Cool.

Well, that's enough about twenty twenty five.

That is so last year?

What we got two reds?

All right?

Well, sorry Kirk too ye.

Happy New Year, Falcons fans, Welcome back to the Friday five New Show, New Year, same guests, Tory mclanny, Tarren Walk.

I'm Will McFadden.

Welcome back.

How how was the New year?

Everybody?

It was good?

Yeah, yeah, I had a good time.

Went to the aquarium, all right, I had a lot of fun.

Saw some fish.

Yeah, you partied with fish, partied with the fish.

Ynice.

Well, we are going to, of course talk about the season finale between the Falcons and the Saints.

Bring me the five things that you need to know for this final matchup of the twenty twenty five season.

But before we get to that, we're going to start, as we always do, with our Question of the Day, which you can follow along on TikTok at Atlanta Falcons to see all of the questions of the Day throughout the season.

So, Tory, what do we got?

Yeah?

What was the best part of twenty twenty five?

Who wants to go first?

I'll quickly just say my second son was born, So I'm gonna you're gonna go with that.

That feels like an easy one.

Yeah.

That that was the Miami Dolphins game.

Yeah, for those that was the best day.

Of you for me, for Will Will we probably will alone, yeah, literally just me, just the McFadden family.

Just the mcpadden's.

For me, I think it was winning an Emmy for the Grady Jarrett document.

Go.

That was, as I've said on this podcast, for gosh, you probably are tired of hearing me talk about it, but that was kind of like a labor of love over twenty twenty four and to get the hardware for it along with Mark Whittingham was just like really special.

Nice.

Gosh, I don't know so much.

I know, I know I was gonna say my sister's engagement, but that's about her.

So I'm gonna go with my thirtieth birthday weekend.

Yeah, Ashville, Yeah, that was a time.

Love that.

Okay, three to zero three, not the a marathon.

Old that was my third one.

Okay, well, all right, old hat.

She's like I already done that.

Cool.

Well, that's enough about twenty twenty five.

That is so last year?

What okay?

Good?

I didn't know if that was Oh, I loved it.

Well, Honestly, I'm happy it's the best case scenario that it was one of each, because that's what I go for.

The Falcons and the Saints are going to close up the twenty twenty five season with their second game.

Falcons won the first one back in week twelve, And it's really interesting when you look at this kind of matchup because it's between maybe the two hottest teams in the division.

Falcons are on a three game win streak, Saints have won four.

They won five of their last seven.

Tyler Shuck, who will talk about it later on in the podcast, is playing really, really well.

But it's it's fascinating that you've got kind of this matchup and then the other matchup is the one that will actually decide division between the Bucks and the Panthers.

So Tarn like, why don't you kind of walk us through how the division can be decided here in week eighteen.

Yeah, she has a lot of notes.

She's ready for this.

I know reading them is going to be fun.

But the division is just so interesting, and it's kind of like there's a lot of different moving pieces just for like one outcome.

Obviously, we'll start with like where.

The division stands and you have the Panthers the top the NFC South with an eight and eight record.

The Buccaneers and Falcons are both seven and nine.

And I had to look into this a bit to figure out why the Buccaneers were ahead of the Falcons despite having the same division record, and so Will and I looked into like the tie breakers, and first up is the head to head and the Falcons and Bucks split their series, so that one doesn't work.

Then it's a division record, which I already said they have the same one, so another one that doesn't work.

And then you got to common games, and that's where the Buccaneers have an advantage where they are five and six and the Falcons are four and seven because their shared opponents were the Panthers, Saints, forty nine, Ers, Patriots, Rams, Jets, Dolphins, Bills, Cardinals, and Seahawks.

So that's where that tiebreaker came in, just kind of setting the tone for why we in.

The AFC East I think too much.

Yeah, basically, and then the Saints are fourth at six and ten.

Okay, And as Will said, the Buccaneers and Panthers play Saturday, the Falcons and Saints play Sunday.

If the Buccaneers beat the Panthers and the Falcons beat the Saints, the Buccaneers, Panthers, and Falcons will all be eight and nine.

It'll be a three way tie for first in the NFC South.

The Panthers would win the division though, because they have the best head to head record.

Yeah, but like that's just crazy to think it'll be a three way tie after how this season has gone.

Insid The Falcons would be third in that instance, right.

Yes, because yes, I think the Common.

Games again second, if the Panthers win and Atlanta wins, I think maybe second in the division.

Yeah, okay.

In order for the Bucks to win the division for the fifty year in a row, they need to beat the Panthers and the Falcons would need to lose to the Saints.

Yeah.

So the Panthers have like kind of the easiest yes.

In because of the Falcons win over the Rams too.

So yeah, look at.

That, it gets the Falcons.

I saw a tweets where someone said, just like, give Zan Gonzales like a statue in Charlotte.

Yeah, tear new transitions.

So yeah, anyways, to continue with my notes, my brain is operating at like e today.

But if the Falcons lose to the Saints, they'll both be seven and ten, and the Saints would get the tiebreaker because they already have a a better division record, And then the Saints could be second in the NFC South if the Buccaneers win for the same reason.

So if the Bucks win and the Saints when the Saints are second so in the NFC South.

It feels it feels like literally basically any version of this could end up manifesting this weekend.

Tori, Are you surprised that that's the case again this year in twenty twenty five?

I mean, if you would have asked me kind of going into the season, I maybe would have said, yeah, this is surprising.

But when you look at it in the context of what the NFC South has been for the last one like five years, it has been like this is just another example of the chaos of the NFC South reigning supreme.

Yeah, it's classic NFC Sex, classic NFC South.

And at the new year, same division.

Right like at the beginning of the year, you had Tampa looking unbeatable and starting the season six and two firmly positioned like coming out of the boy to continue that dominance and only to absolutely implay and to the like to the degree of you know, I know last year we had a whole conversation about how the Falcons started so hot in the NFC South and then the South caught up.

But with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it's kind of like this, the same type of story.

They were firmly in control of things.

They looked like they were playing out of their mind, thinking was like an MVP candidate, Yeah yeah, yeah, And now they've lost seven of their last eight.

I believe like the fall off has been extreme for Tampa Bay.

And then speaking of extremes, you have Carolina and Atlanta as these two like hot and cold entities, like both teams putting together some big wins, having some big moments, but also laying eggs periodically.

And then there's just the Saints, which I think the Saints are actually the ones that, along with the Falcons, the trajectory is pointing up a little bit for them compared to how they started the season with you know, ten losses, and I think that they've actually now found a lot of success or at least a bit of success with some of the key young pieces that they have, which I know we'll talk about that later.

So yeah, it's just kind of one of those things where like there is a possibility, to your point of like, after everything that happened, the Falcons could potentially there is a path, a very notable path for the Falcons to be second in the NFC South after everything and after being out of playoff contention for the.

Last three weeks.

And same with the Saints.

Insane with the Saints.

Yes, it's so crazy, and like the thing that I keep coming back to is that it's such an interesting exercise for like expectation and where you are as a team relative to like your kind of time frame for everybody involved, and because again, yeah, like this division can three teams could finish tied, right and the other team would be like two wins off, or that team could finish in the second.

You know, like, yeah, there's so many different variations.

And yet you have Saints fans who probably feel really good right now because of the four game win streak.

You feel like you've got a quarterback you can build on, like the arrow is pointing up for you.

You've got a Panthers fan base that is kind of like maybe we're a year ahead of schedule.

Yeah, like pleasantly surprised.

Yeah, there are still some questions there, but hey, like if we win the division in a year that maybe this wasn't supposed to be the year, awesome, how could you be mad at that?

You've got a Falcon team that is still kind of like looking great at times and then setting itself back at times, and you don't know what to make and you've been kind of stuck in this purgatory for a few years.

Then you've got a Bucks team that is going through very much what Atlanta went through last year, and we all remember how much fun that was.

So it's just fascinating to be like four teams with pretty similar records, pretty similar like outcomes this season and just the way everybody feels about it is fascinating to me.

Very different.

But we talked about the Saints kind of looking to end their year on a five game win streak.

They will be doing so without one of their best players.

News kind of was reported Thursday morning that Chris o'lave would be missing this game due to a blood cloth that they found.

So it sounds like he'll be okay, but it's precautionary and that's going to be a big loss for the Saints.

You look at Chris Lave, He's sixth among wide receivers with one hundred and sixty receiving yards this season.

He's third in targets with one hundred and fifty six.

So he has been really kind of like the safety blanket for whoever has been in their quarterback for New Orleans.

So I kind of wanted to bring that up because that happened early Thursday morning, as we record that the Falcons have some injury news of their own terror and you want to walk through that.

I mean, Rahee Morris said it best that the Falcons dodged a big time bullet.

Brandon Dorless is week to week.

I mean there's one week left.

But it's just a few weeks.

A couple weeks where when he got injured in the Rams game, it looked like it could be something severe, like he needed so much help get off that.

Yeah, and I went back and I watched the replay of that, because you know, we can't see from the press box.

We just saw him get helped off and then get carted to the locker room.

But then my sister, my eighteen year old sister, actually texted me randomly in the middle of the game and goes, who's number fifty four?

And I got Brandon Dorless, why and she said he was so sad, Like I'm so sad for him.

I wanted to give him a hug, like because he was so upset, like getting carted off the field.

And now I went back and watched it and it was like that reaction you you would have thought that it was and it was reported to be a knee in the right like that, Wow.

Yeah, I mean, it's it's really it's really great for the Falcon Zan for Brandon Dorlyss that that wasn't a catastrophic injury.

Right, big sigh of relief for the second year player.

He has eight and a half sacks, tied with edge rusher James Fears Junior for most on the team.

So you love to see that second year jump for him.

I mean, he was a third round pick last year.

He only played in two and made three tackles.

So like, it's sad that his season is ending early, even if it is just one game, but you are very relieved that it's not a severe injury.

You are very excited about his future and what he's going to possibly be able to do in year three.

Otherwise, cornerback Mike Hughes will likely miss his third game in a row.

Morri said he doesn't think Ques will be good to go, kind of still dealing with that ankle injury.

And then you had cornerback Clark Phillips, third safety DeMarco Hellams, and defensive linemen Sam Roberts are all in their twenty one day window because they were designated to return from injured reserve.

Two of them last week, one of them this week.

So injuries but not nearly as many as on the Saints right now.

Yeah, Yeah, I think obviously the Brandon dor List news is big.

Yeah.

If he has avoided any major surgery or any reconstructive stuff to his knee like that obviously then allows him to be involved in the offseason program and be right back where he should be in training camp, and that's going to be huge.

You pay to not have him out there for this game because I kind of think the Falcons defense want I'm curious to see what they look like.

Lakhalle Lennon has had a great year, Yeah, but I don't know if he's the pass rusher right Brandon Doorless has been so just how does that like ripple outwards and then what do we see from the edge?

Guys without having kind of that interior penetration will be something to watch.

But the reason that could be important is, as we mentioned earlier, as the play of Tyler Shuck at quarterback for the Saints.

He's kind of a member of like a new look I think group that is starting to define itself for this New Orleans team and obviously being the falcons biggest rivals, we're gonna probably be seeing a few of these names in the years to come.

Toy, what do we need to know about Tyler Shuck?

Yeah, it kind of feels like against all odds and even a viral combine video, I know people saw that.

It's hard, it was hard to not see that, but the Saints like despite all of that, the Saints may have actually found something to move forward forward with and build off of with Tyler Schuck, like since they went to him as the starter at the end of September.

He went from me and kind of someone no one really gave much of a second glance to now leading this offense through four consecutive wins, like I think the Falcons this coming weekend will see a much more confident version of Shuck this time around than they did the first time.

Like last time, and it was his first home start, he was under a lot of pressure.

The Falcons got five sacks against him the last time they saw him through an interception under pressure, couldn't really get anything going downfield at all, which I think is a testament again to this defense and how they're playing.

But flipping it forward to looking at the Tyler Shuck that's coming into now this week eighteen finale.

He's averaging over three hundred passing yards per game in his last three outings.

He hasn't thrown an interception in four weeks.

We talked earlier about the Chris Lave story and not injury, but like the not being available this weekend, that's actually I think gonna be a major point of this game for Tyler Shuck because he and Chris Lave has showcased like a very productive connection.

Yea, almost like I think even Chris a Lave spoke about that connection and how it almost has brought the love of the game back to him a little bit after everything he's gone.

Kind of it feels that way watching some tape for New Orleans over the last couple of weeks, Like you see that these players, the skill players in particular, are like playing a little bit harder.

Like I know, this is the NFL and you're gonna play hard every but you can just sense it a little bit that they believe in this quarterback.

And when you believe in the quarterback, obviously you feel like you got a chance, right And he's done.

So I think he's done so much to allow the team to believe and to trust in him and what he's done.

So I have a lot of.

Kind of respect and even looking at Tyler Shuck moving forward into six and twenty seven and potentially beyond, like he's someone to to keep a weary eye on.

I think he's a little bit older.

I think that's why he's kind of getting knocked in the draft process because he's twenty six years old but ancient that's yeah, right, Like that's pretty young in my book and second round pick.

But I just saw this note from Nexttion SATs.

He's completed sixty nine percent of his intermediate past attempt so between ten and nineteen yards.

That's the highest mark in the NFL.

So like he's he's kind of living in that range where modern I think quarterbacks thrive, which is like over the middle of the field in these intermediate windows, Taren, what about the defensive side?

Who do we need to know?

I know, like in our prepping meeting, I wanted to talk about defensive lineman Brian Rizzy since he was the oh the Saints almost at the Falcons, the Saints' first round draft pick when I was actually in New Orleans.

But a quick look at their defensive stats and whatnot, and it's actually defensive end Chase Young, Yeah, who I really want to highlight because he has been so good this season.

Juvenated.

Yeah.

I know, he's like dealt with a bunch of injuries throughout his career and that's kind of like the one knock on his resume, but including this year.

I mean, he missed the first five weeks of the season, but has made such an impact since his return.

He is the second most sacks on the team with eight and a half, which matches the Falcon single player not record high high yeah high, It's like blanking only Cam Jordan Leaves with leads above Young with the Saints with nine and a half.

But that really doesn't surprise anyone.

Yeah, he's doing it on like a snap count two.

Yeah, you look at all this now it's like sixty two, sixty two and then like thirty one for Chase.

Jordan.

Yeah, and he's still still producing.

Yeah.

But going back to like just how I think New Orleans kind of has resurrected Young's performance too, because he was the number two overall pick in twenty twenty for Washington, had seven and a half sacks as a rookie, but kind of puttered off after that breakout season because of injuries.

He had seven and a half again in twenty twenty three, but that was split between two teams, Washington and San Francisco, and then the Saints signed him last year and he has found some like consistency, especially late in the season.

Now he has had what was it, at least one sack in the last three games, and the Saints overall have forty one sacks, which is tied for tenth most in the NFL.

The Falcons, just for reference and to top it, have fifty three and our second in the NFL.

So what we'll be curious.

To see is like how the O line stacks up against the Saints defense, because Kirk Cousins hasn't wasn't sacked at all against the Rams, and he was only sacked once the three games before that.

It was actually this Saints the first time around who sacked Cousins the most this season with three times in Week twelve, So you kind of don't want to see that again now.

Yeah, and the A line has played pretty well.

I no sacks against the Rams, that's nothing to sneeze at, nor no plus and having a great run game obviously helps a couple other players for the Saints.

I just want to touch on is rookie safety Jonah Sanker, who has been in there starting lineup basically since Week two, third round pick.

He's only allowed one touchdown this season, got a couple of interceptions, four pass breakups, and then mentioned Chris Olave going down, So who would be maybe that next man up?

They're going to have a mixture out.

Expect Juwan Johnson tight end to get involved by Devon Veley, seventh round pick for the Broncos last year.

It's his first year with the Saints, but he's got sixteen catches for two hundred and two yards and a touchdown in his last three games, so he has really been coming on strong lately.

I think he's going to get a lot of work in that intermediate range with Chris o'lave out.

So moving on, we've got I.

Do want to add something because we did just talk to Jesse Bay earlier today and he actually highlighted Taysom Hill as who he expects to really step up in a lave's absence.

And I didn't know this, but Jesse said that he heard or saw somewhere that this might be Taysom hills last season.

And if this is Taysom Hill's last.

Game, they're absolutely trying to get.

That shut down.

Then Circle highlighted rolled it underline because that man has been kind of a thorn in the Falcons side thorn.

Its only room for in this town that.

It is.

Yeah, all right, So we wanted to kind of bring back a fun game from previously, which is our you know, I can't even remember what we called it, but it's the green, red yellow game.

There we go.

That's red lights, stop light, stoplight.

So basically we've got a number of Falcons that kind of can reach some records are milestones in week eighteen.

So basically we've got I've got six of them written down, and we're gonna just kind of do confidence levels with this.

So green means you're very confident, Yellow means you're like kind of on the fence.

Red means you're fairly unconfident that it's gonna happen.

Everybody understand, Yes, okay, So the first one is Bejean Robinson scrimmage yards.

Now, we know we already set the Falcons all time record in scrimmage yards, passing William Andrews this past week.

Casual, he's got two two hundred and fifty five On the season, he's averaging one hundred and forty one scrimmage yards, oh my gosh per game.

So if he reaches that average, yeah, if he just has one hundred and forty one, just casual, low key, fine, he'll finish with two three hundred ninety six scrimmage yards, which would put him third all time in the NFL in a single season.

He would just pass Christian McCaffrey, who had twenty three hundred and ninety two yards in twenty nineteen.

I know that's a lot of numbers, but I hope you guys are sticking with me.

So what is our confidence level?

That he can have one hundred and forty one yards and reached third on Sunday three two one two Greens.

I feel very good about this just because Bajon continues to do things that were just kind of like only Bajonne can do.

He's coming off of a two hundred and twenty nine scrimmage yard performance.

I just think that they're Yeah, I just think that there's a little bit of uh momentum with Beajon, and even looking back at what he did against the Saints earlier, I know it wasn't like his biggest or brightest performance, but still had over one hundred and ten scrimmage yards.

I believe, Okay, Yeah, I just think back to was it last week where we were talking about him breaking the record and we were debating, like, is one fifty two high of.

A number of things?

Is that realistic?

And then he goes in tops two hundred.

So he's never we're going to lower that number, Yeah, exactly.

Never under your estimate that number seven.

Yeah, never either, but like number seven.

Yeah, cool, next one.

So we talked about the Falcons sack performances.

Here, they've got fifty three sacks, second in the NFL, second all time for a single season.

They have a chance to set a new record if they get just three more sacks in this game.

The all time record for sacks and a season for the Falcons is fifty five in nineteen ninety seven.

As I said, they're at fifty three now, two to tie it, three to beat it.

What's your confidence level?

They will beat this on Sunday and at three sacks three two one two greens.

Again, we got a confident bunch.

I Okay, I think it's I think they're gonna do it.

I feel I have this like feeling that it's gonna happen.

I think so the last time I already mentioned this the Saints.

The last time the Falcons played the Saints, they had five sacks.

Tyler Schuck has been sacked I want to say, like almost ten times in the last four games.

Like I think at least two in the last couple So I feel even without Brandon Dorles, which that will that does put a damper on things, But I still feel very confident that they'll be able to do this.

They're talking about it, and that always kind of gives a little extra juice.

I mean, they're being asked about it, but then they're talking about, right, and it's just something that they want, and I think this defense deserves it given the fact, like from last year to this year, the change in the pass rush insane.

Yeah.

Yeah, And when you look at just kind of like Tyler Shuck's numbers, he's been pressured at the eighth lowest mark this season, but the pressure to sack ratio is the second highest in the NFL, and the Falcons actually have the highest pressure to sack ratio on defense.

So when you're getting those opportunities, like Tyler Shuck isn't necessarily getting out of that pressure and buying time and escaping it.

He's usually more often than not going down.

And Atlanta's going to manufacture that pressure one way or another.

So I like this record to fall as well.

All right.

Another sack candidate is James Pears, the rookie first round pick, has eight and a half sacks on the season.

Everybody's been talking for a little while about him maybe reaching double digits.

What is our confidence level that he is going to reach ten sacks on the season.

On Sunday three to one, two yellows, All right.

Yeah, we need to differ.

I know, we start on this one.

I just think it's gonna be multiple players who get the sacks on Sunday.

And I don't know, I just it's it's a gut feeling.

Maybe it's just recency bias too, since he didn't have any against the Rams, but yeah.

Tough crowd without a sack and everybody's chatting.

They've never gotten.

But no, I would love it for him, right, But I don't know.

I just I could see other people kind of stepping up in Brandon Dorles's absence.

Yeah, and you know, one and a half.

It's the it's the half.

The half its classic like over under thing.

Yeah, half is getting Yeah, because I do think he could, like he get his sack, for sure.

I do think that's possible, but it's like the multiplicity of it is kind of where I'm a bit more like, I don't know.

He's only had or he's had two games this season with one and a half sacks or more.

So we will see if he does that on Sunday, prove us wrong.

Yeah, next one.

Kirk Cousins is a two hundred and ninety seven career passing touchdowns.

If he gets a three hundred, he'll tie John Elway for fourteenth most in NFL history.

This season, he's only got one game with three touchdown passes, which was against Tampa Bay.

But we you know, we know what Kirk Cousins can do.

So what's the confidence level that he will get three and at least tie John Elway on Sunday three to one?

Karen, we got two reds?

All right, sorry Kirk too.

Yeah, you guys are like looking at each other and we're watching like, yeah, dang.

It's not like they're in the notes either, like this.

No, we don't know luck of the draw.

Yeah, all right, so you guys aren't.

Let's we can we can roll right past this one since we don't feel very very confident about Kurt.

Well, my thing is, I just think the run game is gonna kind of beat the way out rains scream a little bit.

And I noticed Saints.

Pass defense is better than their run defense just statistically, So that's where I'm kind of pulling the red from.

Okay, well, then maybe that doesn't bode well for these next two.

Kyle Pitts is currently at eight hundred and seventy receiving yards.

What is the confidence that he can reach one thousand on the season, so he needs one hundred and thirty to do that.

He's got one game with more than one hundred and thirty this season against Tampa Bay, one sixty six.

So confidence level Kyle pits one thousand yard season three too, one two reds yet again.

Oh no, So I'm sensing big, big run game.

Yeah, on Sunday.

I also just think, like an he needs one hundred and thirty yards.

That's a lot.

If it was a seventy, I would be a lot more closer to green, But one hundred and thirty is a bit too much for me.

You want to half the numbers actually, right, exactly.

Yeah, and with Drake London back, I don't know.

Yeah, he was really getting a lot of love in Drake's absence, but you guys just got to share the ball now with everyone on offense at least healthy.

Yeah.

Speaking of Drake, his task is a little bit harder here.

But he's at eight hundred and forty one yards, so he needs one hundred and sixty to get to a thousand on the season.

Yeah.

He's done that twice in his career against Carolina and against Tampa Bay.

So it would be nice to like kind of cap off that trithecta again one against New Orleans and reach a thousand yards.

What's our confidence level in that happening?

Three to one, two reds yet again, all right, look at y'all, same page.

All then it's so difficult to say that he's going to have one hundred and sixty receiving yards win in the last Since his return from injury, I think it's been a little bit of a knocking some rust off and trying to get back into it.

And you know, he had what he missed four games, like almost a full month.

Like, Yeah, I think that it's unfortunate that that injury happened when it did, because I think that he was on such a high, like was was one of I think the best receivers at a time, and I think was making a push to be a Pro Bowl candidate.

There's all those things and then and then injury, and so it's just Drake London should have been over a thousand yards this season and it's really sad that he's that he may not be.

Yeah, I second all of that.

Before he got hurt, there was like a stret where it was like five of six games he had like one hundred and eighteen yards.

Going back and looking at his box score this uh morning, I was I was struck by that.

We're going to be completely wrong on all these and the hundred yard passing game something insane in.

Which, for the record, I'm going to predict because I was confident in everybody.

He's only green.

He's only green.

Will just put like the green dot over his face.

And somehow game as a whole is going to top a thousand yards in Will's mind, and this one Will is.

The optimist of the group.

M yeah, yeah, he sees the glass half.

Full only smiley emoji's all right.

So it is January seconds, Happy birthday to my brother.

By the way.

On as you guys are listening to this on on Friday, And because of that, we're going to do a quick New Year's related leave behind look Ahead tour games.

Why don't why don't you start start this?

Yeah, So the premise of this is, like we were we kind of decided like, Okay, what is one thing that you're going to leave behind in twenty twenty five and what is one thing that you're looking forward to in twenty twenty six?

And for me, my leave behind I want to leave behind the emotional roller coaster that Raheem Morris has kind of spoken about a few different times after losses over the course of this season, and when what I mean by that too is like the highs and the lows of the twenty twenty five season, like the inconsistent play, the inconsistent outings.

Like I think that I said this in the mailbag, I said this on Fox five this week, but like the highs for this team were so high, exuberant, le high, and then the lows were like such determining factors in ultimately what this team was in twenty twenty five.

And so I think that if you can get rid of the absolutes that we talked about in the Final Whistle podcast, if you can get rid of those and kind of become more of this consistent entity, I think that's something that I would want for this team in twenty twenty six.

So I would want to leave the inconsistencies, leave the absolutes in twenty twenty five.

So that's that's my lead behind my look ahead to stay on the theme of like sacks and this defense and everything, I'm really looking forward to continuing to see this young defensive corps, continue to develop, continue to produce, continue to grow.

I think that they there's this thought that they were absolutely ahead of schedule where I thought they would be, and they like they were ahead of schedule even like three weeks into this season.

Yeah, like I thought that they Jeff Albert has been able to do with this defense, what this young core has been able to do in terms of playmaking, Like, yes, they still have things that they all got to work on, like, and there's gonna be some decisions that needs to be made about like Caden Ellis and you know, David and Yumata here are going to be free agents this coming off season.

But I'm just really excited about what this defense did in twenty twenty five and just only knowing that it can be built upon in twenty twenty six because you have so many guys that are returning.

They went from second to last in Sacks to second.

Yeah, what I'm talking about.

They at the all time bottom hour here in Sacks.

It's crazy.

For like every year for the past like two decades, sitting here for this episode, we would be like, Sacks, what do we need to see next year?

The pass rush get fixed?

Oh my god, it's been fixed, right, and we just were like, cool, thanks, moving on to the next thing, right, yeah, ate it.

Oh my gosh, all right, I'll go quickly and then Tarren will wrap up with you.

But I would like to leave vining some of the injuries.

You know, I don't think that that's been really a huge problem for the franchise over the last five years or so, but this year, obviously the biggest among them is Michael Pennock Junior, your quarterback going down.

But even when you think back to like how training camp started with Darnell, like, I really kind of think that that set the tone for some of the receiver play and just like that disconnects or not necessarily living up to what we expected out of that part of the offense.

Yeah, so you can kind of trace back to there, Drake dealing with some of his own injuries, Caleb McGarry obviously lost for the season, like that's big, and then a couple of guys like Troy Anderson, Braylon Trice.

I would have loved to see them out there as part of this defense.

We don't really know kind of what the status is for them for the future, but I would like to not have as many major injuries in twenty twenty six, and then looking ahead is Mine's kind of a little of a question of like what I'm going to be looking for because we always talk about identity.

That's always the question in training camp, what's this team's identity?

And Raheem's answer has always been like it it's developed out there on the grass, which I totally understand because on one hand, like you don't want to force a team into a box.

You want to allow it to happen kind of naturally.

But I also think back to like Jeff Olberg came in here knowing, Hey, my defense is playing on its front foot and we attack.

Yeah, I'd like to see the team as a whole have a like this is our best pitch, this is who we are, and we build off of that.

And I think offensively you've got that in the run game.

But I would like to see as a as a group kind of like, what is this identity that you can always rely on even when you don't have your best stuff.

Yeah, So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at.

Taren, what about you?

I'm going to leave behind the issues on special teams.

As much as I love talking about special teams.

I did not like the way we talked about them this season.

It's just like the miss kicks.

The kicker changes, the return coverage flops at times.

I do think they've found a lot more stability in Zane Gonzalez and just kind of like fixed a lot of the issues they have had.

But that's normally not a unit you want to talk about because that mean it's like offensive lineman.

If you're talking about them, they're doing something being wrong.

Yeah, So just issues with that, leave it in the past, continue with this consistency into next season, and then looking ahead.

Cana Jean Robinson top this season.

I'm so curious, Like, I don't know.

He hasn't done enough for you this year.

I mean like he has, but that's like why I'm like, all right, can you do it again?

Can you top it?

Like three thousand yards?

Yeah, there you go, the three k.

I mean, I don't see a world in which the Falcons don't pick up his fifth year.

Option next year.

Yeah, who this year?

It's twenty twenty six.

That's going to take a while, but yeah, can you do can can you top it?

If he does?

What does that mean for like his next contract?

You know, I love that contract.

We got a whole year to talk about it.

I know, I know, I know, we thinking about like cap stuff and.

Lady got a spreadsheet out with the multiple years.

Man you joke.

Oh man.

Well, it's been a great year of this podcast, even if it hasn't been the season that everybody expected.

But we appreciate you all for listening and sticking with us this entire way, whether that be on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, however you listen, or if you watch on YouTube, be sure to check that all out.

We will have our final pregame show an hour before kickoff on YouTube Sunday, and then we will have our final final whistle wrapping up the game afterwards.

Next week a lot of season ending press conferences, so that will kind of probably be on the news for that, but anything else before we get out of here for I guess the first time in twenty twenty six.

Yeah, thanks for watching, Thanks for listening.

We appreciate you.

Guys.

Actually met a couple people at the game last Monday who listen to the podcast and listen to what we do, and I just I appreciate the people who have said nice things as we've tried to figure out kind of what this podcast.

Was injuring dream gives Yeah, come up and say hi Swiss.

Be nice.

Nice, But with that we'll carry the niceties into the new year.

Happy New Year everybody, Thanks as always for watching and listening, and we will see you next time.