The Falcons only play 3 outdoor games in 2019

The 2019 Falcons schedule has its share of tough games, divisional gauntlets, and even one or two games that look very easy on paper. For all that, though, there’s one massive advantage for Atlanta that we overlooked when the schedule was first released.

Simply put, the Falcons are going to be playing indoors a lot in 2019.

This is noteworthy because this is a team that has a much better track record in a dome, as you’d expect for a team that plays its home games in one. The Falcons have the option to open the roof and make some of their home games quasi-outdoors, if they’d like to do so, but here’s how they’ve fared in the Matt Ryan era:

Indoors/Dome: 66-36

Outdoors: 34-33

Retractable Roof (in use): 2-3

Similar splits exist for other dome teams like the Saints (80-48 in one, 70-55 outdoors), but to a slightly less drastic extent. The Falcons playing 13 of their games indoors this year is a legitimate boost to a team most comfortable doing so, and another small but important reason to think this year might be better than the last.

Two of those outdoor matchups are in San Francisco and Tampa Bay late in the year, too, which means the Falcons will have at most one true cold weather game in the regular season, and that’s early in the year.