Are the Falcons set to return to winning ways? Or will they be tripped up by a plucky divisional opponent? In the past five openers Atlanta hasn’t been able to get a win, but this is a very different Falcons team.
That’s certainly one of the central questions of Week 1 for Atlanta, so we decided to tackle it in the first of many weekly rounds of predictions. You’ll find ours below, and we welcome yours in the comments.
Falcons 27, Panthers 17
Old habits sometimes die hard, and the urge to predict a close game given the last two years of Falcons football is a strong one.