Atlanta Falcons: Offensive Domination a Winning Trend?

The Atlanta Falcons owned the NFC with offensive domination, but is it a winning trend? Can they stay on top or was 2016 a statistical fluke in the NFL?

The Atlanta Falcons are one of the more unexpected Super Bowl members in quite a while. Not since the Carolina Panthers way back in 2015 has a team projected to finish third or last in its division triumphed to make it to the biggest game.

Okay, so it isn’t very rare in the NFL (especially in the NFC South) for a team to overachieve by such massive expectations. However, Atlanta’s success is no less impressive. Was their offensive domination a winning trend that can carry them to Super Bowl glory, or rather a statistical fluke?

Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, discuss the Atlanta Falcons in today’s NFL Sports Debate.

Todd Salem:

The Falcons’ over/under win total this preseason was 7.0, down from 7.5 earlier in the summer. They were tied for the lowest win projection in the division, and CBS Sports tabbed the under as the proper pick for them.

In our NFL wins pool this year (10 owners taking three teams each to try to accumulate the most total victories), Atlanta was selected 28th out of 30 teams, and it seemed totally reasonable at the time. I know what that says about NFL fans and even professional analysts: no one knows anything. But what does it say about the Falcons? Is this a fluke, or was there something there that we overlooked?

In my mind, the obvious answer is the team’s defense didn’t end up mattering. That is a huge factor. Atlanta’s defense was projected to be very bad before the year, and during the year it was very bad. Yet that didn’t stop them because of how historically well the offense performed. The NFL used to be a league where a bad offense could be overcome as long as a team’s defense was elite. The opposite was never totally true. Just look at New Orleans over the years. Maybe that is no longer the case. In a league that protects and favors offense, an elite offense can now carry a bad defense.

Even though Atlanta’s defense performed better in the playoffs, this was somewhat true of everyone who made the conference championships this year. Obviously, just last year, the opposite occurred with Denver winning with dominant defense. So, is 2016 statistical noise or a moving trend? Is Atlanta a trendsetter or an aberration?

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I would lean toward the latter, but not to imply offense-heavy teams can’t win moving forward. It’s just that 2016 was kind of a random occurrence. This isn’t going to happen every year from now on. However, keep your eye on the likes of Arizona, the Chargers, and Carolina next year: teams with potential for huge jumps back up into the offensive elite who may be overlooked.

Dan Salem:

I thought the Falcons would be good this season, its true. But I’d be a liar if I claimed to put Atlanta in the Super Bowl. This team is no fluke and in a conference full of mediocre defense, I see no reason why offensively superior teams won’t keep dominating like the Falcons did in 2016.

You’ve been hating on Atlanta’s defense all season and stayed consistent through the playoffs. They are the epitome of underrated at this point, because no one is giving them a shot to stop New England…except me. The Falcons did a decent job on defense this past year. You know how I know this? The team won their division.

Obviously the unit was the weakest link on the team and Atlanta would never have reached the playoffs if not for Matt Ryan and their incredible offense. But the defense consistently did enough to win and got better as the season wore on, elevating itself even more in the playoffs. That’s a solid winning formula.

Several defenses scare me in the AFC, one of them being the Patriots. But no one in the NFC scared me on defense this past season, opening the door for Atlanta and its offense to run wild and dominate. Its also the same reason Green Bay went on such a winning streak. While I agree that the season as a whole felt fluky, I don’t agree that the Falcons were a statistical fluke.

Perhaps defense re-asserts itself next season, but simply look at how the Atlanta Falcons have performed since Ryan became quarterback. Here are his win totals beginning in 2008: 11, 9, 13, 10, 13, 4, 6, 8, 11.

That tells me Atlanta is a winner with Ryan under center, but if their defense falls a bit short, then so does the team. They fell on their faces in 2013 with only four victories, then built their way back up to the Super Bowl no less. Five of Ryan’s nine seasons saw double digit victories and six of nine were winning seasons. That is no fluke.

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Defense wins championships, so the saying goes. This season defense felt a little less important, but the NFL always ebbs and flows. What’s certainly a trend is great quarterback play winning above all else. It brought Ryan and Aaron Rodgers to the NFC title game, as well as Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger to the AFC championship. Great quarterbacks can make up for average defense. That is a trend here to stay.

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