The Falcons know the end of the Jake Matthews era is coming someday. What they didn’t expect was for the conversation about his replacement to get complicated this fast.
After a rough opening stretch in 2026, it looked like Atlanta might be staring down a left tackle decision a lot sooner than planned. Matthews, now 34, had been struggling badly enough that it felt easy to imagine the Falcons targeting his successor with their first-round pick in the 2027 NFL Draft. He’d looked slower, opposing fronts had been getting the better of him, and the early-season tape painted a picture of a veteran whose decline had suddenly sped up.
Then Week 7 happened.
Against the San Francisco 49ers, Matthews turned in his sharpest game of the season. The Falcons pulled off a 29-20 upset, Michael Penix Jr. was pressured only six times on 34 dropbacks, and Matthews himself did not surrender a single pressure. It was the kind of outing that made the whole “find the next left tackle now” discussion feel just a little less urgent.
That performance stood out for a few reasons. It was the first game all year in which Matthews didn’t allow at least one pressure, and it came against a San Francisco pass rush that had already made life miserable for Jayden Daniels in Week 6. Raheem Morris brought pressure in creative ways, but the Falcons’ protection held up, and Matthews was right in the middle of it.
Pro Football Focus gave Matthews a 90.7 pass blocking grade in Week 7, the best mark among all tackles and all offensive linemen. He didn’t get flagged once, either, which only added to the sense that this was the clean, controlled version of Matthews Atlanta had been waiting to see.
It wasn’t all on him, of course. Penix was getting the ball out faster than he had before, and the entire line deserves credit after getting beaten up against the Bears and Ravens. But the veteran left tackle was a big reason the pocket stayed quiet.
Over the last two weeks, Matthews has allowed just one pressure on 81 pass-blocking snaps. That’s the same number of pressures allowed by Trent Williams over that stretch, which says plenty about the company he’s keeping in that span.
Atlanta still has homework to do on the tackle market. Names like Iowa’s Trevor Lauck, Texas’ Trevor Goosby, Indiana’s Carter Smith, and Utah’z Zereoue Williams are still part of the conversation. The bigger question is whether Matthews’ recent rebound gives Ian Cunningham reason to treat tackle as something less than a first-round emergency and maybe push that move into the second or third round of the 2027 draft.
The Falcons still have to plan for life after Matthews. But after the way he played against the 49ers, they may not be in as much of a rush as it seemed a couple weeks ago.
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