30. Atlanta Falcons
Last week: 28th
You have to give the Atlanta Falcons some credit for hanging tough against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 1, but you also can't help but see the writing on the wall for this team.
Injuries at the quarterback position forced Cooper Rush into the starting lineup. Considering he just signed with the team in late July, he didn't do too bad overall. But the Falcons will absolutley welcome the opportunity to have either Tua Tagovailoa or Michael Penix Jr. in the near future.
Atlanta's defense did a pretty good job in Week 1 at limiting the Steelers, holding them to just 264 total yards of offense and just 3-of-13 on 3rd down conversions.
Bijan Robinson did what Bijan Robinson does, racking up over 170 yards from scrimmage, but it wasn't quite enough. We'll see what this offense can be if they can get any semblance of a downfield passing game going.
29. Miami Dolphins
Last week: 30th
The Miami Dolphins played a bit more inspired against the Raiders in Week 1 than anticipated, but the way they got beat by the Raiders is pretty indicative of just how early this team is in the rebuilding process.
We saw some nice things from Malik Willis in his first start with Miami, and getting to see involvement from promising young players like Caleb Douglas (who looks like a stud) and Chris Bell was really encouraging. But there is simply no doubt that the Dolphins are going to be viewed through the lens of rebuilding/reloading all year.
As the season goes along, we might shift from evaluating individual players on this roster to maybe even seeing some team success. Against the Raiders, we saw the Miami defense force a couple of takeaways, make some plays behind the line of scrimmage, and they also had some big plays on special teams.
Still, this has the look of a team that's going to struggle to match up with anyone they face this season. There's too big of a talent gap on the roster right now.
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