With the mud settled following free company and the draft, we’ve a clearer concept of the place the Falcons stand heading into 2025.
Nonetheless, questions stay. Listed here are the three most urgent.
What occurs with quarterback Kirk Cousins?
After being benched for 2024 first-round decide Michael Penix Jr. late final season, Cousins reportedly requested a commerce from Atlanta to a corporation the place he’d have an opportunity of beginning this fall.
However he, and the Falcons, are operating out of choices. The Steelers are the one crew out there for a beginning quarterback, and they seem 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 possible have to eat a few of his 2025 wage to make a commerce palatable, however relying on what they get in return, it could be extra advantageous to have a confirmed possibility as Penix’s backup ought to he falter.
Did the Falcons do sufficient to repair their move rush?
Bullying works. Possibly too properly for Atlanta.
After being broadly ridiculed for neglecting to deal with 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 total) and James Pearce Jr. (No. 26 total) after a shocking (and extremely questionable) commerce sending the crew’s 2026 first-round decide to the Rams.
If Atlanta fails to stress quarterbacks this season, it will not be from an absence 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 normal 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 larger sack totals is naive. Since 2012, solely 4 defensive gamers chosen within the first spherical (out of 205) have had not less than 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 means to generate stress. 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 may need higher luck supplying stress from the sting, Atlanta nonetheless lacks a powerful inside move rush. Questions abound over the crew’s run protection, too, which might nullify the crew’s edge-rush additions by retaining offenses out of third-and-longs and different apparent pass-rushing conditions.
How scorching is normal supervisor Terry Fontenot’s seat?
Arguably, no normal supervisor ought to be below extra stress in 2025. In 4 seasons because the crew’s lead govt, the Falcons are 29-39. Fontenot has been chargeable for some terrible choices, together with deciding on tight finish Kyle Pitts at No. 4 total 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 possible be out there for somebody to wash up Fontenot’s mess.
