Where the Atlanta Falcons stand heading into Week 4 of preseason

Tonight marks the end of preseason. Parts of this summer seemed to fly by, but as is often the case, the four games that mark the team’s exhibition season certainly did not. Atlanta’s now days away from setting its roster, but as is the case every week, now is a very good time to check on where the team stands.

So here, without further ado, is a roster and health update, plus our outlook for the game ahead.

Roster Update

The Falcons are sitting on a 90 man roster, but no starters are going to play against the Dolphins. As far as I’m aware, no starters are in danger of missing Week 1, either, meaning we successfully survived another preseason. Congratulations, everyone!

This roster is going to look dramatically different in a week’s time when the Falcons face the Eagles, as they’ll be cutting 37 men off of it over the weekend. That’ll leave a lean, talented roster for the Falcons, one we certainly hope is Super Bowl-caliber.

Health

There are no major injuries, thankfully, and we’ll hope for the sake of the roster hopefuls that they can stay healthy against the Dolphins tonight, too.

What’s at stake?

Bluntly, not much. The Falcons are going to use this opportunity to get one final look at the four-to-seven players they’re not sure about at the back end of their roster, and then to figure out which players are worth keeping around on the practice squad. There isn’t a single starter playing, so the result of this game literally does not matter. Only the roster spots and the returner battle are really at stake.

It will be important to keep some of the team’s top reserves healthy, however, as a blow to key depth could be problematic for the Falcons down the line.

Outlook

This one I’ll keep brief: This is going to be some sloppy football, and without your favorite Falcons to watch, you might get a little bored. But the important thing is that the Falcons have healthy starters, will hopefully have healthy reserves, and will figure out the particulars of their last few roster battles thanks in part to this final game. After this, it’s only one week until the real games start, beginning with a NFC Divisional Round rematch between our Falcons and the Philadelphia Eagles.