The most disappointing aspect of the Falcons’ debacle against the Bucs

The Falcons’ embarrassing loss to the Bucs was just another notch on the belt for an organization that can’t stop making the wrong kind of history.

Tampa Bay didn’t complete a single pass. They attempted just three all game — and still won by 16, most of it off turnovers from Michael Penix Jr., who turned in by far the worst game of his still-young career.

That’s where the finger-pointing is going to start, and it’s hard to argue with the stat line. Penix completed just 8 of 24 of his passes for no touchdowns and four interceptions. His 12.0 passer rating was the worst by any quarterback this season — and keep in mind, the Falcons were forced to start Cooper Rush for two games.

The decision-making from Penix was dreadful, easily the worst we’ve seen from him to this point. But it’s not fair to pin it all on his shoulders. Doing that leaves out some important context.

This game was played in a legitimate monsoon. One team recognized that and adjusted — which is why the Bucs threw it just three times. The other kept chucking it into the rain with nothing to show for it.

That’s on Kevin Stefanski and Tommy Rees. They knew all week this game could be played in heavy rain, and come Sunday, it was obvious early this wasn’t going to be a normal NFL contest. The focus needed to be on protecting the football, knowing both teams were going to struggle to score. Instead, they kept putting their young quarterback in position to fail.

The Falcons’ staff got out-coached by Todd Bowles and company in a game with major playoff implications — not a great sign for anyone hoping Stefanski would be a massive upgrade over Arthur Smith and Raheem Morris. These are the exact kind of no-shows in big divisional games that got those guys fired, and eight games into the Stefanski era, not enough has changed.

But I still don’t think the coaching was the most disappointing part of Sunday’s debacle. That belongs to the sheer lack of physicality from the entire team in a game with so much hanging in the balance.

Not even a month ago, the Falcons defense ranked first in rushing yards allowed and the offense ranked second in rushing. If there was one thing we thought this team could hang its hat on, it was the ability to compete and often dominate the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.

That’s been exposed over the last several weeks, and never more than against the Bucs, who imposed their will on Atlanta for 60 straight minutes. Tampa Bay carried it 56 times and averaged nearly 6.0 yards a pop for 324 yards on the ground. The Falcons didn’t even crack 100.

In a game that would have put Atlanta in the driver’s seat for the NFC South, they got beaten to a pulp until they no longer wanted to compete. It’s a story we’ve seen year after year with this team every time it has a chance to change the narrative. The Falcons left Raymond James Stadium broken in half, and while there’s plenty of season left to put themselves back together, Sunday made it awfully hard to believe they have the right people in the building to pull it off.

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Photo: IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire