Inside the Falcons’ viral NFL schedule release video

These are the moments, Falcons chief marketing officer Shannon Joyner says, when the creativity of social media admins and often-faceless internal content producers gets to shine.

“It feels good that people work so hard on stuff like this, and people are saying, ‘Great job, admin. Y’all cooked. This is awesome,’” Joyner told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday. “I’m very proud and want the team to feel their flowers in that moment, and it’s cool that they are.”

The process behind the schedule release video entails, to a degree, year-round thinking. But ideas don’t become fully formalized or brought to the group until January, and it’s a process of journey over destination, with fun at the forefront of any thought.

The Falcons, who used animated videos with an NFL Street video game theme in 2024 and a Mario Kart equivalent in 2025, built early interest in pursuing a different type of creative outlet this year. They settled for a live-scripting piece, in which a combination of several different ideas and suggestions led to a fundamental theme plastered at the end of each skit: “This is Falcons Football.”

It’s a new chapter, with coach Kevin Stefanski, General Manager Ian Cunningham and President of Football Matt Ryan spearheading a remodeled regime. There are new uniforms, too, and the Falcons prioritized another chance to show players in red and white threads.

Most of their rollout was planned. After a large group offered ideas in a January meeting, they centralized into a smaller task force. They wrote jokes, but they also consulted with local comedians, creators and production companies to make sure their jokes made sense and connected with the audience.

The initial intent, Delgado said, was for the video to finish between two and four minutes. But they ultimately realized they couldn’t cut anything. The skits, the acting and the delivery were all too good.

Across two days, the Falcons filmed all their clips. They used receiver Drake London, running back Bijan Robinson, cornerback A.J. Terrell, outside linebacker Jalon Walker and safeties Jessie Bates III and Xavier Watts, who added the video to their list of responsibilities after practices and meetings concluded.

London filmed the first video. He was a desk receptionist, grabbing the phone to answer a call before the employee seated next to the landline. “Boom, that’s 10 receptions today, boy,” he said, then released a high-volume yell.

“The director did not say yell,” Delgado said. “But he yelled, and we were like, ‘This is awesome. Like, we have to do that.’ He was so good at it to the point where I was like, ‘We can’t do too many more cuts because he’s going to lose his voice and he has to do other scenes.’”

London also kicked back in an office chair and threw paper into a trash can, linking back to his basketball days, and was featured in a scene with a “new IT specialist,” Kendrick. It was a play on rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar, where the two had a brief standoff.

And there’s Ryan yelling for two preoccupied employees at a meeting to “Get f---ing set,” honoring a viral hot mic moment from his playing days. In another clip, Bates rises from a chair and intercepts an employee’s cross-office pen toss. Robinson jukes and spins his way around employees and through an office hallway. Walker sits down to eat lemon pepper wings and gets a glare, then a close-up stare, from mascot Freddie Falcon.

The Falcons included real employees in their skits, but talking roles were held by actors. They also had outside help, as Jermaine Dupri, who helped deliver the Falcons-themed “Welcome to Atlanta” remix in 2018, returned to the organization and filmed multiple skits. Dupri has worked with the Falcons multiple times and didn’t need much of a recruiting pitch for a team, and city, that has his heart.

“For him to take the time to come up to the facility, be a part of that, just underscores what this is all about,” Joyner said. “It’s not just Falcons, it’s Atlanta Falcons, and that deeper connection with the city is something we’ll always try to authentically play into. It’s a microcosm of the bigger point that we’re after.”

Actors and Dupri aside, Falcons players and staff members performed a majority of the on-camera work. Delgado said he was pleasantly surprised by their acting skills.

“The players were fantastic in this,” Delgado said. “They were invested. They wanted to see how this all worked and they had fun doing it. It was one of the most engaged times our players have been with something we’ve asked them to kind of do. So, I can’t thank them enough for their participation and also the front office staff, too.

“A lot of those — especially the Kevin and Matt stand-ups — those are one-takes. They nailed it right off the bat. They were invested. So, it was really awesome to see.”

Now, the Falcons and their creative team are turning their attention toward OTAs, which begin Monday, and the rest of the offseason program. But don’t overlook the significance of Thursday night’s viral video success.

When teams land well with their audience, Delgado said, it begins to build trust and affinity between fans and the digital and marketing departments. For the Falcons, an organization with an eight-year playoff drought on its third coaching staff in four years, such a layer of belief and trust is valuable.

“When you come out with a video like this, people love to see the players, the staff engaging, and that’s a moment in time where now, you build on that,” Delgado said. “Now, guys can infer that there’s a little bit of personality built in, some trust, some affinity.

“But then, you just keep it going to the next thing. What’s next? What’s next? And really excited to build and expound on this momentum.”

So, what is next? The Falcons, for the past few years, have delivered some of the league’s best-reviewed schedule release videos. They won’t immediately start the clock for ideas and production on their 2027 release, but they certainly aren’t afraid of matching the expectations their latest effort created moving forward.

After all, Delgado, Joyner and staff know the work behind it. So, why worry — even if it is perhaps the department’s biggest night of the year.

“This is supposed to be fun,” Joyner said. “And if you lose the fun side of it, then what are we doing? Every year, the bar gets higher, but that shouldn’t be pressure. That should just be cool. We are all creatives. This is why we’re here.

“So, we’ll just keep building. And who knows where we’ll land next year? But excited for when that opportunity comes.”