Every NFL season is a journey - and there's no such thing as a straight path to the Super Bowl. Even great teams go through peaks and valleys over the course of the year and have to make a lot of adjustments as they go - or else they wind up sinking fast and are out of the race by midseason.
The Atlanta Falcons aren't quite there yet - if only because they're playing in a punchline of a division - but they are definitely deep into a valley right now.
Heading into today's game against the Kansas City Chiefs the Falcons have lost four of their last five games. While the one win came against the juggernaut San Francisco 49ers overall this run has featured bad play on both sides of the ball - especially their once surprisingly-tough defense that has devolved
into one of the league's worst units.
Over the weekend Josh Kendall at The Athletic shared some numbers that tell the story in a painful way.
"In the first four weeks of the season, the Falcons (3-6) were second in the NFL in defensive success rate (63.9 percent), fifth in yards per play allowed (4.9), eighth in defensive EPA (6.4 per 100 snaps) and first in quarterback pressure rate (46.3 percent), according to TruMedia. Since Week 5, those numbers have plummeted to 30th (52.9), 26th (5.8), 22nd (minus-0.8) and 21st (33.7 percent)."
The Falcons were definitely punching above their weight class early in the season and they were never going to be able to sustain their early numbers against the run and rushing the passer.
Still, it's a pretty dramatic drop-off. What can we attribute this to?
The simplest answer is that they're playing tougher teams. From Weeks 1-4 they faced Pittsburgh, Carolina, Green Bay and New Orleans - and there's no heavy-hitting offense in that group except the Packers - who looked nothing like they do now back in Week 3.
Since then the Falcons have faced the Ravens, the Bears, the 49ers, the Bucs and the Bengals. Four of these five are likely playoff teams and three are potentially Super Bowl contenders if they can stay healthy.
It won't get any easier over the next couple of weeks, either. The Chiefs rank second in yardage (384.1 per game) and 10th in scoring, while the Lions rank fifth in yards (379.8) and points per game (27.8).
This article originally appeared on Falcons Wire: Stark numbers show how much Falcons defense has fallen off
