Four Verts: Falcons’ late-season collapse isn’t surprising, and how dangerous are the Seahawks?

The postseason is fast approaching, and that clears the picture for teams with a chance to make the playoffs during the final month of the season. This week’s Four Verts kicks off with a team that, perhaps unsurprisingly, has quickly fallen down the standings after a month-long slide.

Falcons who blow the division race are top falcons

Of course. It was never going to be easy. After a 6-3 start with a chokehold in the NFC South, the Falcons’ season came to a screeching halt with a four-game losing streak that has them at 6-7 and currently out of the playoff picture. Calamity sticks with this team like a disease, and its latest bout with its illness ended with 21 fourth-quarter points to the Minnesota Vikings in a 42-21 road loss. The investment in Kirk Cousins ​​quickly went from being a great move that stabilized the franchise to a disaster that already has his future with the team in doubt.

Nothing is working right with this team right now. The Falcons’ offensive efficiency isn’t where it was when they won games earlier in the season, they stink in the red zone and the defense is, well, still a Falcons defense. Atlanta is capable, outside of the Broncos game, of putting together long stretches of skill. They move the ball well in the mid-20s and have a good offensive line paired with a very good running back duo in Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier. The framework for a good team is here, but the substance is not. As the season has gone on, Cousins’ lack of mobility has become a huge strain on an offense that feels like it’s starting to run out of answers.

The Falcons don’t really have anything on their call sheet that can stress a defense, despite having one of the best rushing games in the league. According to TruMedia, they run the least amount of play-action in the league (7.9%) and have scrambled on 0.4% of their dropbacks this season, good for 31. Their passing game consists entirely of Cousins ​​dropping back and shoots into the defense while his feet are glued to the pocket. An offense that can’t move the quarterback is only going to be so hard to defend for so long, unless they’re like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. Cousins ​​has turned into a turnover machine as the margins shrink.

Now that Atlanta is on the outside looking into the playoffs, the future of the franchise will no doubt be a topic. The Falcons made a controversial move to draft University of Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth pick in April, and they were ready to bench him for multiple seasons if the situation allowed. Well, that probably won’t be the case if Cousins ​​is the main reason they go after the season ends and miss the playoffs.

It hasn’t been all bad, but there was no way the 6-3 Falcons were going to leave the season unscathed. As usual, they tripped and fell on their face and now have to fight for their lives to save the season. In some ways, that’s why Cousins ​​was spiritually the perfect quarterback to take over for the Falcons. Just enough to keep people intrigued and excited, but ultimately not quite what people need.

The Bears had 4 yards of offense in one half

At some point, the Bears will stop being a punch line in this column. Today is not that day.

The latest Bears blunder occurred in Thomas Brown’s first game as interim head coach during their 38-13 loss to the 49ers. Brown’s rapid ascension from passing coordinator to offensive coordinator to interim head coach may have been a little too much too soon, but there’s no excuse for what the Bears “did” in the first half against the 49ers.

Four yards. Four yards is all the Bears could manage in two full quarters of football. They had 2 yards on 14 plays (0.1 yards per play) going into their final drive. They gained 8 yards on the first two plays of their final drive before Caleb Williams was sacked for a loss on third down. Four yards. In 30 minutes of football! That’s 0.2 yards per game, -0.3 net yards per pass attempts, 0% success rate, 30.8% sack rate and 0% on third down all in the first half. According to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats, the Bears’ 4 yards in the first half were the fewest by any team since the 2000 season. They were also outgained by 315 yards in the first half, also the worst since 2000. Yikes!

The score was 24-0, yet it felt significantly worse than that. They had no chance through a flurry of mistakes and sloppy play that saw this game feel over before the first quarter was done. This team doesn’t feel like it should be that bad, but it is, putting the Bears in a dangerous position as this season is thankfully coming to an end. The Bears were one game away from being 5-2 before the infamous Hail Mary attempt in Washington, but now sit at 4-9 with a new coaching staff guaranteed to come through the door. It’s unfortunate for Brown, who has had some good moments as a play-caller in the NFL, but the game is played.

Oh, good. Maybe next year. At least start looking competent before the end of the season, because they have the pieces to do it. Or maybe they don’t, and that’s what the Bears are always destined to be.

OK. Let me start by saying this: I am not sick of Kansas City. I really enjoy that the NFL has a team and quarterback of this high caliber that is always a pillar of relevance to the entire league. I’m not bothered by them being 12-1 or the possibility of them representing the AFC in the Super Bowl again. Dominance can be captivating, especially when quarterbacked by Patrick Mahomes. However, there needs to be a discussion about what the hell happens at the end of some of these latest games – the future of the universe may be at stake.

When the Chiefs beat the Broncos on a blocked field goal, it was easy to chalk it up to “same old Chiefs.” Luck plays a big part in winning, so even teams that we know are great will have their fair share of lucky moments. It happens. It takes luck to win all these games by one score and this was just another moment like that.

Then the Black Friday game against the Raiders. The Chiefs were in a dogfight against one of the worst teams in the league, Brock Bowers looked like the next Tony Gonzalez, and the Raiders had a chance to win at the end of the game. When the Raiders put themselves in field-goal range, they kind of forgot how to operate as a real offense and ended up fumbling and ending the game without getting a chance to kick. OK, this is a little weird – but it’s the Raiders, right? They do stupid things all the time and maybe the Chiefs got lucky with a terribly incompetent opponent.

However, what happened against the Chargers can only be described as some kind of phantasmal intervention. Do you have something to think about when you win the last game of the game? One more doink win? Now we have to investigate because to was a bridge too far. It becomes clearer and clearer that the chieftains have sold every vestige of their souls to a demonic power—and potentially sacrificed the rest of the world to do so.

Sure, you can point to having Mahomes or high ratings in several offensive stats to explain the record, but that doesn’t explain the specific endings. Only unseen forces can allow all these to happen in such a short time. Now is a good time to make sure you’re right about the higher or lower power you believe in, just in case the rapture starts in New Orleans after the upcoming Super Bowl. You have been warned. Don’t be unprepared for the beginning of the end.

Seattle’s defense raises the playoff ceiling

The Seahawks have had a nice mid-season turnaround and currently boast an 8-5 record after a 4-5 start. For the most part this season, quarterback Geno Smith has done a lot of the heavy lifting, lifting a team with an inconsistent offensive line and defense game after game. Recently, it’s become more of a group effort as new head coach Mike Macdonald’s defense finally starts to take shape and look like the unit everyone hoped for when he arrived in Seattle in the offseason. With the recent defensive performance, the Seahawks have taken control of the NFC West and look like a team that would be a pain in the ass to play in January.

The start of the season makes the final month of play even more impressive. The Seahawks, like the Ravens at the beginning of Macdonald’s tenure in Baltimore, struggled to play effective defense on a down-to-down basis. They were about a middle defense. According to TruMedia, the Seahawks’ defense ranked 18th in expected points added per. games (-0.02), 22nd in success rate (42.3%), 14th in points per drive (1.91) and 17th in third-down conversion rate (37.4%) in the nine games prior to their Week 10 bye.

Seattle made a great offseason trade for linebacker Ernest Jones that helped bolster its front seven, and since that bye, has been one of the best defenses in football. Since Week 11, the Seahawks are second in points per game. drive (1.31), third in net yards per pass attempts (5.6), first in expected points added per plays (-0.16), sixth in success rate (39.9%) and fifth in yards per carry. games (5.0). In that span, they played the 49ers, the Cardinals twice and the Jets. The Jets may not be the cream of the crop on offense this year, but the 49ers and Cardinals have been good offensive units.

The Seahawks’ four-game winning streak that has them atop the division wouldn’t be possible without this defensive turnaround. The offense has essentially floundered between average and above-average seasons, but Smith’s performance gives them a high floor on that side of the ball. If the defense can keep playing like this, Seattle could get a home game for the wild card, and then who knows what could happen?

This is an exciting development for the Seahawks and their fan base. This unit was one of the worst in the league a year ago and has already risen toward being a robust one in just one season with Macdonald. He is doing what he was brought in and advertised to do, giving the Seahawks an incredibly bright immediate future. Their performance to close the season, and potentially in January, will provide a lot of insight into where their future lies in the new era.