Atlanta lost at home to Baltimore and Chicago and is 2-4, and our model has cut the Falcons from eleven wins to nine
Updated
Atlanta lost 30-23 at home to Baltimore with Tyler Huntley at quarterback for the Ravens, then lost 31-23 at home to Chicago as a 74 percent favorite, and the Falcons are 2-4 with three home losses in six games. When we ran the rest of the season Atlanta came out at 9-8 with a 52 percent playoff chance and three and a half percent title odds, down from 11-6, 85 percent and five percent two weeks ago. The 45-point night in New Orleans had put the Falcons back to the eleven wins the summer sim projected. Two home losses to teams the model had below them have taken two of those wins back.
The offense is still fifth in football by projection, which tells you where the problem is. Michael Penix Jr. is 71 of 110 for 944 yards with six touchdowns and one interception in his four starts, a 106 rating, and projects for 3,406 yards and 20 touchdowns at a 102 rating, up from 99. Bijan Robinson has 641 rushing yards and four touchdowns, second in the league in yards, and projects for 1,892 and 18, down from 1,956 and 19. Brian Robinson projects for 576 yards and nine touchdowns. Drake London has 31 catches for 550 yards without a touchdown and projects for 101 catches and 1,544 yards, up from 1,426. Kyle Pitts projects for seven touchdowns, up from five. Jahan Dotson has climbed to 696 yards. The unit projects for 433 points, fifth in the league, and the Falcons have scored 142 in six games.
The defense is the reason the record is 2-4 and the model has downgraded it sharply. Atlanta projects to allow 394 points, 24th in the league, up from 353 and 15th two weeks ago, and has given up 153 in six games. The Falcons project for 7.2 interceptions, the fewest in the league, which is the number that explains the home losses: a defense that cannot take the ball away cannot stop a drive it is losing. Cameron Thomas' sack projection has nearly doubled to 13.1, the biggest individual move on the roster. Samson Ebukam projects for eight and a half. Gervon Dexter Sr. has slipped from nearly seven to under five. Jessie Bates III projects for three interceptions and 92 tackles. Divine Deablo's interception projection has dropped from one and a half to near zero. The team projects for nearly 45 sacks, ninth.
The division has flipped in a fortnight. Carolina is 3-2 and projects for ten and a half wins with six percent title odds, and holds the head-to-head over Atlanta after that 34-3 game. New Orleans is 2-4 and projects for six. Tampa Bay is 1-5 and projects for four. The Falcons are a game and a half behind the Panthers, and when we ran the rest of the season Carolina won the NFC South more often than Atlanta for the first time all year. The Panthers rematch in December is the only division game the model treats as even.
The next month is San Francisco at home at 48 percent, a trip to Tampa Bay at 72, Cincinnati at home at 50, and Kansas City at home at 50. When we ran that stretch Atlanta went 2-2 more often than anything else, with the Buccaneers game won and the other three treated as coin flips. A 4-6 record entering the second week of November would put nine wins on schedule and the division out of reach barring a Carolina slide.
The fortnight in detail: a 30-23 home loss to Baltimore in which the Falcons gave up 30 to a Ravens offense playing Tyler Huntley, and a 31-23 home loss to Chicago in which the defense gave up 31 to a Bears offense that had scored seven the week before, as a 74 percent favorite. The two games have one thing in common and it is not the offense. Atlanta scored 46 in two home games and lost both, because the defense gave up 61, and the model has priced that at what it is: a defense that projects for the fewest interceptions in football and has given up 153 points in six games is not a 15th-ranked unit, and the model moved it to 24th. The points-allowed projection rose 41 in two weeks, the largest defensive downgrade of any team in this run. Thomas' sack projection nearly doubling is the one line on that side moving the right way. The offense held its grade: fifth in points, Penix's rating projection up three, London's yardage up 118, Pitts' touchdowns up two. What moves the number from here is San Francisco at home on Sunday at 48 percent. A third straight home loss would put Atlanta at 2-5, two and a half games behind Carolina with the head-to-head gone, and the model would start treating the nine-win projection as a ceiling rather than a midpoint.
The matchup record is a team that has lost four games the model had it winning. We gave Atlanta 54 percent in Pittsburgh, 82 against Carolina, 60 in Green Bay, 66 in New Orleans, 46 against Baltimore and 74 against Chicago. Two wins from nearly four expected is nearly two wins under, the third-largest underperformance in the league behind the Chargers and Rams, and two of the four losses came at home as the favorite. The market opened Atlanta at nine wins. Our model sat two over it in July, two over it two weeks ago, and on it now. The lean is gone. The offense is still fifth in football. The defense has seven projected interceptions, and the model has stopped pretending that is survivable.
