BS Report: What to Expect From the Falcons…who Knows?
This Sunday, the Atlanta Falcons begin their series in Pittsburgh against the Steelers. Never an easy place to play, much less for the opening game of the season. This year’s Atlanta Falcons team is drastically different from the one that closed last year. 28 of the 53 players on the opening day roster. That is, expected at least, are new, which is an enormous amount.
That is more, of course, than a 50% turnover by just a little bit, and that is alarming. But it kind of goes along with the fact that this team has a new president of football with Matt Ryan, a new general manager at the and Cunningham, and a new head coach with Kevin Stefanski, who of course has most of a new staff.
So there is a lot of newness, if you will, with the Atlanta Falcons, which makes it very difficult to really expect or predict what that team is going to do. I always say that for any new head coach, a fan base needs to have zero expectations. I didn’t have any expectations. For example, in 2016 when Kirby Smart took over at Georgia, I knew that he had a lot of work to do, and I knew it wasn’t going to happen overnight.
And Falcons fans, you better have zero expectations when it comes to this team as well. Now look, Falcons fans, myself included, are all hungry for a winner. Eight straight losing seasons, which is starting to resemble what happened in the 1980s, which was a horrible decade for Falcons football. So yes, we want to see this team succeed and do well, but I don’t know what to expect, so I’m not going to expect that it’s going to be a winning team.
Could they be better than last year when they were eight nine? No. And the reason I say no is because the quarterback situation now, the quarterback situation wasn’t great last year, but this year it starts and it’s a dumpster fire. Let’s be honest. Michael Penix Jr has said I’m not ready. And therefore Tua Tagovailoa kind of out of default, wins the job as the starting quarterback for for week one.
This is not like Tua winning the job. This is almost like saying Penix is not ready. So Tua you’ve got to start for us. When will Penix take over? I don’t know. When will he be ready? I don’t know. Will Tua be any good for this season? I don’t know. Will Tua stay healthy? I don’t know. When you have all these ‘I don’t know’s’ and it really centers around the quarterback position for an NFL team.
You have no clue what’s going to happen with the football season. You should have zero expectations now. I’m not saying this team is going to go five and 12 or 4 and 13, or have one of the worst records in the league. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. But I just don’t think we should have high expectations that it’s going to succeed.
Best case scenario, could Tua lowest stay healthy and realize his potential and do some of the things that showed the Dolphins enough to give him a huge contract a few years ago? Maybe. But his injury history shows you that it’s unlikely that he’s going to be able to stay healthy. And if that opens the door for Penix, fine.
But then can he stay healthy because he’s been an injury riddled player as well? Although the Falcons truly do need to see what Penix can do because they have to make a decision on his contract and on his future at the end of this year. If they are not able to see what this kid can do in an extended period of time, if he can stay healthy, they’re probably not going to invest a lot of money in him, and they’re going to have to look for another quarterback.
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Well, and you know that they would prefer to see what Penix can do. They have high hopes for Penix. They still believe that he can be okay. But until we see him on the field for an extended period of time and until he tells them that he’s healthy, 100% healthy, as he puts it, we don’t know. So when it comes to Atlanta Falcons for 2026, I don’t know.
