Even the world is shocked by the Atlanta Falcons’ empty seats

Then, 10 minutes before the visiting Seattle Seahawks began snapping the Atlanta Falcons’ three-game winning streak on Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium to drop the home team to 4-3 on the season with a 34-14 loss, Raphael Bazile , a writer for L’Equipethe French daily newspaper dedicated to sport, patted me on the shoulder in the press box.

He had a question.

“Is it always so empty here so close to a game?” Bazile said, pointing to the many sections throughout the Falcons’ $1.5 billion domed facility, filled with cold, empty seats instead of warm, cheering bodies.

Yes, I said it.

So I told Bazile, as someone who has lived in Atlanta as a sports journalist for 40 years, you should cover your ears when the Falcons announce the number of tickets sold, which is always around 70,000.

The actual frequency is often much, much, much lower than that.

During this, the collective thinking of those in the press box was that 20,000 to 25,000 seats were occupied by air.

The Falcons’ home is rarely crowded unless the Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers or one of these other NFL teams come to town with their massive, loyal followings. These games are always good news/bad news for the Falcons: Their epidemic of no-shows is halted, but much of the positive noise is directed at the other team.

Bazile frowned and added: “I cover football and other events around the world and I’m not used to seeing something like this for a winning team.”

To paraphrase Atlanta rappers Jermaine Dupri and Ludacris. . .

Welcome to Atlanta, where players play and Atlanta fans yawn until they believe it’s time to join in.

That movement is barely moving these days, and think: the Falcons did a lot of things to add extra seats to this thing during this past NFL season, starting with a drubbing of their previous coaching staff that led to the last three of their six consecutive games. losing seasons.

The Falcons also gave quarterback Kirk Cousins ​​$180 million, including $100 million guaranteed. They then acquired Pro Bowl pass rusher Matthew Judon and his $6.5 million per year salary from the New England Patriots for a third-round pick in the 2025 draft. Pro Bowl safety Justin Simmons as a free agent for $8 million.

In theory, the Falcons spent all that money to get off to a quick start and create their former Dirty Bird Magic consistently.

Oh well.

About that fast start: Three of the Falcons’ four wins were more because of breakdowns by the other team than anything else.

• The Eagles had time management issues during their 22-21 loss to the Falcons during a Monday night game in Philadelphia.
• With the help of a 30-yard pass interference penalty on the New Orleans Saints, the Falcons drove 70 yards home in the final seconds to win 26–24 on a career-best 58-yard field goal by Younghoe Koo , and the Falcons had zero offensive touchdowns for the game.
• The Tampa Bay Buccaneers went into a preemptive defense that prevented them from allowing Koo to score a game-tying field goal at Mercedes-Benz Stadium to send the game into overtime. Moments later, the Falcons scored quickly to shock the visitors 36-30.

The Falcons crushed a shaky Carolina Panthers team 38-20 on the road in that three-game winning streak. All of those wins were against NFC South opponents to move the Falcons closer in their bid to reach the playoffs for the first time since the end of the 2017 season.

Then came the Falcons’ debacle against the Seahawks in the stands with those who didn’t attend and on the field, where Cousins ​​threw two interceptions and saw his fumble after a sack turn into a Seattle touchdown.

Before that, Cousins ​​showed little sign of looking like a 36-year-old who missed most of last season with the Minnesota Vikings after an Achilles injury. He breathed life into the previously dead passing game for the Falcons, utilizing most of their receiving corps, from holdovers Drake London and Kyle Pitts to newcomers Darnell Mooney and Ray-Ray McCloud III.

During that game in Tampa Bay, Cousins ​​threw for a franchise-record 509 yards.

As for the Falcons’ other big offseason moves, Judon and Matthews’ contributions have been mixed. They are embraced in the Falcons locker room for their veteran wisdom, but they have done little to move the defense past its mediocre (or worse) position in recent years.

The Falcons are in the bottom third of the NFL in points allowed per game, at 24.1, in part because they allow opponents an average of 137 yards per game, and in part because they are last in the league in sacks with six.

The people of Atlanta are not impressed.

Again.

As I wrote last November to Forbes.com, statistics from ESPN.com showed that in 2021, which was the first year of Arthur Smith’s training regimen with the Falcons, they finished with the seventh-highest percentage of empty seats at their home games compared to the rest 31 NFL franchises. .

They were seven positions worse than the Falcons in 2019, the last full NFL season before the pandemic.

The following year, 2022, the Falcons had the league’s third-highest percentage of empty seats per game relative to stadium capacity, and I wrote, “They finished the 2021 and 2022 seasons at 7-10 and out of the playoffs.”

At the time of my November Forbes.com article, the Falcons were 4-6 on their way to another 7-10 finish, and led the NFL with the highest percentage of empty seats at their home games. That was due to what ESPN.com said was an average true attendance of 69,685 after the first six home games in a venue that seats 75,000 for football.

Now the Falcons are winning (sort of), but the no-shows keep coming, which means Atlanta’s movement needs more wins.

And more victories after that.

And then, well, who knows?