Ian Hartitz drops the Atlanta Falcons team preview and fantasy football outlook for the 2025 NFL season.

The Falcons won six of their first nine games last season and looked to be well on their way to their first NFC South title since 2016. Young studs Bijan Robinson and Drake London were grooving, $150 million man Kirk Cousins was swag surfin', hell, even Kyle Pitts was showing signs of life!

And then things went south. Quickly. Four consecutive losses and a rather pitiful 15-9 victory over the lowly Raiders led to Cousins hitting the bench in favor of eighth overall pick Michael Penix. Back-to-back fun shootout losses against the Commanders and Panthers closed out what wound up being an awfully mediocre season.

Atlanta Falcons in 2024:

• Points per game: 22.9 (13th)
• EPA per dropback: +0.08 (16th)
• EPA per rush: -0.02 (7th)
• Points per game against: 24.9 (23rd)

Of course, new year, new Falcons. The organization is hopeful Penix has the ability to take this offense from good to great, and that a plethora of new EDGE defenders helps the defense finish better than 18th in scoring for the first time since 2017.

This brings us to today's goal: Answering key (mostly fantasy-related) questions about the Falcons ahead of their 2025 season.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

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2025 Fantasy Football And Team Preview

What sort of upside did Michael Penix flash as a rookie?

• Michael Penix consensus Fantasy Life ranking: QB22

Well, small sample be damned, the mixtape of his best throws is certainly a fun watch.

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However, the advanced metrics aren't all great. Yes, Penix managed to put forward pretty great marks in EPA per dropback (+0.17, 10th) and PFF pass grade (87.6, 4th), but the completion percentage over expected (-4.4%, 42nd) and overall passer rating (78.9, 41st) were far from great.

Still, nobody had a higher big-time throw rate than Penix (9%!), which was especially cool to see considering the rookie was up there with Lamar Jackson and Bo Nix as the league's best QBs at avoiding sacks and limiting turnover-worthy plays. Hell, even the interceptions Penix did throw were not on him.

Now, all of this did only result in QB31, QB23, and QB6 fantasy finishes in large part because of Penix's lack of a rushing floor (11 total rush yards on the season). He's firmly in the Tua Tagovailoa and Matthew Stafford tier of pocket passer QBs who need to be lethal through the air to keep up with the position's dual-threat talents.

Michael Penix 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook

Penix's subpar completion rate has been a hot topic, but his sky-high average target depth is a major reason why; he's not exactly in bad company when looking at the accuracy by distance. Still, the archetype of being a pure passer/zero rusher just doesn't present a ton of upside in the year 2025 outside of leagues that reward more than four points per passing TD. Maybe Penix does his best Jared Goff impression and competes for the league lead in passing yards and TDs, but that's asking a lot for a man with just 105 professional pass attempts to his name.

Penix is in the same tier as guys like C.J. Stroud, Tua, and Stafford: Fine enough low-end QB2s with spike-week potential in the right matchup, but not guys who you should be looking to lead a regular 12-team re-draft squad. That said: This tier of QBs does project similarly to more expensive statue-esque passers like Goff and Dak Prescott, making them my preferred second QB options in superflex land.

Does Bijan Robinson have a case as THE RB1?

• Bijan Robinson consensus Fantasy Life ranking: RB2
• Tyler Allgeier: RB45

Robinson turned a whopping 365 touches into 1,887 total yards and 15 scores last season as the engine of the Falcons' 13th-ranked scoring offense. Now, life with Michael Penix under center isn't guaranteed to lead to weekly fireworks; just realize the volume alone is enough to earn Bijan this ranking.

Consider: Just four RBs are projected to see 300-plus combined carries and targets next season (per the Fantasy Life Projections):

• Saquon Barkley (351)
• Bijan Robinson (334)
• Jonathan Taylor (316)
• Ashton Jeanty (310)

Throw in a sneaky-great pass-game floor that has resulted in Bijan catching a whopping 119 passes over the last two seasons (third most among RBs), and you have the consensus RB2—and it wouldn't surprise ANYONE if that winds up being too low.

And then there's Allgeier, who deserves credit for largely making the most out of his opportunities during his short time in the league. At the risk of jinxing the man, Allgeier has 586 combined carries and targets in his three-year career–with *zero* fumbles or drops. This is a good RB!

Bijan Robinson 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook

Bijan is worthy of being the 1.01 selection in half-PPR formats if you would simply prefer to not take any chances with Saquon Barkley's age or big 2024 workload (although I question the legitimacy of the latter concerns). Meanwhile, Allgeier is an elite A-tier handcuff option who is far more worthy of a late-round dart throw than WR6 types who you will never feel good about putting into your lineup anyway.

Could the Falcons have *two* potential top-24 WRs?

• Drake London consensus Fantasy Life ranking: WR9
• Darnell Mooney: WR50
• Ray-Ray McCloud: WR100

There was a lot to like about London's 2024 campaign. Career-high counting numbers across the board were complemented by elite marks in yards per route run (2.33, 11th) and targets per route run (28.9%, 5th). It turns out trying to cover 6-foot-4, 213-pound beasts with a massive wingspan and quick feet isn't the world's easiest job. Throw in the reality that Penix fed the former eighth overall pick a whopping 39 targets during the last three games of 2024 (nobody else had more than 12!), and it's clear that London is deserving of top-12 recognition at the position ahead of 2025.

Of course, things weren't ALWAYS picture perfect for London. Don't get it twisted: He was great throughout 2024, but did you know Darnell Mooney actually had more receiving yards during the first 14 weeks of last season? Madness!

Now, Mooney didn't exactly put his best foot forward during his brief stint with Penix (missing Week 18 with a shoulder injury didn't help), but that doesn't change the fact he looks pretty damn locked in as this passing game's No. 2 target. One of just five WRs to average north of 15 yards per reception and nine yards per target (min. 75 targets) last season, the ex-Bear veteran proved to be rather lethal on the outside throughout his first year in ATL.

This brings us to the primary question: How often does one offense enable multiple top-24 WRs? Answer: More than you think! Specifically, an average of five teams per season have enabled multiple top-24 WRs in PPR points per game over the last decade of action. Shoutout to the 2018 Rams and 2020 Buccaneers as the only teams with three.

Finally, shoutout Ray-Ray McCloud, who locked down the starting slot job and wound up finishing as the overall WR50 in PPR points—one spot behind none other than Rome Odunze! There's not exactly a ton of upside here, and it's possible someone like Jamal Agnew or KhaDarel Hodge squeezes into the rotation, but for now the great grandson of Fox does indeed profile as the offense's No. 3 WR–something that is fairly rare to find at his WR90 ADP.

Drake London 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook

London is a consensus top-10 WR thanks to his combination of proven upside and sky-high target ceiling. The London-Ladd McConkey-A.J. Brown tier is right about where I draw the line in Round 2 before taking a more serious look at RBs like Jonathan Taylor and Josh Jacobs.

Meanwhile, Mooney carries an affordable WR47 ADP fresh off a WR35 finish in PPR points per game. I haven't gone out of my way to prioritize him ahead of similarly priced talents like Stefon Diggs and Josh Downs, but I do believe the clear-cut No. 2 option in Atlanta deserves the benefit of the doubt ahead of rookies like Emeka Egbuka, Luther Burden, and Jayden Higgins.

Are we seriously about to do the Kyle Pitts thing again?

• Kyle Pitts consensus Fantasy Life ranking: TE17

Pitts entered the league as a perceived "generational" talent at the position thanks to a gargantuan frame, sub-4.5 speed, and a 43-770-12 receiving line in just eight games during his final season at Florida. Throw in a compelling 1,026 receiving yards as a rookie, and the sky seemed like the limit for the fourth overall pick of the 2021 NFL Draft.

Unfortunately, a torn MCL ended Pitts' sophomore campaign after just 10 games, and things simply failed to get overly better in 2023 (TE17 in PPR points per game) or 2024 (TE21).

Now, sometimes we can write an enticing bounceback story about an underperforming fantasy asset with meh counting numbers thanks to great underlying metrics, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

There's still a good player here somewhere. Pitts' two-TD performance against the Buccaneers on National TE Day looked like the potential start to a breakout; this is still a special athlete who should be a problem for linebackers and safeties to cover one-on-one. Still, as George W. Bush once said: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me … you can't get fooled again.”

Bottom line: Maybe last year's August hamstring injury limited Pitts more than we realized, but then again a current foot issue and trade murmurs don't exactly paint a more rosy picture ahead of 2025. Ultimately, all of our rankers have Pitts between TE17 and TE19—maybe the Falcons engage in enough shootouts for the allegedly ultra-talented pass catcher to finally boom at his cheapest cost yet. But I still struggle to get too excited due to the potential for him to (again) work as the No. 4 pass-game option in his own offense.

What defenses have boasted the worst pass rushes in recent years?

As you can probably guess by this question's placement inside the Falcons team preview … yeah, things haven't been great here!

Falcons pressure rate:

• 2020: 30.8% (19th)
• 2021: 24.1% (32nd)
• 2022: 25.8% (31st)
• 2023: 32.5% (25th)
• 2024: 28.5% (30th)

Overall, nobody has a lower average rank than the Falcons during this span and it's not particularly close. The best team? The Cowboys, thanks in large part to the decision to draft Micah Parsons 10th overall in 2021. Surely the Falcons didn't draft a relatively disappointing TE or something instead of arguably the best pass rusher in the league that year.

Kudos to the front office for signing Leonard Floyd and using a pair of first rounders in an attempt to spruce up the pass rush, but there's still quite a ways to go before they approach mediocrity.

Prediction For The Falcons 2025 Season

Vegas seems pessimistic that the Falcons are meaningfully improved, as their 7.5 win total puts them next to the likes of the Cowboys, Jaguars, and Colts ahead of 2025. I actually don't mind the over on this number considering the potential for the offense to once again work as an above-average unit alongside a defense that should be improved given their aforementioned improvements at EDGE rusher and the newfound presence of longtime Jets DC Jeff Ulbrich.

As for my bold fantasy take: Mooney again works as the clear-cut No. 2 pass-game option and winds up clearing 1,000 yards on his way to a top-30 finish in PPR points per game.

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