The Falcons remained mired in mediocrity last season, winning eight games for the second consecutive year after previously stacking three straight seven-win campaigns. Just as the seven-win efforts cost Arthur Smith his job, the same proved true of the not-so-crazy eights for Raheem Morris. The Dirty Birds are now on to their eighth full-time coach of the 21st century.
▶ 2025 Atlanta Falcons Stats (Rank)
Points per game: 20.8 (24th)
Total yards per game: 333 (14th)
Plays per game: 61.6 (8th)
Dropbacks per game: 36.9 (25th)
Dropback EPA per play: 0.04 (21st)
Designed rush attempts per game: 27.9 (4th)
Rush EPA per play: -0.07 (20th)
▶ Can Kevin Stefanski revive the Falcons’ offense — and his own career?
They grade you on a curve in Cleveland. That’s how Kevin Stefanski stuck around for six years despite producing only two winning campaigns and twice stripping himself of play-calling duties. Be that as it may, there was never a question Stefanski would get recycled during this offseason’s coaching carousel. He has landed with a Falcons franchise that is only scarcely more serious than the Browns but is indeed more serious. Now, talented? Bijan Robinson/Drake London/Kyle Pitts is the kind of skill player trio Stefanski would have killed for during his time in Ohio, but it is undermined by a familiar Stefanski foe: Quarterback issues.
▶ Passing Game
QB: Michael Penix, Tua Tagovailoa
WR: Drake London, Zachariah Branch
WR: Olamide Zaccheaus, Casey Washington
WR: Jahan Dotson, Dylan Drummond
TE: Kyle Pitts, Austin Hooper, Charlie Woerner
Michael Penix/Tua Tagovailoa isn’t quite the hopeless QB logjam Stefanski left behind in Cleveland, though it’s also probably not what he had in mind for his Browns deliverance. 26-year-old Penix has yet to be medically cleared after suffering yet another ACL injury last Week 11, while Tagovailoa was only available for the Falcons to sign because the Dolphins were willing to take on a record dead cap hit of $99.2 million. Why were the Dolphins that desperate to move on? A 2025 where Tagovailoa threw 15 picks in 14 games and tumbled to 26th in EPA per play amongst quarterbacks.
Unfortunately for Tagovailoa’s new coach, Penix wasn’t much better last season. The second-year pro finished 21st in EPA per play during his limited body of work, and managed just nine passing scores in nine starts. It was only after Penix went down that fill-in veteran Kirk Cousins was able to unlock the Falcons’ passing attack, overseeing a 5-3 finish and reviving Kyle Pitts’ career in the process. Cousins’ improved performance over Penix came despite Drake London missing Weeks 12-15 with injury.
Not to overstate the difference in performance. There’s a reason Cousins is now in Las Vegas backing up Fernando Mendoza. If Penix can get healthy and cleared for Week 1, he will finally have an offensive-minded head coach in Stefanski, as well as a more confident and now genuinely experienced star skill player tandem in Robinson, London and Pitts. For fantasy purposes, Tagovailoa might be the ever-so-slightly preferred option because we at least know he has a floor, but Penix remains a better ceiling bet.
What “ceiling” actually entails in this case is up for debate, but almost anyone has more of it than Tagovailoa. It’s also important to remember, this is simply through the lens of how we value the Falcons’ skill players in fantasy, not the quarterbacks themselves. You don’t need me to tell you that neither Penix nor Tagovailoa are likely to be relevant in one-QB leagues. They don’t run, and even 25 passing scores are unlikely to walk through that door, let alone 30.
Then again, perhaps anything is possible when Drake London is the WR1. Although injuries have conspired to limit him to just one 1,000-yard season in four tries, he has never posted fewer than 866 yards. He has 16 touchdowns over his past 29 games despite his imperfect quarterback situation. 2025 was the first time he finished top 10 in yards per route run, as well as top 10 by average PPR points. This, after he was the WR14 in 2024. The 25-year-old (next month) continues to trend upward, and Stefanski’s arrival should help keep him in the WR6-8 range with room to grow.
One reason it’s easy to envision London remaining a top-flight fantasy bet is the lack of target competition in his own receiver corps. Being the only game in town isn’t always good news — not everyone can cope with the bracket coverage that comes with the territory – but London’s big-bodied game has predictably translated well to the NFL, making him a contested-catch and red-zone dynamo. The cavalry isn’t coming opposite him for 2026, where we suppose Olamide Zaccheaus and Jahan Dotson are something of a composite “WR2.”
Neither of those journeyman veterans merit a second mention in fantasy, but No. 79 overall pick Zachariah Branch can’t be written off quite as easily. Although his 5-foot-9, 177-pound frame will probably limit him to designed/gadget touches to begin his career, that is an area where he thrived for Georgia last season. For his part, Stefanski has claimed there is “(no) limit” to where the rookie can line up. He should see immediate “easy button” looks out of the slot, putting him on PPR watch lists to begin the season. A summer fantasy pick would not be particularly well spent, however.
All of this receiver talk is burying the lede that Kyle Pitts remains the Falcons’ clear No. 2 weapon in the passing game. Having finally returned to the kind of production profile he teased as a 2021 rookie, Pitts has spent his best ball summer being drafted in the TE8 range. That sounds low until you remember his 2025 splits with and without London on the field. When London played last season, Pitts averaged 4/42 across 12 games. When he sat, those numbers exploded to 7/84.
That, coupled with the fact that the quarterback who supplied Pitts’ most valuable targets is no longer around keep the tight end in his traditional “boom/bust” territory. That’s especially since there was offseason chatter Pitts wouldn’t even remain in Atlanta. For now, he does seem likely to play on his $15.045 million franchise tender rather than be traded. Although it remains a scandal just how little Pitts was involved from 2022-24, we have to remain open to the possibility 2025 will go down as an outlier. Anyways, you know what you are signing up for.
▶ Running Game
RB: Bijan Robinson, Brian Robinson, Tyler Goodson
OL (L-R): Jake Matthews, Matthew Bergeron, Ryan Neuzil, Chris Lindstrom, Jawaan Taylor
Bijan Robinson finished as the RB2 by average PPR points last season despite losing 143 carries to perennial nuisance Tyler Allgeier. Inconceivably, Robinson and Allgeier had the same number of totes inside the five-yard line, and it was a paltry seven. Compare that to Christian McCaffrey’s total of 18, which helped power him to the RB1 overall finish.
So you could say it’s good news Allgeier has finally departed for Arizona, though he has been replaced by an Allgeier-type back in Brian Robinson Jr. Concerning, though B-Rob is less effective than Allgeier at this point, while Stefanski is a new game in town at head coach. Stefanski oversaw monster early-down seasons for Nick Chubb in Cleveland, but has also proven more than willing to target his backs in the passing game. That combination has Bijan battling with Jahmyr Gibbs for RB1 overall status despite Brian’s presence.
As for Brian, he seems unlikely to reach the 140 carries Allgeier averaged over the past two years. Although the NFL is a copycat league, this is a new coaching staff and front office with no holdover allegiance to “the way we’ve always done things” in Atlanta. Brian will undoubtedly spell Bijan on less-important early downs, but he seems unlikely to become a true vulture back inside the 10-yard line. That means he has no standalone fantasy value. Brian would also become part of a committee were Bijan to go down with injury, as B-Rob has never been a featured player in the passing game. He is a legitimate contingency back, but probably not a league-winning insurance option despite being the fantasy understudy to a superstar.
▶ 2026 Atlanta Falcons Win Total
DraftKings Over/Under: 6.5
Pick: Over (-115)
Playing in what is traditionally the league’s softest division, the Falcons have one of 2026’s easier schedules, with Warren Sharp rating it as the 20th most difficult. They also have the runway for a good start, beginning the year with @PIT, vs. CAR, @GB, @NO. There is a brutal gauntlet thereafter, with things not really lightening up until around Christmastime. I’m still inclined to believe a team that has not won fewer than seven games since 2020 can remain in the mediocre middle. There’s enough offensive firepower and play-calling acumen to eke out 7-8 wins to compensate for a rough defense. I’ll take the over despite hating every second of it.
