be, but it has to be particularly bitter for Blank to think about, given that this team has been through two front offices and three coaching staff in that span with very little to show for it.
The Wrapup
Game MVP
N/A.
One Takeaway
The Falcons are still something less than the sum of their parts, and when you take a couple of their parts away, they are capable of losing in horrifying fashion to just about anybody.
Next Week
The Falcons travel to take on a resurgent Patriots team led by Drake Maye, and will hope to bounce back in a big way by keeping a talented quarterback in check. It sounds brave when I type it, right?
Final Word
Makethisstop.
