The Falcons Lost to a Team That Didn't Complete a Pass. Now Comes Joe Burrow.

There are ugly losses, and then there is what happened to the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday at Raymond James Stadium. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat them 16-0 without completing a single pass. Zero. Baker Mayfield's final line included one passing yard on five pass plays. Tampa Bay ran the ball 54 times for 322 yards and let the rain and the scoreboard do the rest. Per ESPN, the Bucs became the first team since the 1974 Bills to go an entire game without a completion — and they won by two scores anyway.

For the Falcons, that is the story of the week, and it isn't a flattering one.

The offense hit a floor it hasn't touched in years

Atlanta ran 64 plays and produced eight first downs. Michael Penix finished 8-of-24 for 125 yards with four interceptions and a passer rating of 11.98, per Next Gen Stats — a completion percentage above expectation of minus-22.6. The Falcons went 0-for-12 on third down. They turned the ball over four times. They managed 92 rushing yards on 27 attempts while the opponent was openly, shamelessly one-dimensional, and they still couldn't get off the field or stay on it.

The whiplash is the most concerning part. Seven days earlier, Penix threw three touchdowns with a 118.9 rating in an upset of a 6-0 49ers team that briefly made Atlanta look like a team figuring it out. Then came Sunday. His season line — 61.9 percent, 1,282 yards, nine touchdowns, five picks, a 90.9 rating — reads like a young quarterback treading water rather than sinking. But 16 sacks taken, four fumbles, and a team turnover differential of minus-7 tell you the offense is losing the hidden downs, not just the obvious ones.

What it means for the season

At 3-5, the Falcons sit third in the NFC South with a minus-2.2 point differential. They're 1-2 in the division and getting outscored by 8.7 points per game inside it. The rushing attack that was supposed to be the offense's backbone has thinned out — 81.3 yards per game over the last three — and losing Brian Robinson to a hamstring injury only tightens the margin. Brian Robinson is listed out; Divine Deablo, Nnamaka Ebukam, Billy Bowman, Avieon Terrell and Olamide Zaccheaus are all questionable.

And the schedule offers no soft landing.

Week 9 is a bad matchup for a team that can't sustain drives

Atlanta heads to the Santiago Bernabéu to face Cincinnati, a 5-2 Bengals team averaging 29.4 points and 302 passing yards per game behind Joe Burrow. The market has Cincinnati around a three-point favorite with an implied win probability north of 60 percent, and the total sits in the low 50s — a number that suggests points will be available. The Falcons' offense through eight games is averaging 21.4 points on 335 yards per game. Asking that group to keep pace with Burrow in a dome is a tall order.

The organizational backdrop doesn't help. Reports this week indicated Atlanta won't be aggressive before the Nov. 10 trade deadline, and there's already chatter about whether Penix's uneven emergence should push Tua Tagovailoa — who has attempted just 34 yards' worth of passing this season — elsewhere.

None of that is resolved by Sunday. What is resolved is this: the Falcons got beaten by a team that refused to throw the ball and won comfortably. Whatever margin for error existed at 3-4 is gone.