The Atlanta Falcons are keeping ugly company these days. With their ninth loss of the season, our favorite team is now:
- In the midst of an eighth straight losing season, which ties the 1983-1990 Falcons for the longest losing streak in franchise history;
- Tied with the Carolina Panthers for the second-longest playoff drought in the league at eight years, behind the 15 year New York Jets drought;
- Have the 7th-worst winning percentage in the NFL over that span, and are tied with the Commanders for the 25th-worst win total in that span (51);
- Will finish with eight or fewer wins for the 11th time in the past 13 seasons, a stretch punctuated with an 11 win Super Bowl season and 10 win Divisional Round year.
This is a terrible era by any standard, and if it’s not quite up there with the longest and most depressing historic stretches in NFL history, there’s still time for the Falcons to get there. Consider that these Falcons, heading into 2026, also now have:
- Only five selections in the 2026 NFL Draft, with a first round pick headed to the Rams that’s tracking to be in the top 10 and a fifth round pick similarly MIA
- No slam dunk Week 1 starter at quarterback, given that they have a QB they need to cut for cap purposes and performance reasons (Kirk Cousins) and a would-be franchise quarterback recovering from his third career ACL tear (Michael Penix Jr.);
- A total of a cool $2.1 million in projected 2026 cap space at this moment, before they make inevitable moves to free some up;
- A long list of 2026 free agents that includes legitimate starters and young contributors like Tyler Allgeier, Kyle Pitts, Kaden Elliss, Bradley Pinion, and Dee Alford along with useful players like Arnold Ebiketie and Ronnie Harrison;
- The prospect of blowing up both the front office, where Terry Fontenot has presided over five straight losing seasons, and the coaching staff, where Raheem Morris and company have proven to be incapable of maximizing this team’s talent and overcoming adversity.
There are only a subset of franchises in the NFL who have been bad, currently are bad, and seem to be stuck in a bad place for at least another season or two. Those franchises include the Jets, Raiders, Titans, Giants, Cardinals, arguably the Browns, the Saints, and our Falcons. Arthur Blank, Rich McKay, and this team’s power brokers still have a vision of this team being the 2016-2017 playoff-caliber team if they could just get this right or that right. That has gotten more and more farcical as the years roll on, even as the talent level on the roster has ebbed and flowed along the way, and now the Falcons truly belong among the league’s worst teams. Nothing that happens in the final four weeks of the season—firings, retaining coaches sand staff, big wins or blowout losses, sweeping statements or silence—will change that reality.
They...
The Falcoholic
