The Atlanta Falcons have to bounce back from a tough, last-second loss and travel to Minnesota for a primetime game. The Vikings have to build off a hard-fought, last-second win and host another would-be NFC contender. This could be—should be!—a terrific game.
Both teams are capable of standing in the way of that, though. Atlanta showed improved defensive discipline and plenty to like on offense, but piss poor run blocking, multiple costly penalties, drops, and an ugly missed field goal made it clear
how much work needs to be done before they can start really calling themselves a quality team. The Vikings, meanwhile, were a bit sluggish out of the gate defensively and had to fight through three quarters of ugly quarterback play from J.J. McCarthy before he turned it on (and got some help from a pass interference call) in the fourth quarter to earn the win; their secondary looks customarily grim.
Minnesota will justly be favored here, but Atlanta has the ability to steal a road win if they play at the peak of their powers. Here’s what you need to know about the matchup ahead.
Team rankings
| Team | Record | Points Scored | Yardage | Passing Yards | Rushing Yards | Points Against | Yardage Against | Passing Yards Against | Rushing Yardage Against | Turnovers Created | Turnovers Surrendered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Falcons | 0-1 | 15 | 10 | 4 | 26 | 21 | 9 | 11 | 16 | 19 | 24 |
| Panthers | 1-0 | 6 | 26 | 28 | 9 | 22 | 18 | 17 | 21 | 9 | 15 |
You can’t read much from Week 1, so I’m presenting these with very little comment.
How the Vikings have changed
This is a team sick of being great in the regular season and bounced in the playoffs. The Vikings now have a 13 and 14 win season to boast about in just three years with Kevin O’Connell at the helm, but no postseason wins; any team worth their salt is not going to take regular season success with no prospect of advancing further. Minnesota didn’t.
The most obvious changes are on offense. The Vikings replaced Sam Darnold, who revived his career with O’Connell’s smooth play calling magic, with functional-rookie J.J. McCarthy. McCarthy was drafted in the vaunted quarterback class of 2024, but missed all of last year with an injury. The hope is very much that he’s a long-term answer at a position that demands one.
The team also added Jordan Mason from the 49ers, who looks like exactly the kind of early down bruiser Minnesota would like to lean on while using Aaron Jones for receiving duties and passing downs. The Vikings also rebuilt their offensive line, adding rookie Donovan Jackson at left guard, longtime Colts stalwart Ryan Kelly at center, and Will Fries at right guard. If stud left tackle Christian Darrisaw can’t go against the Falcons, free agent signing Justin Skule is the next man up after a rough day against the Bears.
On defense, though, the Vikings made even more impactful additions, just ones that get slightly lost in the McCarthy buzz and Mason fantasy football relevance. Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave give a talented Brian Flores-coached front even more juice, while Isaiah Rodgers and Jeff Okudah were signed to shore up a porous secondary (that has not really happened thus far). Minnesota’s draft class added a couple of interesting late rounders in Georgia’s Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins, a high-upside defensive end, and Kobe King, a potentially impactful linebacker against the run. There’s tons of talent on this side of the ball to begin with, and it’s heavily concentrated up front.
The upshot is that the Vikings should have gotten better or at least stayed pat more or less across the board outside of quarterback, where the jury will be out on McCarthy until he puts a lot more on tape than three trash quarters and one good one, and the secondary. More on those momentarily.
What to know about Week 2
There’s hope here, but it’s a tough draw. On the road, in primetime, against a withering pass rush and an offense with some very dynamic weapons, the Falcons have a path to victory that is quite obviously narrow. It will involves attacking Minnesota’s weaknesses and mitigating their strengths.
Let’s start with the obvious weakness. McCarthy found his footing late and mounted an impressive comeback, one that has the NFL world clamoring to praise him for his grit, toughness, and so forth. He went 6 for 9 in the fourth quarter with both of his touchdowns passes, a scramble for a score, and 101 of his 143 passing yards. You can ding him a bit for getting bailed out by a pass interference penalty and a banged-up Bears secondary, but that’s legitimately impressive, and perhaps a sign of things to come.
Before that, though, he was just 7/11 for 42 yards and two interceptions, including a brutal pick-six. Fans and analysts who mocked him early felt the need to eat their words late, but the simple truth is that McCarthy was terrible right up until he wasn’t. The Falcons have a better, more opportunistic secondary than Chicago and can take note of the fact that while McCarthy threw one of his touchdowns against the blitz, he also went 3/6 for an interception and averaged just 4.5 yards per attempt. A young quarterback who can be overloaded by pressure and free rushers (Divine Deablo and Kaden Elliss…hello) and can be made to make poor decisions under pressure is a player who can make game-changing turnovers a possibility for this defense; Atlanta must attack and force McCarthy to prove he’s the passer he looked like in the fourth quarter.
The second weakness is in the secondary. Minnesota is a nightmare up front and has one of the game’s most aggressive defensive coordinators, but their investments in the secondary were limited and it shows. Jeff Okudah (who is starting!), Byron Murphy Jr., Isaiah Rodgers, and Theo Jackson all had major adventures in coverage on Monday night, and that was with Caleb Williams wildly misfiring throughout much of the second half. Michael Penix Jr. has the arm, smarts, and sheer ability to punish a lacking Vikings secondary if the Falcons can keep him upright, especially if Drake London and Darnell Mooney are both available. Remember, Penix just had a nice game against a secondary with some very high-quality playmakers like Antonie Winfield and Zyon McCollum; there’s nobody here that should set your nerves to jangling in the same ways. Harrison Smith and Byron Murphy are certainly capable of better, but Smith is not a lock to play and Murphy remains an up-and-down player.
That dual weakness—passing on the Vikings side and pass defense—gives Atlanta real hope. The problem is that almost nothing else is going to come easy.
Minnesota has a lot of talent up front, which allows them to relentlessly bother quarterbacks—they had an incredible 30 pressures in Week 1, per Pro Football Focus—and stymie the run. They’re not quite as effective at clamping down on the ground game as Tampa Bay, but they have an active, disruptive front that rarely hesitates to attack, and Atlanta’s line looked mighty suspect against the Buccaneers on that front. Flores is known and feared for the way his defenses reduce unfortunate offensive lines to harmless clouds of atoms, and then cheerfully tear running backs and quarterbacks alike to ribbons. The Vikings allowed a lot of passing yards in 2024, but their 38.9% blitz rate was the highest in the NFL, and they were fourth in the NFL in sacks and sixth in pressure rate. They also allowed the second-fewest rushing yards in the league last year, a testament to their talent on all three levels, and a bit of a frightening proposition after the Falcons duffed it run blocking last Sunday.
If you can slip by that front, you have to contend with an opportunistic group that led the league in interceptions last season. The Vikings commit plenty of penalties—they also led the league in that category in 2024!—but that’s in service of a hyper-aggressive style of play that relies on panicking quarterbacks and forcing them into mistakes. We know that Michael Penix Jr. doesn’t panic easily and has been pretty good at avoiding turnover-worthy plays, but the Vikings will test both those qualities in this one.
Atlanta’s run defense will be tested by Mason, who forced three missed tackles on 15 carries and piled up a tidy 4.5 yards per carry while running like a bulldozer on skates, and Aaron Jones, who can be slippery on the ground despite his lack of success against Chicago. Jones is also an extremely capable receiving option, allowing him to fly under the radar and make big plays when teams are justly preoccupied with Justin Jefferson, T.J. Hockensen, and Jalen Nailor. McCarthy does not need to be excellent to take advantage of that supporting cast, and if things do go south, he can use his underrated running ability to frustrate the Falcons like Baker Mayfield just did in Week 1. This is a challenging group to stop, even if there’s no Jordan Addison this time out and Sam Darnold is not here to drop five touchdowns on Atlanta’s heads.
Oh, and Will Reichard just hit a 59 yard field goal last week, so you have to be on the lookout for the possibility of Minnesota simply field goaling their way through a close game. The Falcons can’t currently say the same.
To win this one, the Falcons probably need to force McCarthy into numerous bad mistakes and attack the Vikings deep, living and dying on big, game-changing plays on both sides of the ball. Michael Penix and company make that possible on one side and Jessie Bates and Divine Deablo on the other, so pray for their success so these Falcons can climb to .500. Just know it won’t be easy.
