The full 2026-27 NFL schedule will be released at 8 PM tomorrow night, and earlier today The Morning Shift talked about some teams they would like to see the Atlanta Falcons play early on in the season rather than late in the season.
- Cleveland Browns
With the Falcons having to go to the Dawg Pound this season one reason the Falcons would want to play the Browns early is because the earlier you play Cleveland the better the weather will be, and Beau Morgan talked about that.
“Give me Cleveland early. I mean the lake effect right there it can be a nightmare.” Beau said.
Beau also mentioned that playing the Browns early means that they’ll still be trying to work out the kinks in putting in Browns new Head Coach Todd Monken’s offense, and also possibly readjusting to Deshaun Watson being the starting quarterback as well.
- Kansas City Chiefs
While Patrick Mahomes seems to be on track to play in week one after tearing his ACL in the Chiefs final regular season game of the year last year right now there’s still no guarantee that he won’t have to miss any time in the beginning of the season, Kansas City will be a lot easier to beat if Justin Fields is their starting QB instead of Mahomes.
Also, even if Mahomes plays against the Falcons if the game is early on in the season there’s a real good chance Patrick could be rusty, a little timid, not trusting his knee fully, and that could negatively affect his game play which Falcons fans would absolutely love.
- Minnesota Vikings
As of right now all signs point to Kyle Murray being the starting quarterback for the Vikings at least to start the season, and after a few rough seasons and the Arizona Cardinals giving up on him in the offseason Murray has to prove that he can still play quarterback at a high level, so there’s a lot of pressure on him and for that reason Mike Johnson thinks playing Minnesota early in the year could be beneficial for the Falcons
“With the quarterback situation and trying to get him accustomed to whatever is going on with their offense you can make the point that you want to see them early in the year, but with it being in Minnesota and how ruckus that place can be if they believe I would say that they’re probably gonna come out with a pretty good amount of enthusiasm in the early part of their schedule, so that’s one that I feel like could probably tip either way” Mike said
We’ll find out tomorrow night if the Falcons get to play any of these teams early on in the season, and if they do the Falcons could have a solid chance of getting out to a good start in this 2026-27 campaign.
