The Atlanta Falcons are changing their culture slowly but surely, right in front of us. Over the past few years, a team like the 49ers would have had their way with this team — we watched it happen in Week 15 last season, when the Falcons pretty much had their playoff hopes crushed in Santa Clara. This week, we watched a role reversal as the Birds did everything they wanted to.

The offense moved the ball efficiently, and pushed the Niners around in the trenches. The defense shut San Fran down to the tune of only 14 points, while scoring a touchdown themselves. Even Special Teams had an incredible day. All in all, the Falcons imposed their will. I hope they helped your fantasy team impose its will against your opponent.

There is a lot of great content available here at the Falcoholic, and I encourage you to check it out if you want some in-depth analysis. This article will look at things strictly from a fantasy football perspective (that means looking at nothing other than pure statistics). Here are Atlanta’s fantasy stud and fantasy dud from Week 6’s defeat against the San Francisco 49ers.

Fantasy Stud/Dud 2022 History:

Past Studs: Cordarrelle Patterson (2), Drake London (1), Tyler Allgeier (1), Marcus Mariota (1)

Past Duds: Kyle Pitts (2), Falcons D/ST (1), Marcus Mariota (1), Younhoe Koo (1)

Fantasy Stud - Marcus Mariota

Stat Line: 129 passing yards, 2 passing touchdowns, 6 carries, 50 rushing yards, 1 rushing touchdown: 24.16 standard league/PPR points

Rumors of Marcus Mariota’s demise as Atlanta’s starting quarterback seem to have been greatly exaggerated. Following a disastrous performance against the Browns, Mariota bounced back with two consecutive “stud” performances in fantasy football.

Mariota only totaled a season low 129 passing yards in this one, but he once again rushed for at least 50 yards and accounted for a season high three touchdowns. The Falcons pounded the the Niners into submission with a run/pass ratio of 40/14, and Mariota was in prime position to finish all three of Atlanta’s red zone drives with touchdowns.

As of the conclusion of Sunday’s games, Mariota is the QB5, which means that he will finish as a top 10 scoring option at the quarterback position for the second straight week. He has played himself back into streaming consideration moving forward, as long as he continues running the ball effectively. Tamper expectations however, as Mariota will not be accounting for three touchdowns every week.

Dud

Younghoe Koo: 0-0 FGs, 4-4 XPs: 4.0 standard league/PPR points

Younghoe Koo has been in this section of the article series in back to back weeks, and it really was not his fault. Koo actually did not miss a single kick, but a starting kicker not attempting a single field goal is a killer.

Atlanta moved the ball effectively, but this was a case of an offense being too good for a kicker to benefit from. The Birds had three trips into field goal range in this game (let’s call FG range inside the 35-yard line), but wound up scoring a touchdown on all of those drives. Despite four scores ending in kicks, all of those kicks yielded just one point each and Koo finished with a very pedestrian four.

As of the conclusion of Sunday’s game, Koo is the K17 for this week. That’s back to back disappointing performances after he was the K30 last week. I would imagine that the Falcons are not going to be this efficient in the red zone every week, and the strong movement of the ball is promising. Do not part with Koo. Keep trusting him in your lineup despite the recent lack of fantasy production.