Burning Falcons vs. Rams Questions, Week 7: Will the Falcons show signs of life?

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

The Atlanta Falcons are sitting at a terrible 1-5 record right now and must be considered the definitive underdog at home against an underachieving-yet-talented Los Angeles Rams team.

The Rams aren’t what we thought they’d be, but the Falcons are much, much more worse off. Players like Aaron Donald, Todd Gurley and, apparently, Jalen Ramsey just don’t go anywhere, and they wreck havoc on teams who don’t have their act together.

The Falcons aren’t just simply a bad team, because it’s inexcusable they’re not a good one. There aren’t a lot of reasons for this slump other than shoddy coaching and execution, and the talent present just pales in comparison to the lack of coordination and sustained success.

The Falcons winning Sunday would be a bit surprising, and it would bode quite well for Dan Quinn’s immediate future with the team, though probably still not his long-term outlook. If they limp into the bye week with a 1-7 mark, it’s not likely he’ll return to coach the team unless Arthur Blank wants him to steer the ship into port.

It’s not the worst decision considering changes will come anyhow. But if there is any distant hope of a salvaged season in another galaxy or that some sort of internal candidate could arise to stabilize things, we could see a replacement.

If the Falcons lose, it’s par the course. We want to see them continue to try, and to their credit, they rallied against a lacking Arizona team only to come up short in the end on a missed kick.

The Falcons are stuck in neutral right now and the playoffs are virtually nonexistent at this point. The rest of the year is about the coaching staff trying to keep itself here and about younger players getting their time to grow on the job, showing the kind of life that will stave off mass changes or even an ugly rebuild.

A win Sunday, simply, would be four complete quarters of play after disastrous inconsistency, with the only implication being that the Falcons live to fight another week. Nothing more, nothing less.