Falcons are a desperate (and dangerous) team
To quote Vince Lombardi: Dis' game could be tuffer dan it looks!
There might not be a single important person in the Atlanta Falcons organization who knows he’s going to still have his job in a month other than maybe the 83-year-old owner of the team. What will that knowledge do to motivate to win games in December, starting this weekend at home against the Seattle Seahawks?
To quote Vince Lombardi, “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”
The head coach, the general manager, the starting quarterback, pretty much the entire coaching staff, and most of Atlanta’s important players see games like this one as a fleeting opportunity to prove themselves worthy of remaining at the highest level of football in 2026. The NFL is a extremely difficult club to get into and “memberships” expire almost every day.
If the Falcons aren’t giving up (“Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit” - Lombardi) then they’re stepping up (“There’s only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it everything. I do, and I demand that my players do” - Lombardi) which means that the Seahawks have to rise to Atlanta’s level of desperation and meet it with perspiration.
“The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender” - Lombardi
It doesn’t matter if the Falcons are 4-8, the Seahawks still have to treat Atlanta as if they’re 12-0. Mike Macdonald may have “erased the history” in the offseason, but I’d bring that back this week and remind players that this is where the Seahawks lost playoff games — TWICE! — during the Legion of Boom era.
The Falcons may even be more dangerous as a 4-8 team because they have nothing to rest on. The head coach is on the hot seat and even if he survives it’s unlikely that both of his coordinators will, and the quarterback knows that if he doesn’t play at a high level this month then he will never be a starter again.
The Atlanta Falcons are not a good team. They’re a desperate team. And in some ways that makes a more dangerous opponent as Seattle sets its sights on goals beyond Week 14. They can’t really do that now because if the Falcons are more united than ever because of their failures, then the Seahawks risk coming apart thanks to their success. Or in other words:
“If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?”
Who are the Falcons?
The coaches are cooked
“If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you’ll be fired with enthusiasm.”
Raheem Morris has never gotten a job in the NFL because of play calling. The Bucs promoted him to head coach in 2009 without ever being a coordinator and Rams fans called him “Raheem porous” during his three years as defensive coordinator in L.A., the only stint he’s ever had as a play caller.
That doesn’t make Morris a bad head coach. Pete Carroll was never lauded for being a play caller. But it does make Morris easier to blame when the team is losing because at no point did he say, “I’ll take over the defense and we’ll get better”.
He can’t say that because he can’t do that.
Morris already fired (former UW head coach) Jimmy Lake as defensive coordinator after season 1, he might need to now fire replacement Jeff Ulbrich after season 2. That’s assuming Morris is allowed to throw somebody else under the bus to save his own job.
Despite Atlanta ranking lower in points scored than points allowed, the defense is more to blame for the Falcons’ downfall than the offense. Here is Atlanta’s EPA per game (expected points added, negative is BAD) with the highlighted rows being LOSSES:
In losing six of the last seven, the defense has had a negative output in every loss. The offense actually had a positive EPA in 4 of those losses. Furthermore last week’s effort almost seems good until you realize that the Falcons gave up 27 points to the Tyrod Taylor Jets.
Even so, I don’t necessarily advocate for Raheem Morris being fired. He seems less at fault than Ulbrich (what is his claim to fame other than being buddies with Aaron Rodgers?), general manager Terry Fontenot, and team CEO Rich McKay.
With the deck stacked against him by upper management’s decision to both sign Kirk Cousins AND draft Michael Penix AND trade next year’s first round pick to the Rams for a late day one edge rusher, Morris almost beat the Patriots in Week 9 (24-23, missed extra point at the end), almost beat the Colts in Week 10 (31-25 OT), and almost beat the Panthers in Week 11 (30-27 OT).
Those are 3 winning teams and 2 of the best teams in the AFC.
“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
Yeah, yeah, no you’re absolutely right, Vince. But I’m just saying that of all the people to blame, Morris is actually low on the totem pole and if Atlanta brings back all the same decisionmakers next year, they’re going to continue to make awful decisions.
If you wouldn’t fire Morris for being 6-6 with wins over the Patriots and Panthers, then shouldn’t you not fire him for being 4-8 with losses that could be blamed on a weak effort to improve special teams in the offseason?
Reminder of Thursday’s Joe about Seahawks special teams.
I have a hard time believing that the Falcons are going to be good next season if they replace Raheem Morris with Joe Brady or Mike McCarthy but that’s just me. Even so, Morris and Ulbrich and offensive coordinator Zac Robinson (former colleague of Seahawks pass game coordinator Jake Peetz on the Rams) know the real score:
Win some of their remaining games or look for new jobs in 2026.
Period. Morris will be fired if the Falcons go 4-13. Ulbrich should be fired anyway. Robinson (on the Seahawks as a quarterback for about two minutes in 2010) is also likely cooked.
‘Is it worth it? Let me Kirk it. I put my Pen’ down flip it and re-Kirk it’
The last couple of times you saw Kirk Cousins the news was really bad because it was either 2023 (torn Achilles) or 2024 (benched for Michael Penix) so it would be easy to forget that he was basically Sam Darnold before Sam Darnold.
Not in the “career reclamation” sense, but in the sense that he quarterbacked the Vikings to a 13-4 record in 2022 and led them on eight game-winning drives. Eight! That’s tied with Matthew Stafford (2016) for the NFL record.
But Cousins is actually bad now. Or at least he’s been bad since joining the Falcons and his contract makes him the sixth-highest paid QB* in 2025 based on salary cap.
(*The top-8 is Dak, Stafford, Burrow, Lamar, Kyler, Kirk, Geno, and Tua…)
Cousins has had to become a checkdown Charlie just to survive this season, as per Next Gen Stats he is 10-of-28 (35%) on passes of 10+ air yards, which is the worst percentage in the league.
With improved play recently from the likes of Tariq Woolen and the implied return of Julian Love this weekend, Cousins is not likely to get better against the Seahawks.
In his last 10 appearances, Cousins has thrown 4 touchdowns and 10 interceptions for a passer rating of 73.2 with 17 sacks taken. His numbers have improved in the last two games (3 TD, 1 INT, passer rating of 99.8) but that’s against the Saints and Jets and as noted the good numbers are inflated by Atlanta’s necessity to check it down.
The Seahawks must take away those options by limiting Kirk’s ability to get the ball to his play makers.
“You never win a game unless you beat the guy in front of you. The score on the board doesn’t mean a thing. That’s for the fans. You’ve got to win the war with the man in front of you. You’ve got to get your man.” - Lombardi
Bijan Robinson, who the Falcons drafted over Jalen Carter but also Jahmyr Gibbs and is therefore not the best running back in his class, has a career-high 594 receiving yards already. Robinson is on a hot streak, rushing for 400 yards and 5.2 YPC in the last 4 games.
Drake London has been ruled OUT.
Darnell Mooney is the only other WR on Atlanta’s roster who has more than 100 yards. Mooney is not vibing well with the Falcons as he’s only caught 38% of his targets over the past six games and has dropped 5 passes.
Kyle Pitts led the offense with 8 targets in London’s absence last week and had a season-high 82 yards. He’s averaging a career-worst 9.7 yards per catch.
David Sills V, a former college quarterback, has caught a touchdown in each of the past 2 games but has only totaled 31 yards.
The entire passing offense boils down to Cousins throwing short passes to Robinson and Pitts and hoping for the best. The Seahawks can’t expect to get as unfair of a matchup as they had against Max Brosmer last week, but this is about as soft of a follow-up to the Vikings as they could have asked for.
A better Falcons pass rush
“They call it coaching but it is teaching. You do not just tell them…you show them the reasons.”
If Morris has any argument to keep his job, it’s that he’s a “defensive coach” who is finally starting to get something going with Atlanta’s young pass rushers. The Falcons first drafted Jalon Walker 15th overall, then traded up to take James Pearce 26th overall even though they both play the same position.
Walker has 4 sacks, 2 FF, 8 pressures in the last 5 games
Pearce has 4.5 sacks, 1 FF, 13 pressures in the last 4 games
Brandon Dorlus has 4.5 sacks, 9 pressures in the last 5 games
Dorlus has been ruled OUT for Sunday.
In addition to Zach Harrison, who is on IR but has 4.5 sacks in 7 games, the Falcons have four defensive linemen who are 24 or younger and performing at a high level. Seattle’s offensive line won’t be quite as tested because Dorlus and Harrison are out, but veteran Kaden Ellis is a name we’ll hear a lot on Sunday and he’s not bad.
If Darnold isn’t handling the pressure as well as the Seahawks had hoped for this season, Week 14’s edge rushers will be another test for his improvement there.
“No leader, however great, can long continue unless he wins battles. The battle decides all.”
Wake up before your wake up call
The Seattle Seahawks could be the best team in the NFL and that would not make them impervious to losing to the Falcons on the road in Week 14. The Seahawks went into Chicago in Week 17 last year when the Bears were 4-11 and Seattle barely won that game, 6-3.
Or how about losing to the Panthers a few years ago when Carolina had an interim head coach and it was Darnold playing for his future?
The Falcons are a bad team but worse yet they’re a bad team without a reward for losing. Atlanta has no high draft picking coming to them in 2026. The players don’t care about that, the coaches don’t care about that, but there’s nobody in the front office pulling back the reins and saying “Losing is fine”. Losing is NOT fine and everybody on the field from the head coach to the quarterback to the kicker knows he has to win his battles for the rest of the season to stay afloat beyond this year.
Sometimes playoff teams lose around this time every year (look at the Rams last week) and it’s a wake up call. The Seahawks can’t afford a wake up call loss, they need to be up for this game before it becomes a nightmare.
“Winning is not everything – but making the effort to win is.”
Lombardi also said you have to “chase perfection” to “catch excellence” and that’s how he forever became known as…Vinny Chase.
Seaside Joe 2468