Falcons – Bengals recap: Adios to hope

Seasons start to slip away, and in any other division, they can come to a very swift end. The Falcons losing to the Ravens wasn’t a huge deal, but the Falcons losing to the Bears right after that was a big deal, because it put them at 2-4 and raised the specter that quality football teams were simply going to be too much for them. Atlanta tried to put that to bed by beating the 49ers, but after a 16-0 drubbing in the rain at the hands of the Buccaneers, it was beat the high-flying Bengals in Spain or sit at three games under .500 and in a weak position even in the ultra-weak NFC South.

The Falcons did not beat the Bengals, and did not come particularly close to doing so.