Following the overdue firing of Head Coach Dan Quin, the Falcons organization find itself in an odd situation. Similar to a few other teams, Atlanta basically hit the reset button with their franchise in 2021 and completely cleaned house but what makes the Falcons rebuild more unique and complicated than others is the QB situation with Matt Ryan. It is a bit predicamental to have a QB like Matt Ryan with the contract he has in the midst of beginning a rebuild. This is due to the position and trajectory of Ryans’ career, being he is now thirty-six years old and while he isn’t a shell of himself, his arm talent has regressed a notch and he simply isn’t as sharp as he was a few seasons ago. At this point in his career, he would be the ideal veteran QB to pay a team-friendly contract and have stepped in and run an offense that already is established with talent followed by a good defense, just like Philp Rivers did with the Colts. The problem here is they restructured his contract to be here long term meaning they won’t have the freedom of cap space to attract free agents beyond this season and the spots of weakness on this offense combined with their poor defense seriously limits the opportunity for growth with this team. Matt Ryan and Arthur Smith will undoubtedly have a degree of success, but to what extent is it worth comprising the future of the position. There are enough pieces in place to keep this team from being awful but without a long-term answer at QB, Atlanta’s future isn’t too great, even among the bad tier of teams.

Atlanta Offense

Arthur Smith was a good head coach hire and pairing his offensive scheme (based on the Shannahan offense) with Ryan’s play-style and the elite prospect Kyle Pitts will make this offense an exciting watch on Sunday. Though it would’ve been nice for this offense to have Julio Jones, it’s fair to say his talent is belonged somewhere more competitive. Having Kyle Pitts and Calvin Ridley as your first two options is a more desirable combo than most teams have, it’s the talent around them that is lackluster, to say the least. With Russell Gage as the number two receiver and a whole bunch of no-names behind him, it is hard to not rank Atlanta among the bottom tier of receiving groups. While this team has spent some draft capital to fix it, the O-line still doesn’t stand in great shape with Jake Mathews being the only player you feel good about in 2021. Jaylen Mayfield the rookie tackle has exciting potential but won’t start and three other starters have good upside but remain unproven as well. Arthur Smith is gonna have an RB a hell of a lot worse than Derrick Henry with Mike Davis and with poor run blocking, the run offense will likely drag this offense down. Although I can’t see this offense being elite anytime soon, they will at least have serviceable play on this side of the ball.

Overall OFF Grade: 75 (19)

Atlanta Defense

Following the dramatic change in the direction of Atlanta’s coaching regime, Dean Peas takes over as the D-coordinator bringing a style of defense in which is the polar opposite of the previous defensive scheme. The previous Dan Quin coached defense prioritized cover three coverage along with a conservative approach to blitzing. This new defense will be running 3-4 in base packages rather than 4-3 but more importantly their blitzing will be as aggressive as they come. Atlanta’s defense will rely heavily on its pass rush given their degree of talent up front and their lack of it in the secondary. Grady Jarret is a stellar pass rusher to have on the interior who’ll reliably get 60 or so pressures and Dante Fowler is a quality pass rusher as well. Atlanta can only hope for the youth in this secondary to develop as this unit was miserable in 2020 and now without both their safeties, another rookie is asked to step up. While you’re very worried about the coverage from this secondary, falcons fans would have no concerns with the coverage in the shallow middle field as Deion Jones is an elite presence at the LB position. This team saw a very good effort in run defense throughout the dan quin days, but they are still extremely undersized which adds to their list of weaknesses on defense. The odds this aggressive style defense will thrive with the personnel in place are not only slim but will likely lower the floor to the point where this defense could end up performing worse than its talent.

Overall DEF Grade: 71.0 (29)

Projected Record: 5-12 (4th DIV)

Atlanta 2021 Schedule

• Individual grades are based on scale of 50-100.