Week 6 Snap Reactions: Too little, too late

The Atlanta Falcons made a late push, but ultimately couldn't overcome their early game errors and fell to 2-4 against the Chicago Bears.

The Falcons laundry list of injuries has brought down Jeff Ulbrich's house of cards. Fair to say he hasn't been on his A game, but you try to get your game off with Josh Woods, Mike Ford, Jared Ivey, etc. The hits keep coming; Kendal Daniels left after a frightening impact to the head and neck area. Divine Deablo continues to stack injuries and left with an arm injury, and Avieon Terrell and Billy Bowman were banged up late.

The defense needed the offense to carry them in this one, but their effort came too late.

Look, I'll fall on the sword after pounding the table for more Branch (even though I meant as a WR), but both returners attempted to field punts inside the 10; one couldn't read the ball well enough and muffed it, and the other forgot to fair catch. Almost like there's a reason most coaches don't let their guys attempt those at all. The mental mistakes are too numerous to blame solely on the players; they aren't getting good enough coaching.

This roster is packed with special teams talent, but it's not making a difference, and it's hard to ignore that the team hired two of the worst special teams coaches from 2025.

The late surge was great, but everything before it was embarrassing. Rees got in his own head in the first half and let the Bears dictate his run game. There's zero excuse for giving Bijan the ball 4 times in a half. His screen game needs to be trashed. After having no answers against pressure versus the Ravens, it took till the 4th quarter to get any against the Bears. Penix deserves a fair share of the blame when it comes to responding to pressure. He keeps locking in on his first read, and he has a bad habit of taking sacks and being careless with the football.

Kyle Pitts continues to have his talents wasted. He's one of the team's best answers against pressure and makes things happen when he gets the ball, but even after the team prioritized him this offseason, he's still an afterthought.

The Falcons have two 2-game losing streaks and one 2-game winning streak–they're streaky. After praising Stefanski and Co. for resetting the team after a Cooper Rush-led start, they've since failed to wash away concerns about this team's ability to play competent football week to week and quarter to quarter.

The Bears aren't a cakewalk, but their defense isn't an immovable object; the Falcons late surge proved that. Even when the Falcons were spotted over 100 penalty yards, they looked inept for most of the game. Mental mistakes showed up in every phase of the game, and the staff failed to give the players a viable game plan.

The Atlanta Falcons are now two games below .500 as they enter the rough patch of their schedule. There's plenty of blame to go around, and the team better get itself sorted quickly because the 49ers are up next, and Kyle Shanahan and Raheem Morris are licking their chops.