The rosters are set. The practice squads are filled. Now we just wait for next Wednesday night for the 2026 NFL season to begin, and the following Sunday for the Atlanta Falcons' debut on the road against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
There's just one small problem. These Falcons have the worst quarterback situation in the NFL - if you don't count the perennially-dysfunctional Cleveland Browns, anyway.
The fact that Matt Ryan is carrying four quarterbacks on the roster into the regular season tells you everything you need to know - that the organization doesn't have any real confidence in any of them.
Here's ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky shredding Atlanta's likely Week 1 starter Tua Tagovailoa for his ultra-conservative passing style that simply won't work
in the modern game.
"Today's quarterbacks cannot be dink-and-dunk quarterbacks."
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) August 31, 2026
—@danorlovsky7 on the Falcons' QB competition 👀 pic.twitter.com/rVLGMv3YsZ
If any team could afford a dink-and-dunk quarterback, it might be the Falcons. However, they would first need an elite defense, which they definitely don't have. Then they would need superstar running back Bijan Robinson to post something like 5,000 yards from scrimmage to stay competitive - and that's just not going to happen.
Tagovailoa definitely can throw the ball further than five yards past the line of scrimmage, but he didn't even try to do so during his two brief runs during the preseason. It's possible that Tagovailoa is too jittery to stay in the pocket and let longer routes develop because he wants to avoid taking hits. Whatever the reason, though, his average depth of target left much to be desired.
Unless Tua suddenly develops a far more aggressive style, he's practically guaranteed to get benched as soon as Michael Penix Jr. is up to speed with the Falcons' first-string offense.
This article originally appeared on Falcons Wire: ESPN analyst dunks on Falcons' dink-and-dunk quarterback
