What to watch when Falcons travel to Minnesota to face Vikings in Week 14

This should be the marquee matchup of the game, and the Falcons know it seeing as Justin Simmons said this week the secondary is going to have four eyes — not just the two of Terrell — on Jefferson at all times.

Jefferson has been on par with what the league at large has come to expect from him. He’s already surpassed 1,000-yards receiving in 2024, ranking as the No. 2 receiver in total yards this season. He’s broken the 1,000-yard mark in all five of his years in the league. It’ll be Terrell’s responsibility to stop him.

Despite the lack of recognition Terrell gets nationally, he’s been very good for the Falcons secondary in 2024. Asked about Terrell’s play this week, defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake said to make no mistake about it: Terrell is “playing some big-time football” this season.

“He is the true lockdown corner in the National Football League,” Lake said. “It is very nice to have a player of his magnitude that can do exactly what you say. If we need to go put him on somebody, we know that receiver is going to have a tough time getting production for that game. He takes that challenge to heart.”

This isn’t the first time Terrell and Jefferson have been matched up against one another. As Amna Subhan wrote this week, they saw each other in back-to-back years from college to the pros. They know each other well, and it’s likely both will have their moments in the sun this Sunday. However, the key for the Falcons defense — Terrell mainly — will be to make sure those moments are limited.

Hey, guess what! You get not one but two marquee matchups this week. Congrats.

This is because Bijan Robinson? He’s good. But the Vikings run defense? They’re pretty dang good, too.

As Will McFadden pointed out on the podcast this week, this is a good vs. good situation brewing at the line of scrimmage. The Falcons are particularly lethal in their runs outside the tackles. Robinson has the fifth-best success rate amongst all running backs on such runs. The Vikings? They hold the second-lowest success rate allowed. Robinson has forced missed tackles at a clip that warrants a top-3 standing in the league. The Vikings? They play at a rate that garners the league’s second-fewest missed tackles.

The Falcons love to use Robinson early, and a lot of their offensive success can be traced back to Robinson picking up yards on early downs. If the Vikings take that away, though, it could be tough sledding for Atlanta’s offense seeing as only six other teams have a worse conversion rate this year in third-and-long situations.