With the Falcons set to host the Buccaneers in the latest iteration of intradivisional Thursday Night festivities with early pole position in the division up for grabs, here's a quick refresher on where the teams stand with the first month of football now behind us.
Atlanta Falcons
Total Offense: 309.3/game (19th)
Passing Yards: 206.5/game (17th)
Rushing Yards: 102.8/game (22nd)
Offensive TDs: 7 (t-23rd)
Prediction: Passing yardage and offensive TDs incease
It’s one thing for Kirk Cousins to be well off of his 2023 numbers, which had him on pace for career-bests in passing yardage and touchdowns at the time of his Achilles injury – that was never gonna happen. But Cousins’ current 3,672-17-17 pace would qualify as comfortably his worst season an NFL starter, ever. That is most likely not going to bear out over these last 13 games as the Falcons have yet to catch a soft defensive matchup, and we still have to think that there’s just too much talent throughout this offense for the engine to continue to nearly stall out like this. But it looks likely to be one more lean week for Captain Kirk against the Bucs tonight, who have allowed a whopping one passing touchdown to opposing quarterbacks in four games. Those games did include matchups with two rookie quarterbacks and one against a declawed Jalen Hurts, but given the Falcons’ persistent offensive struggles so far, it’s hard to muster a lot of enthusiasm for starting Cousins here. If you’re starting him as a bye week fill-in it is likely on the hope that game script pushes Cousins north of 35 pass attempts for the first time this season and considering that opposing QBs are averaging 40.3 pass attempts against Tampa over the last three weeks, that seems like a solid bet.
While the Falcons did in fact fire Arthur Smith back in January, you would be forgiven for feeling like the specter of his influence still lingered over this backfield based on Bijan Robinson’s numbers and usage through the first month. After a frustrating rookie season that saw Robinson manage to finish as the RB9 despite ceding significant work to tag team partner Tyler Allgeier, Robinson’s on pace for an almost identical 234 carries (his 214 carries as a rookie were suppressed by Smith’s minor malfeasance last year) and 64 receptions, but his yards per carry have tumbled from 4.56 to 4.07 as he enters play tonight as the RB21. Making matters worse is a lingering hamstring injury that is nearly assured to push Robinson deeper into a split with Allgeier. If you’re a Robinson owner, there’s not much you can do here but plug him in, close your eyes and hope for a touchdown; Robinson’s a huge risk to disappoint again tonight.
But if Bijan can avoid aggravating this hammy that he’s nursing, his road through the rest of October is paved with more than a few gold bricks: Robinson gets the Panthers and their 29th-ranked run defense next week, with Dallas’ 27th-ranked unit two weeks later. Allgeier is a fine enough flex option in standard leagues where you’re caught flat-footed by the onset of bye weeks, but he’s running a route on a paltry 16.7% of his snaps, a rate behind such pass-catching luminaries as Derrick Henry and Gus Edwards. He’s smack dab in ‘touchdown or bust’ territory.
Drake London owners have backed away from the ledge after his disastrous Week 1 performance, but they (fine, we) were looking for more than the six catches for 60-ish yards London has logged his last three times at the dish. But after London was snowed under along with the rest of the Falcons offense against the Steelers, London’s logged 28 targets over the last three weeks – 7th-most in the league. Tampa shows as a tough draw for receivers in the aggregate, but again, games against two rookies and the receiver-less Eagles are fudging those figures. Similar target hogs have piled up dreamy PPR lines against the Bucs: Amon-Ra St. Brown got free for 18 targets, and Courtland Sutton for 11 the week after that. London’s been knocking on the door the past few weeks, and this may be the day he steps through it.
I’m having a tough time getting on the Darnell Mooney train. He’s been perfectly good, topping 56 yards receiving in his last three games just like London, and his 21.5% target stake in this offense implies he’s got another 6-8 targets coming his way tonight. The problem is that the offense as a whole has been too herky-jerky for Cousins to find Mooney in the second level of defenses with any consistency: Mooney leads the receivers handily with an average depth of target of 12.5 yards, but Cousins is 27th in the league in time to pressure (2.42), leading to him having the 11th-highest average time to throw in the league (2.53); the Falcons have Cousins getting it out quick, which is why Ray-Ray McCloud has become an every down player for the birds – they need a guy who can consistently get at least semi-open near the line of scrimmage as a safety valve when the intended target’s route isn’t gonna develop in time.
Which brings us to Kyle Pitts, who is currently fifth on the team in targets, and frankly I’m surprised it’s even that high. I’m sure you can make excuses right along these same lines for Pitts: at 6’6” and 250 pounds, it absolutely stands to reason Pitts just needs more time and more turf to get a step on his man, and once (or if) the Falcons find a way to manufacture more time for Cousins to let plays develop that Pitts would benefit disproportionately. But we’ve been doing this same exact song and dance with Pitts since 2021, and even that year he managed to turn 110 targets into exactly one touchdown. He’s not important enough to this offense, and even if peripheral circumstances were to improve, we really have no reason to think Pitts would see his numbers swell more than the wide receivers. Over 50% of his fantasy production for the season came on two plays, on busted coverages. Even in what should be an appealing matchup, I’m sitting Pitts anywhere I can find a Tyler Conklin or Hunter Henry to stream in his place.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Total Offense: 319.0/game (16th)
Passing Yards: 223.0/game (9th)
Rushing Yards: 96.0/game (25th)
Offensive TDs: 11 (t-8th)
Prediction: What you see is what you’ll get
Baker Mayfield has been fantastic… in two games. Stout defensive lines that could apply interior pressure hampered him quite a bit in his other two games, as it has for many a vertically challenged quarterback. The Falcons’ defense is the reason this team is 2-2 instead of 0-4, and I expect Jessie Bates, A.J. Terrell and August arrival Matthew Judon to make life more difficult for Mayfield than did the Eagles four days ago. Mayfield will make some gutsy plays, but I wouldn’t expect more than 240 yards passing – although maybe he keeps adding value as a runner, as he’s run for either 20 yards, a touchdown or both in three out of four games so far.
Superhero under an assumed identity, Mike Evans figures to have the Falcons try to shadow him with A.J. Terrell for most of the game tonight, and Evans lines up out wide a whopping 72% of the time in the year of our slot man 2024; the Bucs figure to sacrifice Evans to preoccupy Terrell, so Evans will have to make the most of 5-6 looks. Of course, making the most of middling volume is practically the man’s middle name so fire him up as a WR2 looking to make his day with a touchdown or two. I said it on the podcast and I’ll say it again here: Chris Godwin, I apologize for doubting you. While Evans’ volume has vacillated wildly with the opponent, Godwin has been a Swiss watch of involvement: eight targets in two games, nine in the other two. I will say that Godwin’s hyper-efficiency (27 receptions on 34 targets; good for an 81.8% catch rate) is not sustainable, so his numbers right now are right at the ceiling of his great-not-elite 25.6% target share. The Falcons' defense hasn’t dealt with many high-volume slot receivers so far, so we don’t have a great feel for how they’ll handle Godwin tonight. Devonta Smith (50% of routes run from slot) is the closest to Godwin they’ve seen, and he managed a tidy 7-76-1 line against them. With capable understudies Jalen McMillan and Trey Palmer both out for this one, Godwin is set up for another strong day at the office.
Hands are being wrung far and wide over Rachaad White’s loosening grip on this backfield, and I see it both ways. On the one hand, he hasn’t topped 10 carries in a game since their Week 1 cruise control win over the Commanders, and he and dynamic rookie Bucky Irving are now all knotted up over Tampa’s last three games, 26 carries a piece. But on the other he’s been at a healthy 72% of the snaps in three of Tampa’s games, and the other was a typical sweltering Tampa home game where the Bucs led by multiple scores for most of the way – I’m not panicking over a single game of outlier usage in quasi-blowout game script. But the fact definitely remains that White has not been especially good, while the rookie Irving has added a sorely needed element of elusiveness; he’s not going away. It’s hard to get too excited about either of these guys running behind a suspect run-blocking unit against a decidedly uncooperative Falcon front, but in PPR leagues White is a solid bet to rack up 5 or so checkdowns and make his paycheck that way, as he’s also held on to the lion’s share of the passing down work… so far.
As invisible as any of the many, many disappointing tight ends in the Buccaneers’ first two games, Cade Otton has seen 17 targets in the Bucs’ last two games, turning them into 13 grabs and 99 (scoreless) yards. Will he keep it going? Your guess is just about as good as mine, but in a game where volume figures to be hard to come by for Mike Evans and the Bucs may not get much of anywhere running the ball, Otton would seem to be set up for this hot streak to continue against a Falcons’ defense that has been fairly permissive to opposing tight ends.
—Luke Wilson
