Falcons vs. Raiders recap: A victory that barely felt like one

A win was a must on Monday night. A convincing win would have been terrific given the quality of the opponent, but it turns out the Atlanta Falcons did not have anything approaching a convincing win within them, so we settled for a victory that came down to the game’s final play. Perhaps that’s the best we can expect, even against a two-win Las Vegas Raiders squad.

That’s not to say this game was without its charms. It featured not one but two KhaDarel Hodge blocked punts, one partially and one fully, individual acts of heroism from a player who has delivered plenty of them this year. It saw Kevin King block an extra point attempt, Jessie Bates and Justin Simmons grab interceptions, four more sacks from a pass rush that has caught fire, and Bijan Robinson put up 125 yards on just 22 carries. The Falcons held the Raiders to 9 points and got a damn safety in this one, and defense and special teams carried the day even with real hiccups. Listed out like that, and knowing the up-and-down Desmond Ridder was the opposing quarterback, you could be forgiven for thinking this game was a lopsided affair.

But the Falcons also won by just six points, put up just 15 points and a single touchdown, and erased exactly zero doubts about the quality of their squad heading into this week. Kirk Cousins looked woeful throughout this game, missing open receivers, wilting under pressure, and throwing yet another lousy interception, with his day saved only by a nice touchdown to a wide open Drake London. Younghoe Koo missed yet another field goal, undoing a nice 48 yarder earlier in the game. And the Falcons took two delay of games trying to get the Raiders to jump offsides, including on a truly bizarre would-be long Koo attempt they didn’t even try to get off, and racked up four false starts of their own. It was an extremely unimpressive win, and I’m exactly as concerned about Cousins and Koo (if not more so) than when this game kicked off.

The win matters because it keeps this season alive and gives the Falcons another opportunity to figure out what the hell is going on and try to salvage this thing, with an extreme outside chance of stealing the division or the seventh seed if the Buccaneers or other would-be contenders falter while the Falcons win out. But it’s safe to say that even with real defensive progress and some special teams heroics, not to mention the strength of this ground game, Atlanta doesn’t look nearly good enough to get the job done right now. They are a team clinging to life.

There are hard calls ahead—Cousins looks so bad he ought to be benched, Koo is not healthy or falling apart in a way that suggests the team should seriously consider parking him or replacing him—but the Falcons have given no indication they’re willing to consider sea changes at this late stage while they’re still technically alive. We’re left to hope for unlikely-seeming improvement from a 7-7 team, hardly the year of long-awaited contention we thought we had in store. For the third straight season, quarterback play is capping their upside, an absurd thing to have to write about a Falcons team that forked over a massive contract to Kirk Cousins to solve exactly that issue.

The woeful Giants are up next and the Falcons can probably squeak by them, as well, but then a solid Washington squad and the improved Panthers will close out the season. Yes, the season is still alive, but the reality is that it’s going to take sudden and drastic improvement from this passing game at minimum to ensure that 2024 amounts to anything worthwhile. That’s just the sobering moment we live in, and it’s one that demands the Falcons take an honest look at both their lineup and their game plan to find a better way forward. The effort Sunday was enough to win the game, but it won’t be enough to win many (if any) more.

On to the full recap.

The Good

• When you play a team as bad as the Raiders, you need to assert yourself on defense early. After a couple of first downs, the Raiders went wildly off the rails, with Kaden Elliss sniffing out a reverse and smothering Jakobi Meyers for a 10 yard loss, Ruke Orhorhoro dropping Sincere McCormick for a three yard loss, and then McCormick fumbling the ball on third down and having it picked up by Kevin King. That’ll do it, and to their credit, Atlanta kept that up until very late.
• Bijan Robinson did real work in this one, with Bijan doing his customary “oh it’s a short gain” to “wow it’s a first down” one-cut runs. When the dust settled, Bijan had picked up 125 yards on 22 carries—surpassing 1,000 yards for the year and then some—and continued to show why he’s one of the best young backs in the NFL. Tyler Allgeier picked up 43 on 12 hard-fought totes of his own, with a couple of nice runs mixed in with a lot of leg churning that helped grind the Las Vegas defense to a pulp. The Falcons offense basically was the ground game, so thank goodness they delivered.
• Drake London made one easy catch on a nice route for a touchdown and a couple of tough catches in traffic, finishing as the team’s leading receiver by a huge margin with 53 yards on three catches, or 25 more than Kyle Pitts on one fewer grab. With Cousins not even getting the ball to Darnell Mooney once, London was the guy, and thankfully he was up to the task. London also set a new career best in yardage, and is now having the best season of his career with three games left.
• You can’t chose your moments, but Pitts caught four balls for 28 yards and scooped up more than one errant throw along the way. Cousins kept targeting him short of the sticks and Pitts put forth a valiant effort to get first downs; despite the pedestrian numbers, this was one of his better efforts of the season as a pass catching option.
• The offensive line did not have a great day in pass protection, but on the ground they were pretty terrific, especially for Robinson. The holes they punched in this Raiders defense kept the offense humming even when so many other things were going wrong, and while my season-long frustration with their penalties continued, the ability to keep things humming in the run game was huge in this one.
• The defensive line has been looking steadily better in recent weeks, and that carried over in this one. They dominated the Raiders up front on a crucial second quarter series near the Las Vegas goal line, pushing Sincere McCormick back for a two yard loss and then getting a safety early on. Ridder was the team’s leading rusher in part because the Falcons were smothering up front, allowing just 37 yards on 17 carries for McCormick, Ameer Abdullah, and Alex Mattison. Once a huge liability, the run defense has quietly been very good for about a month running, and that’s a testament to this front.
• Desmond Ridder certainly made life easier on the Falcons by not feeling pressure and failing to evade a couple of sacks, but he’s mobile enough and did escape. The Falcons still wound up with four of them, with Kaden Elliss taking down would-be passer Jakobi Meyers on a reverse, DeAngelo Malone (!) picking up a pair of sacks, and Zach Harrison chipping in one as well. Arnold Ebiketie was a particularly egregious hold and a half-inch away from coming away with two of his own, and the pass rush’s post-bye improvement has been legitimate.
• KhaDarel Hodge has made a handful of big plays this season, and they’ve all been phenomenal. In this one, he lunged and got a hand on an AJ Cole punt in the first quarter, tipping it into the air and ensuring what might have been a 40-50 yard punt went like 20ish yards to midfield. Then somehow he did it again in the third quarter, this time getting a full-fledged block and setting up the Falcons deep in Raiders territory. The team should go ahead and get him re-signed for next year, given his occasional real value as a receiver and outsized value as a special teamer.
• Kevin King has been pretty excellent on special teams, too, and he put forth a stellar effort in the fourth quarter to get his hand out and block an extra point attempt after the Raiders finally scored a touchdown on a Desmond Ridder pass to Ameer Abdullah. If nothing else, the Falcons got some real mojo back on special teams in this one, and I don’t know if they’ve ever blocked that many punts and kicks in a single game.
• Bradley Pinion was on fire in this one for stretches, blessedly so, as he pinned the Raiders inside the 10 three times. The first time led to a safety, while the other two led to short, forgettable drives and punts. Against a team like the Raiders, with their really shaky offense, that was basically a death sentence, and Pinion’s knack for it was huge.
• Kaden Elliss has also caught fire in recent weeks. The Falcons can’t pair him with an option that doesn’t struggle in coverage—it was JD Bertrand’s turn Monday night—but Elliss was still all over the field, piling up tackles, managing a sack, and flying around with aggression.
• Justin Simmons had a straightforward job intercepting a fourth quarter pass Desmond Ridder threw right to him, but there are no easy interceptions in this league, so kudos to him for leaping up and ensuring he snared it. Simmons has had some rough patches in recent weeks, so hopefully that turnover will get him going a little bit.
• Mike Hughes jarred a catch loose, tipped another pass, and looked much better in coverage this week. Part of that is the opponent, but I also tend to think last week’s Vikings game was fluky for a player who has been stone solid all year.
• Finally, kudos to Jessie Bates for doing what he does best when presented with an opportunity. With the game very much on the line on Ridder’s desperation heave into the end zone as time expired, Bates snagged the interception and didn’t let anyone wrestle it away as he fell to the ground, sealing the victory for the Falcons as he has with big plays so often in the past. Some coverage lapses and teams being allergic to throwing near him have contributed to a quieter year, but this was a reminder of what Bates can offer in a big moment.

The Ugly

• The Falcons were as sloppy as ever on their first drive, and really throughout. Kirk Cousins panicky throw to Charlie Woerner for two yards, a false start on Chris Lindstrom, and Cousins hesitating a moment too long and taking a ten yard sack on third down conspired to push the Falcons out of field goal range entirely after that opening turnover. That was a harbinger of things to come.
• Cousins looks cooked. He had a touchdown pass in this one where he was able to hit a wide open Drake London downfield, managed one heads-up throwaway under pressure after failing to do so often in recent weeks, and zipped a nice pass to Ray-Ray McCloud over the middle. Almost all of that came early on, and almost everything else set off alarm bells, from his slow reaction time under pressure to yet another slightly tipped interception he had no business throwing off-balance to simple misses, which he managed over and over again.

Nothing is easy for Cousins right now, and in this one he went from throwing passes he shouldn’t to mostly just looking incredibly skittish and uncomfortable. Regardless, his limitations and their obvious impacts on the passing game are killing this Atlanta offense. The Falcons have to win every game the rest of the way to stand a chance of making the playoffs, and if we’re being blunt, Cousins is currently playing poorly enough that he’s likely single-handedly derail this team’s chances. Raheem Morris said bluntly after the game that Cousins has to play better and the Falcons need to get him playing better, but I’m not sure how exactly that’s going to happen given that the veteran quarterback looks completely lost for long stretches every week right now. If this is the new standard of play for Cousins—and the past few weeks suggest it might be—I don’t know that you can credibly argue against Michael Penix as a likely upgrade.

• The pass protection did him few favors. When you have an absolutely immobile quarterback who cannot escape pressure and wilts under it, you have to be extra sharp. Yet the Falcons allowed unblocked rushers to come in routinely and saw quick pressure get home, the kind a more mobile and confident quarterback might just escape but left Cousins a sitting duck. So much of this is on Cousins, but the line has to give him a little more of a chance to throw a pass without a leaping defender in his face.
• The late game laxity in coverage after a day where the Falcons largely smothered Brock Bowers and Jakobi Meyers was frustrating, and it allowed the Raiders to climb back into a game they had no business hanging around in. It’s difficult to be sharp all day long when the offense keeps forcing you back onto the field, but those late balls to Meyers and the team’s willingness to allow the Raiders to keep moving via endless short throws to Abdullah set up a nerve-wracking finish that shouldn’t have been.
• One of the most sobering moments of the entire game came in the second quarter, when the Falcons lined up with Younghoe Koo to take a long field goal try from 56 yards out. That was at the very limit of Koo’s range, but the Falcons…just didn’t intend to kick it. There was no heavy effort to sell the attempt, just a long pause as the Falcons tried limply to draw the Raiders offsides, which didn’t happen. They then took the delay of game and punted, and that did turn into a safety. Still, it’s clear the Falcons don’t trust Koo from range anymore, and the fact that they tried something so weird and unproductive is not a good sign if they need to convert a long field goal try in the weeks ahead. The fact that Koo drilled a 48 yarder but then missed a 42 yarder is not going to help his cause at all; as is the case with Cousins, it’s likely time to have the hard conversation about replacing him at least for the moment because of the potential that a miss or a field goal they simply don’t think he can hit effectively ending the season.
• Four false starts in this one, three by offensive linemen and one by tight end Ross Dwelley. For an offense that already can’t do anything consistently aside from run the ball, those are killer early down penalties to suffer from, and predictably they helped kill drives that really didn’t need help killing.
• Far be it from me to complain about a penalty that helped the Falcons, considering without that roughing the passer call they might not have won, but…that was a bad call. Roughing the passer is inconsistently and poorly called at best, and that was the case last night.
• The Falcons coaching staff has to come up with answers of some kind. I don’t know what the internal politics are with Cousins and the decision to keep him in the lineup, but I do know that weird delay of game calls, a passing game that seems ready to strain apart at the seams and rarely comes up with anything either easy for the Falcons or challenging for defenses, and a defense that relaxes overmuch at the end of games all fall squarely on a staff that seems to be laboring to push this Falcons team into the win column. I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t think this staff is in danger of losing their jobs if the Falcons finish this season on a sour note, but nor do I think anyone in the organization is going to be particularly happy if they do. Whether it’s benching Cousins, coaxing better play out of him and a more coherent gameplan out of this offense, or simply cutting down on the penalties and brutal mistakes, it’s time for Raheem Morris, Zac Robinson, and to a lesser extent Jimmy Lake (Marquice Williams is exempt unless he can make the Koo decision himself) to solve for this team’s persistent woes to the extent that they can. What hope remains for this season hangs in the balance.

The Wrapup

Game MVP

I’m giving this one to Hodge. Two blocked punts in one game? I don’t care that the Falcons only managed three points off both of those and thus this stretches the definition of valuable, that’s an incredible achievement, not to mention a tone-setting one for this team.

One Takeaway

This Falcons team is doing some things better than they were before the bye in a way that’s noticeable and welcome, but the passing game and the whole team effort are still falling well short of what a good team should be putting forth.

Next Week

The godawful Giants, another team vying for the top pick and another one missing most of its best players thanks to injury. The Falcons have a chance to extend their winning streak to two games, and just as importantly, to actually play well in all three phases against New York.

Final Word

Awinbutalacklusterwin.