Falcons Believe They’re Close But One Thing Still Holds Them Back

The Atlanta Falcons feel like they are close to competing. If you don’t think so, just ask them.

“We have a lot of good, solid players and good people on this team, good players, and we can win football games, and we're going to win football games,” long-snapper Liam McCullough said after the season finished. “We’ve got the pieces, and we were close this year.”

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They were close in 2025, and that was a common sentiment in the locker room, but the Falcons still finished 8-9 and at home on their couch when the playoffs kicked off. The disappointing season led to the termination of both Raheem Morris and Terry Fontenot just hours after their 19-17 win over the New Orleans Saints in Week 18.

Now, just a few weeks later, the Falcons are one of eight teams in the NFL that have experienced a job opening in the 2026 coaching carousel. Naturally, there has been discussion about where teams fall in the pecking order.

The Falcons, who will employ their fourth head coach since 2020, are confident in where they stand and have heard national analysts heap praise on them over the last week.

But how should they really be viewed?

After suffering through an eighth consecutive season without a winning record, they matched the worst playoff drought in franchise history. Their eight years without a playoff berth is the second-longest active streak in the NFL.

Just for reference, the $1.6 billion stadium that Arthur Blank built in downtown Atlanta opened in 2017 and has since hosted more Super Bowls than Falcons playoff games.

While these recent years have not been kind to them, the Falcons have talent. They are entering the 2026 offseason believing they are closer than their 8–9 record suggests.

Their young defense burst onto the scene in 2025, breaking franchise sack records and making tremendous improvements across the board despite an overwhelming level of youth on the roster. After years at the bottom of the league, the Falcons finished No. 15 in total defense, No. 19 in scoring, and No. 15 in expected points added per play (-0.04).

“We've got a lot of young stars, a lot of guys,” linebacker Josh Woods said. “The talent is here, and if you don't see that, I don't think you know ball.”

For a prospective head coach, the defense looks less like a rebuild and more like a foundation.

On offense, they feature a bona fide candidate for the best player in the NFL with Bijan Robinson, a player who is so good that the league named him to the All-Pro roster twice. They also boast a steady offensive line that weathered a storm of injuries in 2025, a top-end wide receiver in Drake London, and an All-Pro pending free agent tight end in Kyle Pitts Sr.

“We've got some offensive linemen who are really, really solid,” president of football Matt Ryan said Tuesday. “I think we've got a special running back in running back Bijan Robinson, and what he can do as a player. We've got some talented pieces on the outside. There are a lot of good pieces that are here.”

The unit is far from infallible. There are depth issues at wide receiver, worries that the offensive line will soon age out, but also some serious concerns at the quarterback position – and how they view this position will go the furthest in how outsiders view the viability of the Falcons.

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The Falcons’ talent alone is enough that any coach can talk themselves into the position, but the overall outlook of the job hinges on how they view Michael Penix Jr. The third-year player is coming off the third ACL tear of his career, while the 37-year-old veteran Kirk Cousins will likely be a cap casualty in March after restructuring his contract.

Penix’s sample size has shown some of the potential the old regime saw in him, but the room for growth and injury concerns are also very real. In his first season as a starter, he struggled with inconsistency. Some Sundays, he would flash that electric arm talent, but on others, he would look hesitant or just misfire.

With a new head coach and playcaller in 2026, this offseason would have been critical for his development, but that will have to be put on pause while he recovers from his surgery. Ex-head coach Raheem Morris, Matt Ryan, and Arthur Blank have all been on the record saying that it went well, but there is still no public timeline for his return.

Atlanta will likely bring in an unknown bridge quarterback to lead the team through training camp, or even the opening weeks of the 2026 season. Penix would theoretically take over when he is healthy enough, but his ability to adjust to a new scheme will also be something to watch.

If 2026 were to become a wash because of his recovery or inability to adjust, then the Falcons would be entering 2027 without any clear answers and a quarterback who has burned through his rookie contract. The new regime could find itself two years in the making, but potentially starting from scratch under center.

Blank is committed to building a winner. The owner has invested in facility upgrades at Flowery Branch, third-party evaluations have been conducted when things haven’t worked out, and they are consistently competitive with their player contracts.

Look no further than the NFL Players Association, which gave the organization rave reviews for 2025. The players clearly feel that ownership is committed to winning.

“We want to win and be in the playoffs,” Blank said. “We will commit our intellectual resources, our financial resources, any bit of intellect or wisdom we can bring from the outside, inside, to make sure we understand more clearly what it is we can do better.”

The foundation is there in Flowery Branch, but the results have not been there. It’s why they cleaned house despite a four-game winning streak to finish the season, and why they restructured the entire organization.

The team feels like they can win now, but whether that can be made a reality comes back to the same issues they created for themselves in 2022 when they parted ways with their newly minted president of football.

“My mission since I was drafted has never changed,” Ryan explained. “It is to help this organization do whatever it can to be champions and win championships. There is a sense of unfinished business. We were close at times, and we had some success here and there, but I truly believe we’re going to get there.”

They think they are close, but proximity does not equal success in the NFL, and belief does not solve the most unforgiving problem in professional sports.

Until the Falcons find clarity at quarterback, they will continue to live in the same space they’ve occupied for nearly a decade – talented and confident, but watching playoff football from home.