As disappointing as the Atlanta Falcons continue to be, it’s not an unfamiliar feeling for the franchise.
With Sunday’s 37-9 bludgeoning at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks, Atlanta (4-9) secured its eighth straight losing season and eighth that will end without a postseason berth. Only the New York Jets — who will miss their 16th straight playoffs in January — own a longer streak of futility in the NFL.
The Falcons’ final month of the regular season will mark another December of inconsequential football as the role no team wants to play, which is that of spoiler.
“That’s awful. You never want to be in this spot,” Atlanta head coach Raheem Morris said Monday of being eliminated from postseason contention. “The job is just to go out and play spoiler right now and you’ve got a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team on Thursday that we’ve got a lot of respect for, that we love to play. That’s always a highly competitive football game and I expect no different.”
The cyclical feeling of incompetence that Atlanta fans are enduring has boiled down to a game-by-game level across the last eight weeks. Since beating the Buffalo Bills on Oct. 13, the Falcons have dropped seven of their last eight games, with the same issues repeating themselves.
Not that any of the team’s three phases have excelled — Atlanta ranks 14th in the NFC with 19.4 points per game and has allowed at least 27 points in four of its last five games — but the special teams woes are especially glaring.
The team is on its third kicker after cutting Younghoe Koo and Parker Romo. The Falcons rank last in average kickoff return yards (22.8) and are third-worst in yards per punt return (6.3). On Sunday, Atlanta had a field goal blocked, allowed Rashid Shaheed’s 100-yard kickoff return touchdown and then saw Zane Gonzalez’s kickoff sail out of bounds, leading to another Seattle touchdown drive.
There’s no clear answer to the problem, as Morris alluded to.
“We have guys that are out there to make plays and we’ve got to make them,” Morris said. “There’s no excuse for that. There’s no better way to put it other than frustration.”
As the Falcons look ahead to 2026, the offseason will bring a number of questions. Quarterback Michael Penix Jr. will be rehabbing from a torn ACL, while Kirk Cousins is likely playing his final stretch with the team after signing an eye-catching free agent contract in 2024. The job security for Morris — who has a 33-56 record as head coach of Tampa Bay (2009-11) and Atlanta (2020, 2024-25) — is certainly up in the air.
But as for changes across the final four weeks, it’s moot.
“Making staff changes right now is irrelevant,” Morris said. “You’re always going to have to evaluate everything at the end of a season. We’ve got to go out there and cover kicks. We’ve got to block and protect. We’ve got to do all the things we’re capable of doing. We’ve got people that know what to do and we’ve got to execute. That is the part that is driving me nuts. The execution part.”
