What to know about Falcons - Chiefs in Week 3

If you circled one single game as a loss on this year’s schedule, it was probably this one. The Kansas City Chiefs are slow starters, the Atlanta Falcons are at home, yadda yadda. This is still the defending Super Bowl champion, coached by one of the best coaches of all-time, and quarterbacked by perhaps the best quarterback of all-time. There’s nothing easy about this matchup.

All that said, a little hope goes a long way, and the Falcons gave us that with their primetime victory over the Eagles. Clamping down enough to hold Philadelphia to 21 points on the night while engineering a tremendous last-minute scoring drive to take the lead, Kirk Cousins kicked that “he can’t get it done under the brights light” narrative right in the head and the Falcons moved to 1-1 with a brilliant victory that seemed to open a whole hallway of doors for this team.

An improving Falcons squad and a Chiefs team off to a bit of a slow start is a recipe for big dreams, and I’m hardly the only one dreaming them. Is it really so crazy to think that a Falcons team doing quality work against (admittedly limited, whether by scheme or injury) passing attacks thus far could at least slow down Patrick Mahomes and company enough for an offense finding its footing to earn a narrow victory? The fact that we’re entertaining those thoughts feels nuts because of what happened in Week 1, but is it really so crazy to think the Falcons might be catching the Chiefs at a semi-vulnerable moment?

We’ll find out soon enough. Here’s what you need to know about the matchup ahead in the interim.

Team rankings

Falcons - Chiefs breakdown

The Chiefs have been a little lackluster defensively this year, and while that’s not for a lack of talent, it does suggest this Falcons offense can have some success if they can build on Week 2. The offense hasn’t looked quite as sharp as normal and is dealing with significant injuries, but c’mon, it’s still one of the best offenses in the league.

The Falcons looked like a capable offense in Week 2 after a stinky Week 1 performance, so the fact that they’re a little below average in terms of those high level rankings is no great surprise. Defensively, their success against the pass thus far and relative lack of success against the run makes them a strong opponent for these pass-first Chiefs and their injured top running back, though Atlanta has obviously not faced this caliber of passing game yet with A.J. Brown shelved for the Eagles last week.

How the Chiefs have changed

The biggest changes were to a receiving corps that was a wasteland outside of Rashee Rice. The Chiefs signed Hollywood Brown and drafted Xavier Worthy, but the former is on injured reserve and the latter is going to have rookie ups and downs despite his incredible speed. They also added Carson Wentz to give them a more experienced backup quarterback, and their draft class gave them some interesting future pieces.

Otherwise, you kind of know what you’re getting here: One of the best-coached teams in the league with a future Hall of Fame quarterback, tight end, and defensive lineman, surrounded by lesser stars and excellent complementary pieces. The Chiefs don’t look stellar just yet, but they’re one of the best teams in the NFL every year for a reason, and part of that reason is continuity.

What lies ahead

Another tough matchup, even with Kansas City’s injuries and good-but-not-great play. With the Eagles, we were hoping boneheaded mistakes would help the Falcons stay in the game and ultimately win it, and that did come to pass. With the Chiefs, you’re hoping that a relatively slow start to the season continues, enabling a heating up Atlanta squad to come away with a win.

The challenges for this defense are myriad, if somewhat lessened by the loss of both Hollywood Brown and Isaiah Pacheco. Mahomes is able and willing to run if he needs to, perfectly capable of rifling a pass from any arm angle anywhere on the field, and prone to attacking deep with alarming precision. The Falcons have to account for Travis Kelce and Rice, two of the most reliable weapons in the game, knowing full well that they’re both rough matchups and stellar at working over the middle of the field. Both are also difficult to bring down, meaning some of Atlanta’s frustrating tackling issues versus Pittsburgh and Philadelphia will bite them in the ass against Kansas City if they crop up again.

Working in Atlanta’s favor? The loss of Isaiah Pacheco, an underrated back who led the team in rushing and was second in targets. Samaje Perine will absorb the targets and Carson Steele will take over early down work, but the sum of those two players is not Pacheco’s whole, and that will have an impact on both the ground game and Mahomes. Of course, after last week, the Falcons need to show they can stop the run even if the backs they’ll face are far lesser lights than Saquon Barkley.

Through the air, outside of Rice, Kelce, and the speedy Worthy, the Chiefs lack standout volume options. If the Falcons can at least keep those three somewhat under control, there’s an opportunity to force the always-something-less-than-perfect early season Mahomes into a couple of bad plays that could help change the outcome. That is, of course, a big ask. If Mahomes has a particularly dialed-in effort and Rice in particular can work across the middle, it’ll be time for Justin Simmons to keep his stellar track record against Mahomes going to turn the tide.

Offensively, Atlanta is facing off against a team that hasn’t played particularly well on the defensive side of the ball just yet, but was facing two tough opponents. They have one of the league’s brightest defensive coordinators and the great Chris Jones, so I don’t expect the Falcons and Kirk Cousins to be quite so fortunate avoiding pressure as they were against the Eagles. Still, this isn’t a rounded-together, firing-on-all-cylinders defense just yet, and they’ve been particularly inept against the pass with 513 yards allowed (the third-highest number in the league, and the Patriots are in first and have played three entire games), three touchdowns, and zero interceptions. There’s an opportunity for Cousins and company to build on what they’ve done so far; a good but not great Chiefs run defense also allows for Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier to get rolling and hopefully stay rolling.

But let’s be sober-minded about this for our final note. A Chiefs team playing at the peak of their powers is extremely difficult to beat; even one finding its footing represents one of the toughest opponents of the year for Atlanta. If the Falcons can build off their Week 2 performance against a Chiefs team that’s a little weakened and still something of a slumbering giant, there’s absolutely a chance they can steal this one. I just wouldn’t go into this game expecting the Falcons to knock off arguably the league’s toughest team while they themselves are still a work in progress. Let’s hope that progress adds up to another primetime win in Atlanta.