Atlanta Falcons

Air Raid — Spread it out, tempo, spacing.
Team fit 85.5 A− · Read the full guide →

Tampa 2 — Rush four, rally and tackle.
Team fit 87.1 A−

An offense-leaning team: the talent and the problems are both easy to spot. The face of it is Bijan Robinson (HB, 98).

Bijan Robinson (HB, 98) is the headliner. 98 juke — makes the first man miss in a phone booth; 96 speed — home-run speed that changes how a defense lines up; 95 spin — the spin move is a genuine weapon, not a panic button. Game-planning against this team starts with him and works backward.

Michael Penix Jr (77) at quarterback is serviceable rather than special; the stars around him are asked to make him right. Drake London (93) would headline most offenses himself — having two of them is how this unit breaks coverage math. The line has a star of its own: Chris Lindstrom (RG, 94), the kind of blocker whole run concepts get built behind. Fine print — Michael Penix Jr: he partially tore his ACL last November — incredibly, the third ACL surgery of his career — missed the end of 2025 and the first two weeks of 2026 before taking his job back.

Jessie Bates III (FS, 95) sets the terms. 96 play recognition — diagnoses it before the snap has finished; 94 zone coverage — reads the quarterback's eyes and breaks before the ball does; 90 speed — real speed that has to be accounted for. He is the problem the other sideline has to solve first.

It is a one-man headline, though — the next-best defender is A.J. Terrell Jr (88), and offenses that survive the star find a much more ordinary unit behind him. The back end (82.0 average) is the strength and the front (76.9) is ordinary — this defense wins by making quarterbacks hold the ball, then covering long enough for average rushers to arrive.

Nick Folk (83) kicks — 93 leg, 95 accuracy. Jake Bailey (78) punts — 91 leg, 86 accuracy. Top return man is Mike Hughes (82 return).

Offense: Zachariah Branch (WR, 73 OVR) — a 95 speed buried at 73 overall. Speed is the one trait that plays at any overall — it travels to any package, any formation, any Sunday.

Defense: Robert Longerbeam (CB, 69 OVR). Read the ratings page twice: the overall says 69, the speed says 93. Overall is about the whole job; that speed is about one job, and he can already do that one as well as most starters.