Second Look: Grading the Falcons first half of 2019

Despite a furious second-half comeback attempt, the Falcons fell to 1-7 after losing to the Seahawks 27-20 at Mercedes Benz Sunday afternoon.

This is clearly not how the Falcons front office, coaches, players or fans thought the first half of the season would go. Sure, we knew they had one of the five toughest schedules among the 32 NFL teams. Most would have thought 6-2 and at worst 4-4, no one could have predicted 1-7.

There is a myriad of reasons and plenty of blame to go around as the reason for the state of the Falcons. Every entity we named above has played a role in the fall of the Falcons. While nothing is going to change in the next couple of months, we can at least take a look back at the performances of the first eight games.

Of the eight games, the Falcons have only been out of three games this season – Vikings, Titans and Rams. In the other five games, the Falcons have been within striking distance at some point in the second half.

The first half of games have not been kind to either the offense nor defense. Slow starts on both sides of the ball have been the biggest issue plaguing this team. Coaching and preparation seem to play a big role in the slow starts, but there is no singular aspect that we can point to and say that is the biggest culprit.

What we do know is the second half of the season will see the Falcons play six of their eight games against the NFC South, a game against the NFC best San Francisco 49ers and the lowly Jaguars, who seem to be the one team the Falcons can actually beat.

With the Falcons in line to grab a Top 4 pick in the 2020 NFL draft and Chase Young on the brain of many, fans may be okay with the Falcons 2019 season going completely down the drain.

Here is how we grade out the performance of the team through the first eight games of 2019.