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The 5 O’Clock Club
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2026 opponent preview series: Wk 1 Eagles | Wk 2 Cowboys | Wk 3 Seahawks | Wk 4 Colts | Wk 5 Giants | Wk 6 49ers | Wk 9 Rams | Wk 11 Bengals | Wk 12 Cardinals | Wk 13 Titans | Wk 14 Texans
Previewing Washington’s 14 opponents of the ‘26 season — one at a time
In 2026, the Commanders will, like every other team
in the NFL, play 17 games against 14 opponents. With the amount of roster change that NFL teams undergo annually along with the unusually large number of head coach and coordinator changes in 2026, it seems useful to spend some time to review each of Washington’s regular season opponents.
FALCONS
This Week 15 game pits two teams that have close ties, starting with the fact that Dan Quinn’s first head coaching job was with the Falcons, and that he has a long history with the Falcons defensive coordinator, Jeff Ulbrich, who — if he’d been released by the Falcons when Raheem Morris was fired earlier this calendar year — might well have been hired as Washington’s 2026 DC. Quinn coached Ulbrich when the latter was a linebacker for the 49ers in the 2000s. Quinn then helped Ulbrich land his first NFL coaching gig in Seattle (2010) and later hired him onto his Falcons coaching staff in 2015. Now, the student and his former teacher will face off in a late-season NFC battle.
Week 15 Preview: Atlanta Falcons at Washington Commanders
Date: December 20, 2026, 1:00 p.m. ET
Location: Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland
First-year head coaches have a notoriously poor track record, as they tend to be in charge of a team with a transitioning roster in an organization that is trying to change the culture.
Kevin Stefanski, however, is nobody’s NFL rookie coach. After 14 years with the Vikings, he was hired as head coach of the Browns in 2020, where he coached for 6 seasons before being sacked in January. His tenure was a bit of everything — a pair of 11-win seasons; a pair of seasons with 8 & 7 wins; and just 8 wins in his final two seasons combined (‘24 & ‘25).
Despite his overall record of 45-56 as a head coach (1-2 in the playoffs), Stefanski’s lack of on-field success is attributed by many observers to the fact that he was coaching in Cleveland, where things were stacked against him. The Browns franchise went 13 years without a winning season before Stefanski delivered an 11-5 record as a rookie head coach in 2020. In 2023, his team went 11-6 and he was named AP Coach of the Year.
The miserable two years leading to Stefanski getting fired may have had a lot to do with the roster he was given and the general disarray that seems to always define the Browns franchise. Remember that Deshaun Watson was his “franchise quarterback” since being signed to a historically bad contract in 2022.
In Atlanta, Stefanski arrives with longtime Ravens & Eagles front office executive and now General Manager, Ian Cunningham. It is a fresh start in a franchise whose owner, Arthur Blank, is hungry for a Lombardi Trophy, and who is known for doing everything possible to help his team succeed.
This offseason, the Falcons signed Tua Tagovailoa to a rock-bottom contract of $1.215m (with roughly $53m being paid to the QB by his former team, the Miami Dolphins because of his contract guarantees). This gives Steafanski two former 1st-round picks at the QB position, with Michael Penix Jr, drafted in 2024, returning from a mid-November ACL tear suffered last season.
The Falcons were 5-3 with Kirk Cousins starting 8 games a year ago (including the final 4 games of the season, and 5 of 7 starts after Penix’ injury), but 3-6 when Penix was the starter. Cousins, of course, is now a Raider, living in Las Vegas, which seems slightly out of character for someone of his temperament.
The point is that the Falcons have the roster talent to win games under the right leadership, and by Week 15 of the upcoming season, the Falcons will likely either be very much in the playoff race or very much out of it. My bet is that this game against the Commanders will be a critical one for both teams’ playoff hopes, with the winner staying alive and the loser starting to prepare for the 2027 draft — very much like 2024, when a 30-24 overtime win by Washington propelled the Commanders to the playoffs while the Falcons finished the season with a losing record.
Commanders fans will recognize at least two names on the Atlanta roster. Former Commanders 1st-round pick Jahan Dotson is a Falcon now, and WR Olamide Zaccheaus, who spent the ‘24 season in Washington with his former head coach, has returned to Atlanta, where he played his first four NFL seasons from 2019-22.
As you’ll read in the next section that details the all-time series between the two teams, the Falcons and Commanders know each other very well, and have played one another frequently — at least in recent years.
The All-Time Series Numbers
The Washington Redskins used to be perceived as ‘the team of the South’ in the early- to mid-20th century. NFL football had started as primarily a sport concentrated in the northeast and northern midwest. By relocating from Boston to Washington in 1937, the Redskins became the default ‘home’ team for a large swath of the country that had no true home team to root for.
That changed when the Falcons took the field in Atalanta in 1966. Suddenly, there was competition for regional football fans.
Unsurprisingly, the Redskins dominated the competition against the expansion team for many years. Washington was 5-0-1 vs the Falcons in the first 12 years of the rivalry, and 15-4-1 through the 2003 season.
From 2006 to 2018, the teams played 6 times, with the Falcons winning every game — a perfect 6-0 against Joe Gibbs, Jim Zorn, Mike Shanahan and Jay Gruden!
Unusually, since 2021, Washington and Atlanta have played each other in the regular season each year — 2026 will mark the 6th straight season the two teams have played each other, and it has mostly gone Washington’s way during that time. The burgundy & gold won the first 4 meetings before losing to the Falcons in Week 4 last year — an early sign that Dan Quinn & Jayden Daniels’ 2nd season was not going to plan.
Overall, Washington holds a commanding 19-11-1 lead in the series which can be broken up into three distinct stages: 15-4-1 from ‘66 to ‘03; 0-6 from ‘06 to ’18; and 4-1 since 2021.
The two teams have met in the playoffs only once — the NFC Divisional round following the 1991 season. Washington, as you may already know, won that game 24-7 and went on to win Super Bowl XXVI. But, then, that was the greatest NFL team in history.
This season’s Week 15 clash shouldn’t be seen as just a likely late-season playoff push; it should represent an intellectual chess match in which Dan Quinn and his staff try to out-maneuver a defensive system run by Ulbrich that Quinn himself helped pioneer and foster for over a decade, dating back to the days in Seattle when Ulbrich worked for Quinn.
From USA Today:
Six NFL quarterbacks who could lose starting jobs in 2026
Tua Tagovailoa, Atlanta Falcons
Tagovailoa is in a position that is almost a direct inverse of Brissett. Rather than replacing a former first-round quarterback who ended up cut by the team that drafted him, Tagovailoa is that player. After the Dolphins released Tagovailoa this offseason, he signed with the Falcons to compete with Michael Penix Jr. for the starting job.
It’s unclear which quarterback is leading in the race to be Atlanta’s Week 1 starter, but it’s likely that whoever wins the gig will have a very short leash with another capable passer behind him. Tagovailoa struggled in 2025, with his 2,660 passing yards nearing a career low since taking over as the Dolphins’ full-time starter in 2021. Penix also struggled last year in his first full season as a starter in the pros, leading to a 3-6 record before a knee injury ended his season early.
New head coach Kevin Stefanski is a former offensive coordinator and has inherited a roster loaded with talent on offense. Atlanta’s biggest hurdle is its quarterback situation, and Stefanski should be quick to make a change if things aren’t working early. Either Penix gets the early starts with the hopes he’ll continue to develop – though he is 26 – or Tagovailoa fills in until things don’t work out.
Falcons Coaching Staff Changes
The Falcons experienced a massive overhaul of their coaching staff this offseason, highlighted by the hiring of former Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski, who assembled a 23-man staff, bringing in 2 new coordinators and retaining one coordinator and several position coaches for continuity:
- Offensive Coordinator: Tommy Rees came with Stefanski from Cleveland to continue running the offense developed by the head coach.
- Defensive Coordinator: Jeff Ulbrich, who would have been considered a promising candidate as DC for several other teams had the Falcons decided to let him go back in January, was, instead, retained to continue leading the defense.
- Special Teams Coordinator: Craig Aukerman was brought in to oversee special teams.
- Among other key moves: Stefanski added former Washington coach Bill Callahan as offensive line coach
Offense
The Falcons enter the 2026 NFL season under new offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, who was the OC in Cleveland in 2025 under Kevin Stefanski. In 2026, Rees will continue the play-calling duties under Stefanski, bringing a philosophy that diverges from recent leaguewide trends.
The offense run by the Browns in 2025, and presumably the one that will be run by the Falcons in 2026, is one that Stefanski developed over his years in the NFL, emphasizing a wide-zone running attack married to under-center play-action passing. When Tommy Rees was promoted to OC of the Browns in January 2025, it was explicitly stated that he was hired due to his close philosophical alignment with Stefanski’s established principles.
Schematic Identity and Differences
The Stefanski/Rees playbook relies on heavy personnel packages, specifically utilizing 12 personnel and 21 personnel as baseline sets. While a significant portion of the NFL has, through 2025 at least, relied on three-receiver formations to spread defenses horizontally, Stefanski & Rees aim to challenge defensive fronts vertically and physically.
The run game serves as the primary mechanism for the entire unit. The Falcons offense should mix outside stretch zone concepts with gap-style power principles. By putting the quarterback under center more frequently than the league average (though the league average seems to be changing quickly), the offense aims to create identical backfield presentations for both run and pass plays.
What makes this system difficult for opposing NFL DCs to defend is the strict marriage between the running game and the play-action passing game – something David Blough will be trying to successfully implement in Washington this season. Opposing LBs and safeties must be committed to the box to stop the heavy formations at the line of scrimmage which can open deep passing lanes directly behind them. The consistent use of pre-snap motion forces defenders to adjust their assignments quickly, making it difficult for defenses to maintain static coverage shells or disguise their blitz packages.
Impact on Defensive Players
Because this offense operates with physical formations and heavy personnel, it alters how opposing defensive players must perform.
Opposing Linebackers: Defensive secondaries face heavy physical demands against this system. Linebackers cannot sit back in pass coverage; they must shed blocks from tight ends and offensive linemen moving to the second level. Linebackers with poor lateral agility will be exposed by the stretch zone, while lighter, hybrid linebackers will give up ground against the power run game. With Sonny Styles, Leo Chenal, Frankie Luvu and Jordan Magee, the Commanders may be uniquely set up to handle this challenge.
Opposing Safeties: Strong safeties are challenged heavily by this scheme. They are forced to play close to the line of scrimmage to act as an extra run defender. This positioning puts them in high-stress situations. If they misread a play-action fake, they lose the leverage needed to defend deep crosser routes. Washington will be hoping that the addition of Nick Cross to the 2026 defense will provide the experience and flexibility to deal with this kind of offensive challenge.
Opposing Defensive Ends: Edge players face a test of discipline. Atlanta will likely utilize tight ends to execute chip blocks and double-teams before releasing into routes. Defensive ends who prioritize rushing the passer over setting a firm edge will surrender major yardage on off-tackle runs. Of course, the Atlanta offense, in this game against the Commanders, will face the challenge of Daronte Jones’ high pressure philosophy when trying to execute blocking schemes against a diverse and unpredictable Commanders defensive scheme.
Featured and Impactful Players
The success of the Falcons offensive system depends heavily on specific offensive players who dictate how the defense responds.
Bijan Robinson: The running back serves as the central engine of the playbook. The mix of zone and gap protections allows him to utilize his vision. Because the scheme forces defenses into heavy box looks, Robinson faces crowded fronts but benefits from clear cutback lanes generated by the offensive line’s lateral movement. Robinson shredded the Joe Whitt defense in 2025; he is likely to present a serious test of the Commanders new defense in 2026 as well.
Kyle Pitts: The tight end faces critical blocking requirements. Rees requires his tight ends to serve as extensions of the offensive line in the run game. If Pitts blocks effectively in-line, it forces defenses to stay in base personnel, allowing him to exploit speed mismatches against slower linebackers downfield. Washington’s re-tooling of the defense and the creation of a deep pass rushing unit may end up challenging Pitts and the rest of the Falcons OL with fresh defensive bodies for 60 minutes.
Drake London: The wide receiver operates as the primary boundary option. Because the heavy formations draw safety help into the box to stop Robinson, London expects to face single coverage on the outside, maximizing his size in contested-catch situations.
Defense
The Falcons enter the 2026 season with DC Jeff Ulbrich, who keeps a system built on front-four pressure and strict assignment discipline that has its roots in Seattle with Dan Quinn.
Schematic Identity and Differences
Ulbrich’s playbook relies on a 4-3 base alignment that utilizes an aggressive, attack-style front. Unlike complex defensive systems like the one that Daronte Jones is expected to implement in Washington that rely on high blitz rates and pre-snap deception to confuse quarterbacks, Ulbrich’s scheme will minimize blitzing, instead trusting the four down linemen to generate pressure independently.
Behind the front four, the secondary primarily operates out of Cover 3 and quarters coverage structures. The defensive backs split the field into deep zones, keeping playmakers in front of them and rallying to the ball.
What makes this system special in the context of the modern NFL is its reliance on speed and simplicity. By reducing the number of complex pre-snap adjustments, players can react faster without hesitating. The defensive line splits wide, using a “Jet front” alignment that forces offensive guards and tackles into isolated, one-on-one pass-blocking matchups. This approach shifts the burden of performance entirely onto individual physical execution rather than schematic trickery. If Washington’s offensive line is as good as many Hogs Haven members believe it to be, this could be a ‘win’ for the Commanders offense.
Featured and Impactful Players
The success of Ulbrich’s system depends on specific archetypes at each level of the defense, positioning several players for significant roles.
James Pearce Jr.: Because Ulbrich rarely sends extra rushers, Pearce must consistently win his one-on-one matchups on the perimeter to prevent quarterbacks from holding the ball. His ability to generate quick pressure dictates the timing of the entire pass defense. With Tunsil, Conerly and TE John Bates holding down the edges of the offense, the Commanders may be in a position to neutralize the Falcons’ expected 4-man rush.
Divine Deablo: The linebacker takes over the “green dot” on-field communication duties following the departure of Kaden Elliss. Deablo must excel at diagnosing plays quickly in the middle of the field to keep the defense aligned properly, making him a critical piece for structural stability. Deablo is a very good player, and the Falcons 5-game losing streak mid-season of 2025 coincided with the time he missed with a broken arm, though Bleacher Report had this to say about him: “Deablo is also far from a sure thing at linebacker, and the depth chart behind him is unimpressive. Atlanta was 24th against the run last season and could again be soft up the middle in 2026.”
A.J. Terrell: The veteran CB anchors the boundary coverage. In a heavy zone system like Cover 3, boundary corners must possess the discipline to protect the deep sideline while remaining physical enough to stop short perimeter passes. Terrell’s role limits big plays over the top, forcing offenses to execute long, multi-play drives. Of course, in the victory over the Commanders last year, Terry McLaurin was not on the field as he had been in the 4 consecutive losses by Atlanta from 2021 to 2024.
Avieon Terrell: The 2026 second-round draft pick enters a high-stakes environment. As a rookie corner in a zone-heavy scheme, his spatial awareness and clicking-and-closing ability will be tested early. Opposing quarterbacks will target the rookie to avoid his older brother, placing immediate pressure on his assignment discipline. Hopefully, by Week 15, the Commanders will have at least one known and established threat opposite McLaurin; right now, the existence of that threat on the roster is an unknown.
Xavier Watts: The 2nd-year safety is a vital piece in Ulbrich’s split-safety and Cover 3 looks. Operating alongside veteran star Jessie Bates, Watts should be heavily featured as a ball-hawking safety who can exploit quarterbacks trying to avoid deep primary targets. I feel as if Jayden Daniels will be up to the task of attacking the field with his lightning fast processing and elite throwing talent. Having spent his first two seasons practicing against essentially the same scheme is likely to give JD5 an added level of confidence and competence.
Key statistical 2025 rankings
Key Offensive Rankings
- Total Offense: 14th (333.0 yards per game)
- Scoring Offense: 24th (20.8 points per game)
- Passing Offense: 19th (207.2 yards per game)
- Rushing Offense: 8th (125.8 yards per game)
Key Defensive Rankings
- Run Defense: 24th (126.2 yards per game)
- Total Defense: 15th (326.6 yards allowed per game)
- Scoring Defense: 19th (23.6 points allowed per game)
- Sacks: 2nd (57.0 total team sacks)
Roster Moves: Trades, Free Agency and the Draft
Trades
The major trade of the offseason appears to have been an April player-for-player swap with the Jaguars. Atlanta sent Ruke Orhorhoro to the Jacksonville Jaguars in exchange for projected starting NT Maason Smith. This swap gave the former 2nd-round 2024 draft pick a fresh start in a new defensive system while shaking up Atlanta’s interior defensive line rotation.
While the Falcons traded for a veteran offensive tackle in June, Wanya Morris appears to be a backup on the depth chart.
They also executed a Day 3 draft day trade with the Raiders. In the trade-back, they traded one pick for a 4th & 6th that they used on a linebacker and a defensive tackle.
Free Agency
Key Free agent signings
- RT Jawaan Taylor
- TE Kyle Pitts (franchise tag)
- TE Austin Hooper
- WR Drake London (extension)
- WR Jahan Dotson
- Edge Cameron Thomas
- K Nick Folk
Free agent losses
- RB Tyler Allgeier
- LB Kayden Elliss
- CB Dee Alford
- DT David Onyemata
- OL Elijah Wilkinson
- Edge Arnold Ebiketie
- WR Darnell Mooney
The 2026 NFL Draft
Round 2, pick No. 48 overall: Avieon Terrell, CB, Clemson – Ballhawk; great speed and a knack for forcing turnovers; can play both outside and in the slot; joining his brother AJ on the team.
Round 3, pick No. 79: Zachariah Branch, WR, Georgia – Small, fearless slot receiver with elite speed; provides dangerous run-after-catch abilities and projects as a Day 1 return specialist.
Round 4, pick No. 134: Kendal Daniels, LB, Oklahoma – Prototypical, exceptionally long 6-foot-5 former safety; will compete for defensive reps as an inside linebacker under Jeff Ulbrich.
Round 6, pick No. 208: Anterio Thompson, DT, Washington – Highly athletic, 306-pound developmental defensive tackle; brings a 9.36 relative athletic score to a position of team need.
Round 6, pick No. 215: Harold Perkins Jr., LB, LSU – High-upside 21-year-old defensive playmaker; aims to regain his dominant pre-ACL-injury form where he flashed high-level pass-rushing talent.
Round 7, pick No. 231: Ethan Onianwa, OT, Ohio State – Massive 6-foot-6, 330-pound developmental offensive tackle; drafted for his raw physical upside to prepare the team for future line transitions.
Betting Lines
Oddsmakers have established the home team as the favorite for this matchup.
- Point Spread: Commanders -3.5
- Game Total (Over/Under): 46.5 points
A 3.5-point spread favoring the home team indicates that bettors have confidence in the Commanders in this late-season home game. The point total is set at 46.5, reflecting expectations of moderate scoring by at least one of the two teams.
CONVERSATION STARTERS:
Which quarterback will be starting for the Falcons in Week 15, Michael Penix or Tua Tagovailoa?
What roles will Jahan Dotson and Olamide Zaddheaus play in the Falcons passing game overall and against the Commanders?
