By 4:30 p.m. Sunday, the Falcons will have played 47% of their regular season. If they win in Tampa, they’ll lead the NFC South by a game over the only other team in this division worth mentioning. They’ll have clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker, meaning the Buccaneers must gain two games on over the final nine to win the division.
Of the Falcons’ final nine games, only three – at Denver, at Minnesota, at Washington – will involve opponents currently above .500. Of Tampa Bay’s final nine, only one will be against a plus-.500 team. Beyond Sunday, the Falcons can’t count on many teams helping them. Win Sunday and they shouldn’t need help.
Isn’t it a tad early to worry about the standings? Not really. The Falcons entered this season making no bones about their intentions. A team that hadn’t known a winning season since 2017 believed itself primed to win now. They’re 4-3, which is, given that five of those seven opponents are 4-3 or better, encouraging.
Less encouraging: They’ve dropped three home games, the most recent being a 20-point loss to Seattle, which arrived on a three-game skid. That marked the Falcons’ second clunker, and it came at the end of a four-game homestand that began with a near-miss against Kansas City and proceeded through last-gasp wins over New Orleans and Tampa Bay.
Given a chance to rise to 5-2, the Falcons flubbed it. They’ll have ample chance to recover, but still: The dynamics of Sunday’s game would have been different had they headed to Tampa ahead of the Bucs by more than a tiebreaker. They’d have had the chance to pull two games in front at the season’s almost-midpoint. It’s still possible to mess up a season if you’re 6-2 – the Eagles did it last year from 7-1 – but it takes some doing.
Moot point, though. We’re on to another given Sunday, and the Falcons are a road favorite. The Bucs are coming off a Monday night drubbing by Baltimore, which scored 41 points and gained 508 yards. It marked the second time in October that Todd Bowles’ defense was overrun, the first coming when the Falcons amassed 550 yards in their Thursday night overtime victory.
The Bucs will be without receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, both suffering injuries versus the Ravens. There’s the reason the Falcons are favored. There’s the reason this seems less a daunting road date than a golden opportunity. The Bucs are reeling and hurting. They’re there to be taken.
At issue is whether the Falcons can do the taking. Their victory over Tampa Bay required the Bucs to bungle a clinching chance – given the ball at the Falcons’ 28 with a three-point lead and 1:44 left in regulation, a holding penalty undid everything – but the loss was no fluke. The Bucs were outgained by 217 yards. (To be fair, safety Antoine Winfield missed the game due to injury; he has since returned.)
The Falcons know they can beat Tampa Bay because they just did. They know they can win a difficult road game because they won in Philadelphia. Take away Evans and Godwin and this goes from being a game the Falcons could win to a game they should win.
We’ve seen already that the Falcons are deft at bounce-backs. Lose to Pittsburgh, win in Philly. Lose to K.C., beat N.O. and T.B. The Seattle game is gone, but this one’s bigger. Its divisional implications make Sunday in Tampa the biggest test so far. Come January, they might point to this at the moment they went from hope to conviction.
It’s the kind of game good teams win. I believe the Falcons are a good team. I believe they’ll win.
