Atlanta Falcons Projected Win Total

Cynthia Frelund of NFL.com created a simulation to project the win total for every NFL team, including the Atlanta Falcons.

Analytics expert Cynthia Frelund took data from the past 10 NFL campaigns to create historical references for personnel, scheme and matchups, identifying factors that are proven to lead to wins (or losses). Cynthia’s simulations included 1,000,000 runs of every single regular-season game, which equals 272,000,000 total games “played.”  – NFL.com 

Frelund’s simulation isn’t much kinder to the Falcons than the early NFL Power Rankings have been. Only the NFL has been released so far, but the Falcons are last with a projected win total of 5.2 wins, which puts them .4 behind the Seattle Seahawks.

The Falcons have found themselves in the bottom three of virtually every power ranking this season. The other teams in consideration for the bottom spot reside in the AFC. We’ll wait for Frelund’s AFC release to find out if the projected win total for the Falcons puts them behind the likes of the Houston Texans, New York Jets, and Jacksonville Jaguars.

The model also includes a floor and a ceiling, and there’s not a large variance between the 6.7 win ceiling and the 4.2 win floor. NFL.com also notes that FanDuel’s over/under for wins is 4.5.

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Frelund’s model included statistics for the season, and she’s bullish on tight end Kyle Pitts making history in his second season.

Falcons TE Kyle Pitts has a good chance of making history in 2022. He tops 1,000 yards in 58.2 percent of simulations and would be the first tight end in league history to post 1,000 receiving yards in each of his first two seasons. That figure (58.2%) is a very strong preseason forecast! Pitts needs 955 yards to break Mike Ditka’s record for the most receiving yards by a tight end in his first two seasons. Also, just 10 tight ends have recorded back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons all time. – Cynthia Frelund – NFL.com

The Falcons open with the New Orleans Saints at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday at 1 p.m. The Saints sit ninth in the NFC with a 8.3 projected wins, a losing season in a 17 game campaign.

If the Falcons want to reach the ceiling and not the floor of their projected win totals, they’ll need to beat teams like the Saints… teams that are expected to have losing seasons… at home.

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