Falcons – Broncos preseason recap: Not for the faint of heart

Well, that was not fun.

Preseason games are fertile ground for overreactions, and we’ll definitely see in the weeks ahead that we were too excited about some things (Jack Strand? Malcolm DeWalt IV?) and too down on others (Tua Tagovailoa? Mike Hughes?). There are small sample sizes, vanilla game plans, and matchups we’ll never see in the regular season to consider. And despite all that, the broad contours can feel awfully truthful.

The Atlanta Falcons have to earn the trust of this fanbase after eight straight losing seasons and a lot of “this is going to be great oh no it’s on fire” stretches over that span. Fighting the urge to declare this team the same old, same old is tough in light of history and what we saw Friday night. Because what we saw Friday night was ugly.

The Falcons lost 27-7. They had a couple of serious drives, one which ended with a Jack Strand touchdown plunge and the other which ended in a tipped Cooper Rush pass that was returned 98 yards for a Denver score. They looked like a much lesser team compared to the Broncos, who are an AFC Super Bowl hopeful in 2026.

How much stock should we put in that? On one hand, without Jawaan Taylor or Jake Matthews or Bijan Robinson, the offense is obviously going to be lesser. On the other, 28 yards on two drives for offensive starters is the kind of result that sees you fall behind by a touchdown or more in a regular season game. Getting burnt to a crisp by Jarrett Stidham is a bad result no matter how many starters are out or how little effort you’re putting into complexity and pressure, and no matter how talented Denver’s offense may be around Stidham. When you’re talking about special teams being far more impressive, you are talking about a team that has not played well, and we all fear that this team is going to get to the regular season and not play well.

I think this franchise is too hellbent on digging out of the past to be nonchalant about this result, unlike the past three regimes when preseason went poorly. I have to question whether their drive to get better will translate to better outcomes, because there’s only so much time and so much talent to work this all out before the opener. But I do ultimately have to cite the unpredictability and sheer weirdness of preseason, where the talent levels on the field are wildly uneven and coaches are putting in varying levels of effort in terms of their creative play calling and effort, in saying this result should not cause us to hit the panic button on the 2026 Falcons season. It should, instead, simply make us wary, which is something we already should be given the way this franchise has let us down again and again.

Instead of indulging doom, let’s be sober about what went wrong and bright about what went right, even if those scales are wildly unbalanced. On to the full recap.

The Good

• Jack Strand nearly threw an interception, but he followed that up with a zippy deep ball to Vinny Anthony that missed by a little and then led a touchdown drive that featured a couple of nice short passes to Josh Simon and a sneak for a score. On a night where Cooper Rush looked ghastly, Strand simply seeming far more competent than a UDFA quarterback has any right to likely helped him.
• Someone has to take control of this RB3 battle, and I think Tyler Goodson is well on his way. I saw a player who showed quality hands when called upon, but more than that showed strong burst and balance as a runner, especially on a long rumble where he stiff armed, absorbed a lot of contact, and stayed on his feet. Given his versatility—he can block, he can catch, and he plays special teams—Goodson just needs to keep it going to take the lead in this particular competition.
• Tua leaned on Kyle Pitts, who looks lean, sure-handed, and ready to go. Watching Pitts reel in his targets early on and make something of them when the rest of the offense was silent is a good sign for his 2026 season. If Tua’s going to look to the middle of the field for a big target who can catch, Pitts is going to rack them up.
• Vinny Anthony has been a reliable target at training camp, but he caught my attention with his returns in this one. Anthony looked fast and confident and picked up a couple of really nice kick returns, which can only help his chances of sticking around. The fact that Rush and Strand missed him multiple times does not take anything away from his ability as a receiver, which I think is evident.
• Chris Blair had maybe the single most impressive offensive play of the night, a leaping grab where he took a big hit and barely saw the ball jostled. Blair has been reliable every summer thus far and should, in my opinion, be ticketed for a practice squad spot at worst.
• Both Kendal Daniels and Harold Perkins Jr. looked like the kind of aggressive, capable linebackers the Falcons sorely need out there. The team trusting Daniels with the green dot is huge for a mid round rookie, but I’ve thought since he was drafted that Daniels has the requisite smarts and physicality to seize a major role on this defense. Perkins, meanwhile, looks like a ball of fire willing and able to fly to the ball no matter what the offense is doing, something that could make him chaotic fun whenever he gets into games in 2026. It’s very early, but the future looks bright for this group.
• Josh Woods is going to make this team based on his special teams ability, but the better he looks on defense, the better his chances are. I thought his second half performance was once again strong, as he put up a handful of really good tackles and flew to the ball.
• Darnay Holmes had one coverage lapse by my count, but otherwise looked good playing quite a bit in the first half. He was aggressive getting to the ball and showed quality instincts, qualities he had with the Raiders that were not on display consistently. He’s spent this summer pushing for a roster spot and may well get it.
• I thought DeMarcco Hellams, who limped off the field but is hopefully okay, delivered a customarily strong summer night with his tackling. He’s a very logical third safety with Sydney Brown (who also had his moments) filling in a hybrid corner/safety role, and I hope he can lock it up.
• Your special teams contributors hoping to make it based on preseason performances on defense had their moments in this one. JD Bertrand punched out a ball that Jammie Robinson lunged on, giving Atlanta a shot at its first score of the game. Bertrand faces an uphill battle to make this roster while Robinson seems like a strong bet, and plays like that help both.
• Jake Bailey showed off a nice leg, averaging 50ish yards on his all-too-frequent boots in this one. The veteran punter is replacing Bradley Pinion, who had been reliable for Atlanta over the past few seasons, and looks like he’ll be a good pickup. If the team wants to keep an alternate option around, Matthew Hayball also delivered some impressive punts of his own.
• Finally but certainly not least, Malcolm DeWalt IV looks like he might turn into something sooner than later. He looked impressive as a gunner on special teams and made one of the best plays of the night on an underthrown Sam Ehlinger deep ball, reading it perfectly and leaping to snatch it away from Denver’s receiver for an interception in the fourth quarter. If you can play special teams at a high level and make plays like that, you have a future in this league, even if the pick was (unfairly, cruelly) overturned.

The Ugly

• The starting offense looked bad. There was no Bijan Robinson and Jake Matthews exited on the second drive with an injury, but Tua Tagovailoa looked a bit skittish under pressure before the pressure started coming in so quickly he had absolutely no shot. We did see him heavily target Kyle Pitts, who will likely be his absolute favorite receiving option over the middle early in 2026, as I noted above. Seeing a bit more from this offense against a very good Denver defense would’ve done much to set my mind at ease, even if I know Stefanski vowed there would be few wrinkles in what the team did this preseason. Tua was not, for the record, satisfied with the performance.
• If Tua looked a bit shaky, Cooper Rush started things off even more poorly. His first pass was a shaky one that missed badly, and his second was a duck that was intercepted by Riley Moss. He would settle in after that, leading the Falcons inside the red zone late in the second quarter, but then threw an ill-advised ball that was tipped into the air, intercepted, and returned 98 yards for a touchdown. That’s not going to help your case for QB3, to say the least.
• The offensive line was a cause for concern much of the evening, with things really only settling when Denver and Atlanta mostly had their deep reserves in. Having Mike Jerrell and Ethan Onianwa at left and right tackle respectively led to some hilariously humiliating reps where Tua could not have thrown the ball if he had the reflexes of a particularly caffeinated cat, which is part of the process for a rookie like Onianwa and mighty concerning for a more veteran player like Jerrell. We’ll need to see some gradual improvement, at minimum, plus the return of Jawaan Taylor to feel better about this line and this line depth heading into the season.
• The lack of pass rush was not shocking, but was still rough. There were good reps from James Pearce Jr., Zach Harrison, Brandon Dorlus, and a handful of others along the way, but by and large the lack of pressure on Jarrett Stidham and Sam Ehlinger led to both players being able to stand in the pocket and rip passes and/or take off running for respectable gains. I expect better from this front seven in the regular season—my faith in Harrison, Dorlus, and defensive line coach Nate Ollie remains strong—but no minds were set at ease last night.
• Chris Williams had an uneven night, but he was one of the few Falcons defensive linemen not named Brandon Dorlus that actually generated some pressure. What was most disappointing overall about the night for Atlanta’s line was that they couldn’t seem to generate any real push on a consistent basis, which led to some of Stidham’s most embarrassing passes and many long runs from Denver’s deep stables of backs.
• Mike Hughes was on the wrong end of two Jarrett Stidham passes in the first quarter, the first one a 13 yard floater for a first down on the game’s first offensive play and the second a 40 yard bomb where Hughes got stuck behind Courtland Sutton and couldn’t impact the play. It’s preseason, but I don’t think Hughes is locked into a starting job and can’t look that shaky in coverage all preseason and keep one.
• Rough night for Cobee Bryant, who didn’t play poorly in coverage but was flagged (by my count) three separate times for holding and pass interference working with the third-string defense late in this game. Despite the evident talent he showed at times last year, that number of flags if going to earn negative attention from this coaching staff, even if the DPI call was pretty bogus.
• I’m singling out players chiefly because of camp battles, but I do think it’s worth noting that the first string and even second string defense struggled mightily to rush the passer, stop the run, and work effectively in coverage with a handful of exceptions. I’m sure Jeff Ulbrich had plenty to say.

The Wrapup

Game MVP

I’ll go with DeWalt, who probably did more for his stock than any other player on the field Friday night. Isn’t that what preseason is all about?

One Takeaway

We’re just about a month away from the regular season, and the Falcons look like they need every second of that time to get work on improving.

Next Week

The Colts. Atlanta will be heading to Indianapolis for joint practices and then a preseason game, and we can expect to see very few starters in that game given the emphasis being placed on practice.

Final Word

Uglybutpreseason.