A win sweeps the early NFC South gauntlet.
The Atlanta Falcons had themselves a heck of a five-day stretch last week, beating their two closest competitors in the NFC South back-to-back in front of their home fans.
The Falcons now sit at 3-2 and atop the division thanks to the tiebreakers, which are all in their control at the moment. A thrilling victory against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in prime time gave them some real respect on the national stage, as well. The vibes in the state of Georgia are off the charts as the fanbase is buying in.
Next, Atlanta gets the lowly 1-4 Carolina Panthers, who may once again be fighting for the top overall pick in the draft. The Panthers are coming off a drubbing at the hands of the Chicago Bears.
Let’s take a look at the circumstances surrounding the Falcons if they beat the Panthers in Week 6, as well as looking at the scenario if they lose.
If the Falcons win
They will have completed the early NFC South gauntlet unscathed, having beaten the Saints, Buccaneers and Panthers all in consecutive weeks. As such, they will guarantee at worst a split in division play this season.
They will move to 4-2 overall, 3-0 in the NFC South and 4-0 in the NFC as a whole. Any tiebreaker you can imagine will be going Atlanta’s way right now, and this will be their first 4-2 start to a season since that magical campaign in 2016.
No matter what, the Falcons will consolidate first place in the division, but what’s most enticing is that one of the Buccaneers or Saints, who play each other this weekend, will lose pace with them. Either Tampa will fall to .500 and the Birds will take sole possession of the top spot or New Orleans will fall to a full two games back of both the Falcons and Bucs.
The Falcons will more than anything get over another hurdle in fully earning the trust of their fanbase. No road division game is straightforward, but on paper the Panthers are a bad football team — they sit at 1-4 and have the worst net points differential in the league by far (-82, with the next closest team at -53). Atlanta has an opportunity to show that they can indeed take care of business against inferior opponents instead of playing down to their competition like so many Falcons teams in years past.
Avoiding letdown in these kinds of trap games will go a long way in helping prove that this team is for real, just as much as beating the good teams will do the same.
If the Falcons lose
They will fall back to .500 at 3-3, and will suffer their first blemish within the division as well as the conference. This is just their second road game in the first six weeks and they will have a split record both at home (2-2) and on the road (1-1) — perfectly mid at about the 1/3rd mark of the season.
The NFC South will either turn into a clustered bloodbath with three 3-3 teams and a 2-4 team if New Orleans wins this weekend or Tampa Bay will regain the first place advantage they enjoyed before last Thursday night at 4-2, with Atlanta being a game behind them and a game ahead of the Saints and Panthers.
For the fifth straight season, the Falcons will be unable to sweep Carolina, something they had done three times in Dan Quinn’s last four full seasons as Falcons head coach before a run of four consecutive years of splits between 2020-2023.
The momentum and good vibes this team has established thus far in the season will completely deflate like a balloon. I would not blame those in this fanbase who will inevitably have that “here we go again” mentality regarding this franchise, which will once again be struggling to punch down to the opposition.
Atlanta will be going into yet another difficult part of the schedule after this weekend, with games against the Cowboys and Seahawks along with road rematches against the Saints and Buccaneers coming up over the next month. Going into that stretch at 3-3 is much trickier than going into it at 4-2.