At 2-4, your chances of pulling out of a tailspin and returning to relevance are not great. If you’re in the NFC South, your odds are more reasonable, but not if you’re all the way down at 2-5 and the Carolina Panthers are at 4-2, which is something that could happen this weekend. The Falcons need to get their first home win of the season against arguably the most daunting opponent they’ve faced thus far. It will not be an easy task.
San Francisco has survived injuries that would have relegated a lesser
franchise to a chain of losses and have still somehow managed to go 6-0. The sheer weight of those injuries is definitely impacting this team—the loss of Mike Evans caused their offense to crater in the second half against the Washington Commanders last week—but Brock Purdy is playing out of his mind and this is a very well-coached bunch, with Kyle Shanahan and Raheem Morris working some magic.
How can the Falcons win? Let’s talk about what you need to know for Week 7.
Team rankings
Yeah, the 49ers are a lot better than the Falcons. Sometimes these rankings can be a little deceptive, but
How the 49ers have changed in 2026
Maybe the biggest change was ending a carousel at defensive coordinator (I imagine, given the results) by hiring Raheem Morris. After spending two years as Atlanta’s head coach, Morris reunited with Shanahan and went back to being a defensive coordinator, something he’s done at a high level throughout his career. Thus far, Morris has this defense looking terrific, which is no great surprise.
The team also went out and signed longtime Buccaneer Mike Evans, which was good tidings for Falcons fans sick of seeing him twice a year. While Evans is perptually dinged up at this stage of his career, he’s also been outstanding when he is on the field. They also traded for Osa Odighizuwa from Dallas, adding another formidable presence up front, and otherwise primarily focused on re-signings and depth needs to shore up a roster that seems to be among the league’s most injured every single year.
The draft was pretty nails for San Francisco, as well, with receiver De’Zhaun Stribling looking excellent (until he got hurt), pass rusher Romello Height coming into his own (despite injuries), running back Kaelon Black looking like a solid complement to Christian McCaffrey, and defenders Gracen Halton and Jaden Dugger carving out major roles early (again, partially owing to injury). The early returns are incredibly promising.
Otherwise, you have the strong core and coaching staff that has made this team an annual contender despite an unbelievable laundry list of injuries. I had my doubts about them coming into this year, but they’ve effectively erased those doubts.
What to know about Week 7
Brock Purdy is the key. The Falcons utterly failed to slow Caleb Williams during the first half of Week 6 in particular, and he powered the Bears to a decisive victory. Late in Week 5, the Falcons couldn’t get pressure on Tyler Huntley before he got the ball out, and he willed the Ravens to a win.
The problem with Purdy is that he’s generally excellent working against pressure, at least compared to his peers. His 54.3% completion percentage against pressure is the second-best mark in the NFL among starters, and he’s just one of four (out of 25 qualifiers who have played at least 50% of their team’s offensive snaps) quarterbacks who hasn’t thrown an interception under pressure. He doesn’t get the ball out quickly, but that’s both a function of better-than-expected line play and his feel for pressure, which allows him to evade and keep plays alive. He will hold on to the ball long enough to walk himself into sacks, which is Atlanta’s best bet. He’s still a lesser quarterback when pressured and sacks still matter; it’s just that the splits are much less sharp than they are for most passers.
That’s especially true because the 49ers are working with a seriously depleted receiving corps. Mike Evans and Deebo Samuel may well miss this game, leaving a diminished Christian Kirk, Brandin Cooks, and Jacob Cowing as their top three receivers. Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle take significant pressure off this corps and raise the urgency for the Falcons to be very sharp in coverage, naturally, but that’s not a great group for Purdy to work with. The hope is that Atlanta’s pass rush can get home often enough—and those receivers flub it up often enough—that San Francisco’s passing game goes from elite to good but not fatal.
Of course, that’s assuming you can stop the run. Atlanta sold out to do so against the Bears and managed to wrestle Roschon Johnson, D’Andre Swift, and company to under 100 yards, but they paid for it through the air. They’ll have to decide whether it’s worth doing that with Christian McCaffrey and Kaleon Black, who have been an excellent tandem once again in 2026, when the passing attack is such an obvious threat. McCaffrey has historically been difficult for the Falcons to stop, while Black is a patient, physical runner who does a nice job of taking what his blockers give him; the 49ers will be intent on achieving balance and it’s up to the Falcons to make them one-dimensional in the hopes they can tee off on Purdy. There just aren’t any easy wins with this offense, unfortunately.
Defensively, the 49ers are cooking under Raheem Morris, who will likely relish this chance to humble the team that fired him in the offseason. While the 49ers aren’t grabbing a ton of interceptions—Renardo Green is the only player on the team with any, and he has three—they’re getting pressure, piling up sacks, defending the run well, and forcing fumbles at an alarming rate. They aren’t doing anything poorly right now, even if injuries are making a slight dent in their overall talent level, and that makes this game a real challenge.
I said the Falcons had to shut down the run against Baltimore (nope!) and Caleb Williams against Chicago (also nope!) to stand a chance the past two weeks, but this week there isn’t any one item to check off the list. It’s going to require Atlanta’s best full team effort, complete with minimal mistakes, penalties, and turnovers, to realistically stand a chance of knocking off one of the three or four most impressive teams in football. Anything short of that is going to make for a rough Sunday.
