Atlanta Falcons week seven final thoughts and predictions

The Atlanta Falcons’ road doesn’t get any easier a week after beating San Francisco in impressive fashion Atlanta travels to take on a hot Bengals offense. Atlanta is understandably underdogs yet again despite covering or winning outright in every game so far this season. The Falcons have had a chance in the 4th quarter of all six of their games this season a huge upgrade compared to the last three seasons despite losing Matt Ryan and a number of impact veterans during the off-season.

Atlanta will have to deal with another loss this weekend as well with Casey Hayward being placed on IR after suffering an injury late against San Francisco. Hayward was far from the only corner suffering an injury with Oliver and Terrell leaving the game as well on the final two drives.

With Joe Burrow coming off of arguably his best game of the season it is bad time for the Falcons to be without their veteran corner. While Atlanta is going to keep this game close it is impossible to pick a Marcus Mariota-led Atlanta offense over Burrow and the Bengals.

The two aspects of this game that will help the Falcons keep it close is the lack of pass protection for Cincy and their inability to stop the run. If there is a path for the Falcons to win this game it is simply playing keep away and outscoring Burrow and the Bengals strictly by relying on their run game.

New Orleans had zero problems pushing around this defensive front and piled up well over 200-rushing yards last week.  Atlanta is going to continue to keep this game close but a late touchdown drive from Burrow is going to be the difference as Atlanta falls to 3-4 on the season as they prepare for their easiest slate of games of the season.

Final prediction- Bengals-27 Falcons-23