The Atlanta Falcons have turned the corner of the NFL season. They are 4-5 with eight games left and still in the NFC South race despite losing three of their last four games.
Atlanta plays Arizona (1-8) on Sunday in hopes of getting to .500 before its bye next week. We’re making five predictions for the Falcons’ homestretch.
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It won’t be this week against the Cardinals. Coach Arthur Smith already has announced that Taylor Heinicke is keeping the job at least for this week, but he left a pretty wide crack in the door for Ridder to re-emerge.
“You don’t want to play a two-quarterback system, but I think just kind of where we’re at and everything going on, the bye week will be a good time to assess,” Smith said. “Don’t plan on being week to week after that, but we have to do everything we can to go get this win out in Arizona. That’s going to be our ultimate focus this week.”
Heinicke relieved Ridder at halftime two weeks ago against the Tennessee Titans and then started last week in a 31-28 loss to the Minnesota Vikings. He is 33-for-59 for 443 yards, two touchdowns and one interception in his brief Falcons career.
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Taylor Heinicke lost his first start with the Falcons on Sunday. Can he help them beat the Cardinals this week and keep the job? (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)Heinicke has an opportunity this week to turn in an impressive performance against a Cardinals defense ranked 24th in the league in yards per play allowed (5.4), but the history of his six-year career suggests that there will be enough downs to go with the ups that Smith will be presented with an opportunity to go back to Ridder.
And I think Smith wants to go back to Ridder because he believes Ridder has a higher ceiling than Heinicke. One week before benching the second-year quarterback, Smith said it was “toxic groupthink” that led to criticism of Ridder and praised his young quarterback’s development.
If you take out Ridder’s run of turnovers — and that’s admittedly asking a lot — he was showing signs of improvement this season. He is 157-for-240 for 1,701 yards, six touchdowns and six interceptions in eight starts.
Starting Heinicke against Arizona “doesn’t mean anything’s over for Des, but we need to go get this win out here in Arizona,” Smith said. “We feel like (Heinicke) gives us our best chance with everything going on right now.”
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Right now seems to be the critical part of that sentence.
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The Falcons will miss the playoffs
Atlanta is only one game out of the NFC South lead. The Falcons have the easiest remaining schedule in the NFL. They are 2-0 in division games, which is a good start toward any tiebreakers.
But this team has done nothing in the last month to create confidence it can put together the type of winning streak it will take to make the postseason. Since Week 6, the Falcons have lost to teams quarterbacked by Sam Howell, Will Levis making his first professional start and Josh Dobbs playing for a team he joined five days before the game. In that span, their offense is fourth in the NFL in yards (378.8) but 13th in scoring (20.8 ppg).
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“You can be frustrated. You can be mad,” Smith said. “You’re going to feel all the emotions about it, but we have to go do something about it. As bad as it feels — nobody’s celebrating being 4-5 — but the reality is when you have perspective, after we get these corrections and assess everything, we do still control our own destiny. We have half a season. A lot can happen. Everything’s in front of us. I think we have the right perspective. Frustrated, but we have the right guys that want to go do something about it and understand that we’re not dead. As bad as we feel, we need to go do something about it.”
But can they? Smith will likely keep his job even if this team misses the playoffs. Team owner Arthur Blank has proven patient with coaches, and he said in the offseason that he was pleased with the organizational progress under Smith and general manager Terry Fontenot. But if this prediction comes true, the 2024 season will start with Smith on the hot seat.
There have only been 41 such seasons in the last five years in the NFL, so it’s not necessarily an indictment of the Falcons’ decision to take Robinson with the No. 8 pick, but it would be a surprise considering the running back’s fast start.
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In the first month of the season, Robinson had two 100-yard rushing games and was averaging 113 scrimmage yards per game. In the last five games, he is averaging 52.4 scrimmage yards per game and 2.9 yards per carry.
Bijan Robinson takes a trip to the end zone
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Robinson is healthy, Smith said this week.
“He played a lot of snaps (against Minnesota), and sometimes his impact away from the ball can open things up,” Smith said. “For any rookie, the seasons are long. You’re going to have ebbs and flows. He still has a huge impact on the game.”
Robinson has 517 rushing yards and 197 receiving yards this season (714 all-purpose), but Tyler Allgeier has surpassed him as the team’s leader in carries (116 to 103).
“We’ll see how this second half of the season goes, but he’s been a huge part of our offense and he’ll continue to be,” Smith said. “We can continue to push it. That’s what our job is, and we will.”
Jeff Okudah will intercept three passes
A.J. Terrell has not been Atlanta’s best cornerback this season. Okudah has been. Acquired from Detroit in the offseason in a trade, Okudah missed the first two games and most of the third because of injury, but he has shown steady improvement since being inserted into the starting lineup in Week 4.
Still, this prediction is a decided long shot because Okudah has no interceptions, and he has only two in his four-year career. But Okudah is playing very aggressively, and Falcons defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen has praised how well he’s breaking on the ball. If he continues that, the turnovers will come.
“What’s exciting is you think, ‘He’s going to take the next step,’ and he will because he works at it and does all the little things,” Nielsen said.
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The Falcons hoped that adding defensive linemen like Calais Campbell, Bud Dupree and David Onyemata would help free up their second-year pass rusher, and it’s starting to work. Ebiketie has two sacks in the last two weeks and is tied for the team lead with 3 1/2. In the last four games, he has nine pressures.
Ebiketie is doing that while only playing 37 percent of the defensive snaps. That number will go up as will his sack production.
(Top photo: Julio Aguilar / Getty Images)
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