In the young NFL season, the Atlanta Falcons were flying high behind a potent rushing attack.

Led by All-Pro running back and league-leading rusher Bijan Robinson, they averaged 181 rushing yards per game and were the NFL’s No. 2 team on the ground during a 2-2 start. Since then, that number has dropped to 88.5 as Atlanta has lost three of its last four.

“Those numbers are a lot different,” Robinson said, “And it’s our job to get it back to what it needs to be.”

Altogether, the Falcons average 134.8 rushing yards per game and have barely dropped, now at No. 4 in the NFL due to their hot start.

“We have to do a better job of getting back to who we are in the run game,” said offensive coordinator Tommy Rees. “It starts with me in what we call and how we design it.”

Opponents have begun catching on.

And the solution has been simple: Stack the box. 

“Teams, after those couple weeks, decided they were going to play us a certain way,” Rees admitted. “Part of our challenge is finding ways to run the ball even when those boxes are loaded. Because there are ways to do it.”

It’s led to the Falcons having their lowest yard per carry, with 2.8 in their win over the San Francisco 49ers and 3.5, which isn’t half bad, in a shutout loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“I think teams have done some things to limit some explosives,” Rees said. “I think our run efficiency has been pretty good, but we’ve lacked some of those explosive runs that really propelled us early in the season. So we got to find our opportunities for that and execute when those looks do come.”

It has forced the Falcons to play complementary football, putting the game in the hands of quarterback Michael Penix Jr.

He got on a heater for a couple of weeks, which could make defenses vulnerable. But then tossed four interceptions through a Tampa Bay monsoon last Sunday, Nov. 1.

Another daunting stat?

Atlanta has been stuck at eight total rushing touchdowns since exploding for five against their Week 4 rivalry clash with the New Orleans Saints en route to scoring a season-high 45 points on Oct. 5.

Part of the reason is the absence of powerback Brian Robinson Jr., who’s been out with a hamstring injury for the last two weeks. He returned to practice on Thursday and is listed as questionable for Sunday’s NFL Week 9 Madrid game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

His potential return could provide a boost to Atlanta’s short-yardage rushing attack and complement the wiggle of Bijan Robinson.

“For us, it’s our job as an offense to execute it and get down there so we can put the ball in the endzone,” Bijan Robinson explained how to improve. “Scoring in the red zone, outside the red zone, just making sure that we put the ball in there is important for us to win these games.”

Atlanta’s dynamic run game has a golden opportunity to return against Cincinnati. The Bengals allowed the 17th most rushing yards, at 122.3 per game. 

After weeks of opposing defenses rinsing and repeating the same game plan, the Falcons know Cincy will attempt to stack the box to force them to pass.

And they don’t care.

“I want to make this run game lethal, dominate,” Robinson said. 

“It doesn’t matter if teams come out playing however many in the box. That’s one of the focuses for teams to stop that. But for us, that’s what gets our teams going as a whole. When the run game is operating at a high level for this team, we’re just hard to beat.”

Falcons (3-5) versus Bengals (5-2) kicks off Sunday at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time from Madrid, Spain’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. The NFL Network will televise the game.

Atlanta is the designated home team.