Falcons snap counts against the Jets

Rather than focus on how snaps counts have been divvied up, which is pretty standard at this point in the season, I’d rather focus on some personnel issues that cropped up in this game in part because of who was playing and why.

Offense

Kirk Cousins: 69

Jake Matthews: 69

Matthew Bergeron: 69

Ryan Neuzil: 69

Chris Lindstrom: 69

Elijah Wilkinson: 69

Darnell Mooney: 66

Kyle Pitts: 63

Bijan Robinson: 60

David Sills: 58

Charlie Woerner: 43

Dylan Drummond: 21

Deven Thompkins: 9

Teagan Quitoriano: 6

Feleipe Franks: 1

Jovaughn Gwyn: 1

Deadening stuff. The Falcons largely abandoned the three tight end formations that helped them a week ago, returning to rolling out three wide receivers, and to the enormous credit of Sills, Pitts, and Woerner, they managed to run effectively. The problem was that the passing game, which was better than it had any right to be, still had massive problems largely caused by the receivers.

Sills had his best game yet, but also a costly late drop. Mooney is the team’s de facto #1 receiver but is playing like another practice squad elevation outside of last week’s big effort; he had multiple drops and was barely a factor out there. The actual practice squad players, either current or former, had more grabs combined than Mooney easily, and that was with Drummond only catching one of three passes thrown his way. Hell, Thompkins looked interesting!

The team’s extremely limited receiving options are forcing Robinson to dig into a bag that seems deeper than it once was, but is still prone to uselessness on third down. The direness of the personnel situation has Robinson leaning heavily on trickery, be it a short yardage toss or a 3rd and 8 screen, in the hopes of defeating Atlanta’s innate lack of options. I’d argue the Falcons have shown just enough to try to win matchups straight up in those situations, given that the alternative has been putrid, but it’s obvious the Falcons have outsized trust in Sills and virtually none in anybody else not named Pitts or Bijan.

This is a mess, in other words, one that Drake London’s return will only partially fix. I’m simultaneously sympathetic to the Falcons and Robinson for having to muddle through with this many losses and angry that their planning has been poor enough to put themselves in this situation in the first place.

Defense

Kaden Elliss: 66

Divine Deablo: 66

A.J. Terrell: 66

Xavier Watts: 66

Jessie Bates: 66

Mike Hughes: 66

Dee Alford: 42

Ruke Orhorhoro: 40

Brandon Dorlus: 37

Jalon Walker: 34

David Onyemata: 33

James Pearce Jr.: 33

Leonard Floyd: 33

Kentavius Street: 22

Ronnie Harrison: 21

LaCale London: 19

Arnold Ebiketie: 16

Tyrod Taylor completed 19 passes on the day, and five of them went for a combined 13 yards working against Kaden Elliss (1 for -5), A.J. Terrell (1 for 3), Xavier Watts (1 for 4), and Jessie Bates (2 for 11). That means that his remaining 14 completions went for 159 yards, or well over 10 yards a completion, and a huge chunk of those came on the 50-plus yard touchdown pass to AD Mitchell. The three players who absorbed all those targets were Divine Deablo (4 catches, 41 yards), Dee Alford (3 catches, 32 yards), and Hughes, who remains a favored target for opposing quarterbacks and allowed six receptions for 86 yards and the score on the day. Hughes has had his moments, but with a team-high 408 receiving yards and three touchdowns allowed, he’s closer to a problem than a solution opposite A.J. Terrell, who has allowed just 195 yards and zero touchdowns in 2025.

The Falcons were able to get 20 pressures in total on Taylor, but not all those pressures were created equal. Pearce and Floyd both got a sack and forced bad throws, but some Atlanta pressures basically just forced Taylor to leisurely exit the pocket and either take off for a nice gain or delay his throw a bit. Taylor hardly had an amazing day through the air, but the lack of pressure that actually rattled him was readily apparent, and he did enough to keep the Jets in the game and ultimately win it in part because of that.

No real surprises in the snap counts, though, those notes aside. The Falcons have a group that’s about as healthy as it’s going to get and are set to rely on them down the stretch, with tough matchups against the Seahawks, Buccaneers, and Rams still looming.

Special teams

Ronnie Harrison: 28

DeMarcco Hellams: 28

JD Bertrand: 28

Mike Ford: 28

Natrone Brooks: 22

Teagan Quitoriano: 19

Feleipe Franks: 17

Tyler Allgeier: 16

Bradley Pinion: 16

Nate Carter: 16

Charlie Woerner: 15

Cobee Bryant: 12

Liam McCullough: 11

Jamal Agnew: 11

Kaden Elliss: 7

Brandon Dorlus: 7

Dylan Drummond: 7

Ruke Orhorhoro: 6

David Onyemata: 6

LaCale London: 6

Kentavius Street: 6

Jordan Fuller: 6

Jake Matthews: 5

Matthew Bergeron: 5

Elijah Wilkinson: 5

Ryan Neuzil: 5

Jovaughn Gwyn: 5

Deven Thompkins: 5

Kyle Hinton: 5

Jack Nelson: 5

Zane Gonzalez: 5

A big note here is that KhaDarel Hodge was benched for this one, with he and Casey Washington both landing on the inactives list. Raheem Morris suggested Monday that was due to some unspecified performance issues against the Saints for Hodge, while Washington seems to have fallen entirely out of favor. Hodge in particular, regardless of any miscues he may have put together this year, is one of Atlanta’s best special teamers and a player the Falcons need to have in games.

But overall, aside from a solid day at the office from Bradley Pinion and a desperate, touchdown-saving tackle from the much-maligned Natrone Brooks, there just wasn’t much to feel good about on special teams.

Feleipe Franks missed a tackle, and between that and penalties, has been a frustratingly inconsistent special teams contributor. Considering he’s here for a couple gadget plays and special teams, that’s really not good. Ditto Jamal Agnew, who has offered nothing on offense despite Atlanta’s pile-up of receiver injuries, and who killed the Falcons with the muffed punt that led to an easy Jets touchdown and poor returns overall. He’s been an active liability as this team continues to lose the field position battle, something they’ve been doing way too often the past few seasons.

It wasn’t as crucial to the outcome as the muff, but the coverage on the long Jets kickoff return was the same problem it’s been all year, with guys taking terrible angles to the returner and getting blocked out of plays entirely. On the 83 yard return, you see Tyler Allgeier, Nate Carter, and Ronnie Harrison all swiftly getting blocked out of action, DeMarcco Hellams not cutting sharply enough as Williams is barreling toward him and stumbling, JD Bertrand getting off his block a tick too late to make a tackle and lacking the footspeed to catch up. Williams so confidently adjusted his path slightly to find the gap that it was obvious he already knew where that gap would be. The only players who appear to recognize which way he might be going early enough to do something about it are (I believe, I can’t see the number well in this video) Mike Ford and Harrison; Ford eats what looked like it might have charitably been a push in the back, stumbles, and then is blocked out of the play aggressively, while Harrison is taking two blockers at once. The result is smooth sailing until a windmilling Hellams spooks Williams and Brooks gets him.

This was excellent work by the returner and Jets special teams in general with that blocking, but this is grim. Teams knowing where Atlanta will have gaps and being able to so easily exploit them, plus the Falcons clearly leaning toward kicking it out of the end zone to avoid giving teams chances, speaks to widespread special teams failure.