Falcons are still in the Super Bowl hunt

At 1-2 on the year, the Atlanta Falcons are still in the Super Bowl hunt. They need a big win in Week 4 against the Tennessee Titans to make that happen.

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The Atlanta Falcons entered the 2019 NFL season with lofty expectations. Atlanta made huge changes to the coaching staff, as many thought that would get them back in playoff contention in the NFC. Some even picked the Falcons as the favorite to win the NFC South this year. But after a 1-2 start, are the Falcons still even contenders, much less Super Bowl LIV contenders?

On this week’s episode of Stacking the Box, FanSided‘s Matt Verderame and Josh Hill, along with former NFL offensive lineman Geoff Schwartz dissect the Falcons’ chances to right the ship to become an outside contender at getting to Super Bowl LIV down in Miami (8:35).

“The Falcons, I don’t trust them, but they have a lot of talent on their team,” said Schwartz frustratingly. “If they just played up to their talent, they’ll have an opportunity to do that.”

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Atlanta has so much talent on really both sides of the ball. Few teams in the NFL can shake what Atlanta has in its receiving corps. The Falcons have brought in two former Falcons offensive coordinators in Dirk Koetter and Mike Mularkey to help get this unit over the top.

Head coach Dan Quinn is taking a lot of flak for his team underwhelming, and rightfully so. However, the defensive-minded head coach has shown that he can hire quality offensive coaches to round out his staff. Koetter had success moving the sticks on a bad Tampa Bay Buccaneers team. Mularkey knows how to run the football from his time leading the Tennessee Titans.

With players like Julio Jones, Matt Ryan, Devonta Freeman, Calvin Ridley and Austin Hooper on offense, look for the Falcons to get rolling at some point on that side of the ball. Quinn’s defense has played well in the second half of all three games this season but has to avoid slow starts to help keep this team in games early.

For now, Atlanta still has a great shot at winning the division. Getting to the Super Bowl is probably only a pipe dream at this point, but we’ve seen teams overcome slow starts before and contend down the stretch. It all starts when Atlanta hosts Tennessee on Sunday in what will be a must-win game for both teams. Falling to 1-3 at home is unacceptable. Atlanta has to get it done.

Here are some other topics that were discussed on this week’s episode of Stacking the Box:

• The New Orleans Saints are the most dangerous team in the NFC (6:45)
• Can the Baltimore Ravens beat good teams (9:30)?
• Did we all misjudge Daniel Jones (26:15)?
• The Miami Dolphins aren’t going to win a game (45:00)

All this and more!

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