The Atlanta Falcons traverse the great Atlantic Ocean and make their way onto the old continent, where they set their anchor down in Madrid, Spain and the historic Stantiago Bernebéu Stadium for a meeting against the Cincinnati Bengals in a standalone matchup kicking off at 9:30 a.m. eastern time.
The Falcons have once again dug themselves into a hole of their own making right as they looked poised to get back into water treading territory before a loss in the elements against the Buccaneers dropped
them to 3-5 at around the season’s halfway mark.
Next is a matchup against Joe Burrow and AFC hopeful Cincinnati, who sit with a 5-2 record in the midst of a bounce back campaign. The clock has started to tick on the Falcons in their pursuit of ending the longest active playoff draught in the NFC, as they get ready to play the final game before the trade deadline.
Here is the scenario the Falcons face if they beat the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 9, as well as if they lose.
If the Falcons win
They will continue with the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde identity of beating the good teams and losing the layups, a tendency that seems ingrained within their DNA at this point. To go from beating the 49ers to losing to Tampa to beating Cincy would seem inexplicable for most teams, but that’s not the case for an Atlanta team that has been doing this for years.
The Falcons, who briefly took over first place in the NFC South with Carolina’s Thursday Night Football defeat last week, could find themselves back on top with a Panthers defeat against a good Broncos team and a Buccaneers defeat against a really good Bears team. Atlanta currently sits at 1-2 in the division, having lost head to head games against both Carolina and Tampa Bay, meaning that it may be imperative for them to finish with an outright better record than both if they want to win this divsion.
Atlanta is not in an advantageous spot right now according to playoffstatus.com, with just a 23% chance at making the playoffs. In a best case scenario where the Panthers and Bucs lose, those chances would increase to 30%.
The Birds would also end an active three game losing streak against the Bengals, as this would be their first head to head victory since 2010.
If the Falcons lose
It won’t quite be panic time, but we would be getting close. The Falcons would fall to 3-6 under Kevin Stefanski, which would be the worst nine game start for a first year Falcons head coach since Bobby Petrino had the same record in 2007.
The division race could get a lot worse for Atlanta, as both Carolina and Tampa could start pulling away with their own victories. If the Saints also beat the Cleveland Browns, that would relegate the Falcons down to the basement of the NFC South.
Those current 23% playoff odds could crater to as low as 14% if the worst case scenario of Carolina and Tampa also winning comes to pass, which might leave the Birds to do some serious soul searching and self evaluation ahead of the Tuesday trade deadline.
