It’s a rematch, this time in Atlanta. The Falcons host the 5-5 Panthers with revenge on their mind after Carolina humiliated them by the score of 30-0 last time out.
This game should be—hast to be!—very different for both teams. Here’s what you need to know about Week 11.
Team rankings
When these two teams first met, it was easy to write off the Panthers as a bad team. They are kind of a bad team, even if a couple of scrappy victories have lifted them to .500, but the Falcons look like a bad team right now, too.
Atlanta has a major advantage on turnovers, both created and surrendered, and have the clearer superior pass defense and ability to move the ball between the 20s, even though that has cratered at times of late. But otherwise these teams are quite close together, and Atlanta boasts a demonstrably worse run defense. This isn’t the game it has been in past years, where the Falcons have lost despite being more talented and having more wins; Carolina has been able to punch Atlanta in the nose regularly regardless.
How the Panthers have changed since Week 3
They haven’t all that much. Not surprising, right?
Rico Dowdle has officially taken over as the lead back, Jalen Coker is off injured reserve, and the Panthers went on a mini tear with three wins in a row against the Cowboys, Dolphins, and Jets, and stunned the Packers 16-13 to get to five wins, but against legitimate competition they’ve been blown out. The Patriots beat them 42-13 the week after the Falcons lost, and the Bills smashed them 40-9. Hell, they just lost 17-7 to the Saints.
Teams seem to be figuring out what to do with the Panthers, who are almost wholly dependent on Dowdle and Chuba Hubbard week-to-week outside of a few nice passes from Bryce Young to Tet McMillan, but the Falcons have had their struggles stopping Young. Will that continue?
What to know about Week 11
This game matters so much more than it should. The Panthers are faring better than expected even if I wouldn’t call them good, the Falcons are three games under .500 and 0-2 against the NFC South, and a Carolina win and Falcons loss would mean the Falcons were essentially completely doomed in the division. I’ll let Adnan Ikic sketch that out further, but I can’t impress upon you how critical a win is here. A loss ends the season in every way except the one where the Falcons still have to play seven more games.
The critically important thing here is to show up against the run, something the Falcons couldn’t do last week against the Colts. The first time these two teams met, the Falcons did a solid job on a down-by-down basis but were ground up by 29 carries that went for 111 yards and a Young touchdown, allowing Carolina to control the pace of the game and wait for Atlanta to make a bunch of mistakes. The run defense is demonstrably worse now without Divine Deablo and potentially without LaCale London than last time out, so it’ll take a grittier performance, especially with Dowdle looking as good as he has since that first game.
The second item on the checklist is to force Young into errors. In his first career game against the Falcons, Young threw two interceptions and ate a pair of sacks, fumbling along the way, but since then he has zero interceptions, one fumble, three touchdowns, and a nearly 75% completion rate to go with three rushing touchdowns. That’s glorified game manager stuff at best, but Young has been careful enough with the football to allow Carolina to win the last three matchups he’s started against Atlanta, a recipe he’d like to continue. This red-hot Falcons pass rush needs to change up that formula by forcing Young to make off-kilter throws, move backwards, and panic a little. Young’s good at avoiding sacks—teams have just four against him the past three games—but when pressure has shown up he’s been unable to complete throws and has fumbled once in each of the last three weeks. Pressure works.
If you can do those two things, Carolina’s offense will be limited in terms of the points it can score and the impact it can make on the game; given that they’ve scored 16 or fewer points the past three weeks that feels genuinely attainable. The other half of the team will then have to hold up their end of the bargain, which is more daunting.
Michael Penix Jr. has thrown just one interception—with the help of a little luck, it must be said—since his putrid two pick effort against Carolina last time. The Panthers tried to and succeeded at confusing Penix after the snap, something this team will have spent time looking to correct.
If Penix can avoid costly turnovers, the game is well within reach already, but he’ll also have to step up his accuracy considerably. His two worst games in terms of completion percentage and overall accuracy have come against Carolina and Indianapolis, and the shaky confidence we saw from him post-game against the Colts was not particularly reassuring. Zac Robinson needs to dial up some quick hitters to get Penix going and Penix needs to hit them; we know this team is not going to abandon the pass no matter how well the run is working, so that aspect of the offense cannot be a net negative for Atlanta to win.
But running the ball will win this one for the Falcons if anything will. Curiously last time out, Tyler Allgeier got just one carry despite the fact that he averages 4.3 yards per carry against the Panthers and has an opponent-high three touchdowns against them, and his bruising work would be welcome to help wear down the 17th-ranked rushing defense in the league. Bijan, meanwhile, got just 13 carries as the Falcons fell in a deep hole, but picked up 72 yards and regularly ripped off chunk gains in Week 3. This duo can easily go over 100 yards against the Panthers, and if they get regular work throughout the game, it will help to move the ball, exhaust Carolina, and keep the Falcons from getting into long third downs they can’t possibly convert.
The Falcons also have to do a much better job on special teams, lest you think I forgot about them. The team had trouble fielding Ryan Fitzgerald’s kicks last time out and averaged under 15 yards per return on five kick returns and picked up a grand total of zero yards fielding a pair of punts; this offense can’t work from deep in their own territory regularly and do anything of note. The team’s coverage units have been a disaster the last couple weeks, too, so while that wasn’t a problem the first time out I’m going to go ahead and suggest it definitely can’t be this time.
It’s a straightforward formula that could apply to most opponents on offense, while on defense it’s really all about more disciplined run defense and making Young uncomfortable. I’ll guarantee you if the Falcons can do all four of these relatively straightforward asks I’ve listed above, they’re going to win this football game. Fail to do so and the season’s effectively over.
