The Falcons’ decision to send veteran safety Jessie Bates to the Jaguars raised an obvious question: are they already looking past 2026? Kevin Stefanski pushed back hard on that idea, saying Atlanta is still very much in the mix in the NFC South.
Stefanski made clear that the move is about balancing the present and the future, not waving the white flag on this season. He pointed to the Falcons’ place in the division at 3-6 and said the team is still positioned to compete.
“You guys know how I feel about Jessie the person, Jessie the player,” Stefanski told reporters. “But at the same time, this is football, where sometimes you have one foot in the short term, one foot in the long term.
There’s things like this that make your team better in the long run. Draft picks are the life blood of an organization.
That’s something we believe in.
He also wanted to make sure the message to the fan base was unmistakable.
“Our fans are smart enough to know that in no way, shape or form would we punt on this season. We have three wins, just like the rest of our division. Obviously not where we want to be, we want to play better, but we’re in the thick of this thing and we trust in the guys we have,” Stefanski said.
Still, the trade says plenty about where Atlanta is headed. Bates can help right now, but the Falcons chose draft picks instead, a clear sign they’re thinking beyond this year even while they remain alive in the division race. The Falcons may still have a path to the NFC South title, but this is not the kind of move a team makes when it believes it’s chasing a Super Bowl right now.
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Robinson arrives in Spain as one of the leagues biggest attractions, leading the NFL in rushing yards through eight weeks and expected to be on the field against the Bengals. That gives the Falcons a chance to do more than just play a regular-season game abroad. If Robinson can keep drawing eyes in Madrid, he could help the NFL connect with Spanish fans in a way the league has been hoping for, one star and one city at a time. [Read more 🡒]