With the mud settled following free company and the draft, we’ve got a clearer thought of the place the Falcons stand heading into 2025.
Nonetheless, questions stay. Listed below are the three most urgent.
What occurs with quarterback Kirk Cousins?
After being benched for 2024 first-round choose Michael Penix Jr. late final season, Cousins reportedly requested a commerce from Atlanta to a company the place he’d have an opportunity of beginning this fall.
However he, and the Falcons, are working out of choices. The Steelers are the one staff available in the market for a beginning quarterback, and they look like ready on free agent Aaron Rodgers to signal.
Different groups with unsettled quarterback conditions, together with the Colts, Saints and Browns, have already added to their QB rooms and do not make a lot sense as touchdown spots, particularly with Cousins’ $27.5M price ticket.
The Falcons would doubtless must eat a few of his 2025 wage to make a commerce palatable, however relying on what they get in return, it may be extra advantageous to have a confirmed choice as Penix’s backup ought to he falter.
Did the Falcons do sufficient to repair their cross rush?
Bullying works. Possibly too properly for Atlanta.
After being extensively ridiculed for neglecting to handle their flimsy pass-rush throughout the 2024 NFL Draft, the Falcons doubled down on the place within the 2025 draft, deciding on Jalon Walker (No. 15 general) and James Pearce Jr. (No. 26 general) after a shocking (and extremely questionable) commerce sending the staff’s 2026 first-round choose to the Rams.
If Atlanta fails to strain quarterbacks this season, it will not be from a scarcity of attempting.
Per Stathead, the Falcons have not had a participant notch 10 sacks in a season since 2016, the league’s longest present drought. Throughout common supervisor Terry Fontenot’s tenure (2021-present), Atlanta is the only defense with fewer sacks — an NFL-low 112 throughout that span — than passing touchdowns allowed (115)
However the thought that Walker and Pearce can instantly result in greater sack totals is naive. Since 2012, solely 4 defensive gamers chosen within the first spherical (out of 205) have had at the least 10 sacks as a rookie.
9-year veteran Leonard Floyd, who signed a one-year contract throughout free company, will play a pivotal position within the Atlanta’s potential to generate strain. Floyd has performed in 116 consecutive video games relationship again to 2017 and has averaged 9.6 sacks per season over the previous 5 seasons (2020-24).
Whereas it might need higher luck supplying strain from the sting, Atlanta nonetheless lacks a robust inside cross rush. Questions abound over the staff’s run protection, too, which may nullify the staff’s edge-rush additions by maintaining offenses out of third-and-longs and different apparent pass-rushing conditions.
How sizzling is common supervisor Terry Fontenot’s seat?
Arguably, no common supervisor must be underneath extra strain in 2025. In 4 seasons because the staff’s lead government, the Falcons are 29-39. Fontenot has been liable for some terrible choices, together with deciding on tight finish Kyle Pitts at No. 4 general within the 2022 NFL Draft, signing Cousins to a four-year, $180M contract and buying and selling subsequent yr’s future first.
If the Falcons fail to make the playoffs this season, which they’ve yearly since 2018, proprietor Arthur Clean will doubtless be available in the market for somebody to scrub up Fontenot’s mess.
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