Falcons vs. Bills prediction: Can Michael Penix Jr. keep pace with Josh Allen in prime-time matchup?

In the first of two Week 6 “Monday Night Football” games, the Atlanta Falcons play host to the Buffalo Bills.

Atlanta is fresh off its bye week, and enters this game with a 2-2 record. The Falcons bounced back pre-bye with a win over the Commanders after they had been embarrassingly shut out by the Panthers the week before. With the Buccaneers distancing themsleves in the division race, Atlanta needs victories to keep pace and to maintain positioning for a potential wild card run down the stretch of the year.

Buffalo, meanwhile, is coming off its firs loss of the season. The Bills were dropped at home by the division rival Patriots, who took advantage of three uncharacteristic Buffalo turnovers. The Bills had been 4-0 coming into that game, stacking a trio of multi-score wins on top of their rollicking Week 1 comeback against the Ravens. They are looking to move to 5-1 before they head into their bye next week.

Will the Bills bounce back from their disappointing loss, or will the Falcons return from their bye with a victory? We’ll find out soon enough. But before we break down the matchup, here’s a look at how you can watch the game.

• Date: Monday, Oct. 13 | Time: 7:15 p.m. ET
• Location: Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta)
• TV: ESPN | Stream: Fubo (try for free) 
• Follow: CBS Sports App
• Odds: Bills -3.5; O/U 50 (via DraftKings Sportsbook)

Bet NFL Week 6 games and NFL odds at DraftKings, where new users get $200 in bonus bets with a winning $5 wager. Click here to get started:

When the Bills have the ball

The Falcons have been surprisingly stingy on defense this season, allowing the fewest yards per game in the league heading into Week 6. Opponents have averaged just 4.7 yards per play and scored on only 44.7% of their drives, each of which ranks inside the top 10 teams in the league. They also check in seventh in opponents’ expected points added (EPA) per play, according to TruMedia, seemingly backing up that performance. 

But it’s worth putting those numbers into proper context. Since facing Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers in Week 1, the Falcons have gone up against J.J. McCarthy’s Vikings in his second career start, Bryce Young and the Panthers (who tore them apart) and then Washington and its backup quarterback, Marcus Mariota. Needless to say, none of those opponents is as challenging to stop as are Josh Allen and the Bills. 

The Bills are also seemingly geared to find success against the Falcons, who despite their overall defensive success have allowed opponents to find ground in the run game: Atlanta ranks 27th in opponents’ rushing success rate, via Tru Media. The Bills have run the ball quite well this year behind Allen and James Cook, who is averaging 5.0 yards per carry and ranks first in rushing success rate among the 33 players with 50-plus carries. 

Cook is gaining yards both before and after contact, and he’s incredibly tough to stop both when it comes to churning out the tough yards and breaking off the big plays. The Falcons have so far limited explosive runs quite well, allowing just five rushes of more than 12 yards through their first four games, but they haven’t exactly faced a murderers’ row of opponent run games so far, either. Again, this will be a far tougher challenge than any they have faced to date. 

Atlanta has actually been much better against the pass, thanks in large part to the fact that the Falcons have a top-10 pressure rate (39.8%) after investing significant resources in finally improving that aspect of their defense. Jalon Walker only has three pressures, but James Pearce Jr. leads the team with 11 and guys like Leonard Floyd, Kaden Elliss, Zach Harrison and Ruke Orhorhoro are making contributions. 

Getting pressure on Allen is obviously of paramount importance. He has absolutely annihilated opponents from a clean pocket this season, completing 89 of 114 passes for 1,018 yards, eight touchdowns and no interceptions without pressure in his face. He hasn’t fared as well against pressure this season as he did last year, but we know he is among the best in the league at avoiding the rush, stepping up or outside and then making a play with his arm or his legs. He gets sacked less often than almost anybody else in the NFL, and he is arguably the game’s best scrambler. The Falcons will need to make sure they maintain their rush lane integrity all game long, because if you allow Allen to break contain, it is a big play waiting to happen. 

The Falcons could be without playmaking slot corner Billy Bowman Jr. for this one after he was limited in Friday and Saturday’s practices. His potential absence would be a boon to Bills slot receiver Khalil Shakir, who usually operates as Allen’s top target. Buffalo similarly might not have tight end Dalton Kincaid, but the Bills spread the ball around often enough that the absence of any particular non-Shakir pass-catcher doesn’t quite affect them as much as it might another team.

When the Falcons have the ball

Atlanta has been extremely inconsistent offensively this season, in large part because Michael Penix Jr. has been extremely inconsistent and quarterback performance is the biggest driver of offensive success. Penix slung it around quite well in Week 1 to go toe-to-toe with the Bucs, but he looked awful in both Week 2 against the Vikings and Week 3 against the Panthers. He bounced back with arguably his best game against Washington in Week 4 before the Falcons took their bye.

Penix will again be without No. 2 wide receiver Darnell Mooney here, which will concentrate the passing attack on the trio of Drake London, tight end Kyle Pitts and running back Bijan Robinson out of the backfield. London has typically been a target vacuum for Penix whenever Mooney is out (just look at the numbers from the end of last season), but that reality means he could see shadow coverage from Bills cornerback Christian Benford here. 

Benford has split his time just about equally between left and right cornerback so far this season, tending to travel with some of the best opposing wideouts. Buffalo’s opposite-side cornerback is Tre’Davious White, who is not the same player he was earlier in his career when he was a star with the Bills. (Achilles injuries will tend to do that to a player.) Any time the Falcons can get London matched up with White instead of Benford, that’d be a good area for them to attack.

Buffalo will also be down two more second-level defenders in linebacker Matt Milano and rotational safety Damar Hamlin, the latter of whom went on injured reserve. The Bills have so far done a pretty good job against passes to the middle of the field despite the fact that Milano has missed two games and had has snaps limited in two others, but any time you have a player of that caliber removed from the proceedings, it does open up a potential vulnerability. Terrel Bernard, Dorian Williams and Shaq Thompson are capable, but Pitts and Robinson could prove tough to cover for various reasons. (Size and agility for Pitts, game-breaking athleticism for Robinson.)

The real potential vulnerability for the Bills, though, is in the run game. They have gotten absolutely clocked on the ground in a couple of games this year, with the Ravens rushing for 238 yards in Week 1 and the Saints dropping 189 yards in Week 4. That’s a significant problem against a team sporting Bijan Robinson, who is off to the best start of his career. Robinson is sixth in rushing success rate this year, per TruMedia, and he is regularly breaking tackles and creating yards after contact. He leads the NFL in broken tackle rate and has thus recorded the sixth-lowest negative run rate in the league. It’s incredibly hard to bring him down behind the line of scrimmage, and that fact has helped keep Atlanta’s offense moving. 

He’s also been fantastic as a receiver, with 18 catches for 270 yards and a touchdown through just four games. Some of that production is due to a couple of big plays, but for a guy whose career high was 28.6 receiving yards per game coming into this year, being all the way up at 67.5 per game is pretty wild. The Bills have only allowed 83 receiving yards to opposing backs this year, per Pro-Football-Reference, but Robinson is obviously a different challenge than any they have faced so far this season.

Falcons vs. Bills prediction, pick

Buffalo took a disappointing loss last week against division rival New England, but before that had looked like arguably the best team in the NFL. Allen is playing as well as any quarterback in football, and even against a defense that has exceeded to-date expectations, we like him to find a rhythm here. If and when Allen does that, whether through the air or on the ground, the Bills are very tough to beat.

Pick: Bills 27, Falcons 20 | Bills -3.5, Under 50