What Expectations Should Atlanta Falcons Fans have in 2026?

With the NFL season quickly approaching, fans are taking to social media to voice their opinions on how their teams look and what they expect them to do this year. Atlanta Falcons fans are no different, and there has been a lot of gloom following a 27-7 blowout loss in the preseason opener against the Broncos.

With this, a lot of frustration has been expressed by the fan base, who expect this team to make the playoffs. This expectation is likely due to the fact that the team was one game away last season and contains star players like Bijan Robinson, Drake London, and Jessie Bates III.

However, these names and last season's finish should be taken with a grain of salt and can be interpreted differently with some context. So what should Falcons fans' expectations be for this upcoming season?

Most teams with first-year head coaches aren’t necessarily expected to make the playoffs. And teams that just fired their entire front office usually hold even lower expectations. But Falcons fans point to the talent on the roster and the bad division and assume the team should be competing for the playoffs immediately.

However, there are some core issues that need to be addressed with this team before they are ready to truly compete, and the new front office and coaching staff seem to understand that. They haven’t made any panic or compulsive moves this offseason that scream that they are desperate to compete immediately. The core issues of the team must be solved first. So what are those core issues?

Quarterback:

Everyone knows that the Falcons have one of the worst quarterback situations in the league. Tua Tagovailoa was just waived by the Miami Dolphins, who decided to take on an NFL record $100 million dead cap hit, and the other option is Michael Penix Jr., an inexperienced, unproven quarterback still recovering from his third ACL injury.

That is a recipe for disaster when it comes to the most important position in sports. It is impossible to be a truly competitive team in the NFL without a good starting quarterback, and Falcons fans have learned this ever since the tail end of Matt Ryan’s career.

Without a first-round pick or many good options in free agency, the front office was content to give Penix another year and get Tagovailoa on a veteran minimum of $1.3 million.

But new general manager Ian Cunningham was clearly in wait-and-see mode in free agency. None of the offseason moves screamed that the team was trying to compete this year. The most expensive free agent was wide receiver Jahan Dotson on just $7 million, and most of the moves were one-year deals.

Instead, the front office focused on securing the future core of the team through contract extensions, so that when the quarterback problem is fixed, the team will already be in place.

Roster Construction:

When Raheem Morris joined the team for the 2024 season, he and Terry Fontenot knew they needed to find success fast in order to keep their jobs. Because of this, the organization made lots of quick fixes to the roster to try to make the playoffs.

This helped create a roster that had a solid amount of top-end talent, but as the season wore on and injuries started to inevitably occur, the team would struggle.

Just last season, when Divine Deablo went down with an injury, the team fell apart defensively. The team ranked seventh in defensive points allowed with Deablo on the field and dropped all the way to 26th without him.

This was not a one-off issue. The team's roster construction had no depth, and because of that, it was hit especially hard by injuries every year.

New head coach Kevin Stefanski and Cunningham stressed the importance of depth early in the offseason and are trying to follow through on it. Through the draft and a litany of one-year contracts, the team has begun to shore up its depth at positions of need.

It still has work to do, but the new front office seems to have a better plan when it comes to overall roster construction than the last regime had. The team has set itself up for a rebuild in 2027 if need be with the second-most available cap space in the NFL, according to Spotrac.

Expectations:

Unless Michael Penix Jr. comes back from injury soon and is a new quarterback when he does, this team will struggle to find wins during a tough schedule. The consensus line for win totals on Vegas Insider is 7.5, though DraftKings lists it as 4.5.

However, just because the team does not have success this year does not mean Stefanski and Cunningham should be written off as a bad coach and general manager combination.

Instead, fans should be looking for progress in key areas. Are there young players contributing to success and growing under the new coaching staff? Is the team devastated by injuries when they inevitably happen?

These are the more important questions Falcons fans should be asking themselves about this year's team. Not: Did the team make the playoffs?

Super Bowls aren’t won overnight, and dynasties aren’t built in a day.

Sign up for our free Atlanta Falcons newsletter and follow us and 30,000 Falcons fans on Facebook and X for the latest news!

Add us as a preferred source on Google