The Falcoholic
Are you bad at something if you never do it, or does never doing it make you bad at it?
The Atlanta Falcons lack of a middle-of-the-field (MOF) passing attack is starting to draw more attention. Michael Penix Jr.’s passing charts on NextGenStats are raising questions about what’s going on. Is it the coach, quarterback, or something else? Let’s take a closer look at Week 8’s biggest question.
“Because of Zac Robinson, duh!” Yes, most fans will tell you that everything that’s happening is the offensive coordinator’s fault. While this is a hyperbolic take, there is no denying that ZRob plays a significant role. Some have cited Penix’s lack of MOF success dating back to college, and we’ll get to that later, but the Falcons lack of MOF success didn’t start in 2025.
Last year, I talked about the lack of complementary route concepts in this offense and how that especially hurt them against pressure. Since Robinson’s arrival, Atlanta has primarily utilized smash, double corner switches, and stick concepts. Robinson wants to attack from around the numbers to the boundary. Defenses know this and like to sit on the corner routes while taking away options outside the seams. It speaks to the “predictable offense” narrative that hangs over this unit like a dark cloud.
The Falcons need to start running complementary concepts that break tendencies and force the defense to account for every square inch of grass. We’ve seen them flirt with levels, follows, scissors, and other concepts, but they aren’t efficient at running them. They also aren’t run more than a handful of times per game. Lack of efficiency and frequency are how one would also describe this team’s play action offense.
It’s no secret that the Falcons play action offense is abysmal. The offense has the worst EPA/Pass (-0.50) on play action plays, while running the fewest play-action plays (37) in the league. Again, another issue that didn’t start in 2025—Atlanta was dead last in total play action plays in 2024 (85). Kirk Cousins shouldered the blame; it was his Achilles heel that held that part of the Falcons offense back, but Zac Robinson has dispelled those takes by running back the same strategy with Michael Penix.
There is no marriage between the Falcons run game and play action game. Together, they are Frankenstein’s monster, parts haphazardly sewn together from different eras of the McVay offense and called “innovation” while ignoring the fundamental principles of those designs. When a play finally looks like it will work, the group fails to execute. Against Minnesota, Penix threw a dime to Drake London off a play action rollout, but London fumbled the explosive play away. Last week against the 49ers, ZRob called what might be the best play action play we’ve seen in the past two years, but an Elijah Wilkinson hold negated it.
This is a volatile group that has multiple self-inflicted wounds per game, and they seem to occur in the areas where the team struggles...
