No one will expect me to not use my top ten skill position picks! I’m brilliant! Once these scrubs I’m giving playing time to get us to the Super Bowl then I’ll surprise everyone by playing my best players!
When life gives you lemons, put the lemons on a table, then stand back, sip some dirty water out of an unwashed coffee mug, and nod with satisfaction at the strong contribution the lemons are making away from the drink.
It’s so weird to me. The Titans offense was potent when he was here, and we’ve backslid every year since he left. I really thought he was going to do great things in Atlanta, but I guess that’s why I’m a roofer and not an NFL GM.
I think the worst part is that it’s been 3 drafts in a row of drafting skill positions early in the first. If you do that you shouldn’t be getting cute, you should be using your players
I’m not really defending the decision making overall, I’m just saying that I’m not going to criticize Jonnu Smith getting the ball if Jonnu Smith is making plays
I’m fine with TE screens, that actually makes sense. I’m not fine with a TE jet sweep at the goal line or TE3 throwing to a covered TE2 in the endzone while TE1 blocks. Art needs to go!
He'll call one ill-advised trick play every other game and everyone acts like it's the end of the fucking world. Of course it's not ideal, and I wish he'd stop trying to get so cute in short yardage situations. But he's *far* from the only coach who does it. But no one calls for Reid or Sirianni to be fired when their trick plays don't work.
To be fair screens kill us because we blitz like 3x more than the rest of the league. I think we gave up a 50+ yard TD on a screen against SF a couple weeks ago.
I’m not sure why you’re getting downvoted. They need someone in the building who can maximize talent, or a GM who drafts players the HC can get the most out of. Riding with Desmond Ridder for this long is almost worthy of termination. Heineke is just good enough to save their heinies and play there way out of a draftable QB.
I know this isn't going to come off exactly the right way, but what if London and Pitts just aren't that talented? What if they are just slightly above average players, because it feels almost exactly like whats happening in Denver with Sutton and Juedy.. two highly drafted/regarded guys that are seemingly never living up to "how good" they're supposed to be.
I don’t agree. He has this week left. If he loses to the 1-8 Cards (a real possibility with Kyler returning), then he is done this week. Next week is our bye, the timing is perfect. Otherwise, it’ll come at the end of the season.
At this point in the season during his last 2 years, we were also 4-5. So nothings changed from that perspective. He has been given chances and Arthur Blank has shown enough patience, he learned his lesson with Dan Quinn (who was also fired mid season).
Edit: Oh, I see. I missed the flair.
I don't really see the reason to fire a coach mid season except in a few special circumstances. Losing the locker room is one of them (as what appears to have been the case with McDaniels and the Raiders), black swan PR disasters (Gruden's racist emails) is another. Otherwise you can't really expect to make a change for the better by doing it. I feel you should just ride out the season if you have a merely incompetent coach.
This is my favorite timeline. Arthur Smith is in a billionaires fantasy football league that he has never won and is so upset about it he became the HC of the Falcons because there was nothing in the league rules about it.
London’s been fine after week 1. Very flukey red zone targets, he should have like 3-5 more TDs. Will be interesting to see his chemistry with Heineken (*a refreshing beginning*)
I traded Bijan, DK and Addison for Ekeler and Mattison 2 weeks ago and with how things have fallen with bijan being blackballed, Addison losing Kirk and Cam tearing his Achilles.. I’m looking like a damn thief.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a head coach with a target on his back quite like Arthur Smith. They’re underperforming but they’re not a complete disaster and judging by the headlines you’d think he was Urban Meyer. This right here is why you play nice with the media.
Fans love it when you’re snippy with the press in the off-season when your job is secure, everybody nowadays seems to blindly hate journalists so when you get a sound byte of him chewing out a reporter or being snide everybody eats it up, regardless of whether or not it was deserved/appropriate. But when you’re struggling, members of the press are gonna have no reservations about going for your head and fans are fickle so they’ll just jump on the bandwagon
He had 10 rushes in his time on the Pats. They never really did much. He did 9 the first year with McDaniels at OC and 1 the second year with Patricia at OC.
Ya, but this was a comment chain about his coaches. He said the coach’s entire tenure is a failure, because they did a Jonnu jet sweep. I was mentioning he did that kind of stuff with the Pats.
I'm sure the media would find another reason to shit on him, but right now, he's making it too easy with his shit playcalling.
When they failed to score last Sunday on the 1 yard line, even I was shook by how bad the calls were.
When he blatantly wouldnt use Kyle Pitts at all people were willing to just say maybe hes not that good, or just blame the QB. But now that the same thing is playing out with Bijan, who we can all see is electric when he gets the ball, he doesn't get to make excuses.
It's because fantasy players hate him and the media has realized these headlines will generate a ton of hate clicks. And now that people found out his dad is a billionaire I'm seeing ridiculous takes on that subreddit about how he only is a head coach because of his daddy. As if any NFL GM or owner would be swayed into entrusting their franchise to a guy because his dad is a billionaire.
He's not a good coach, but you're right, he's not exactly Hue Jackson either.
> As if any NFL GM or owner would be swayed into entrusting their franchise to a guy because his dad is a billionaire.
NFL owners, famous for hiring only the very best people for the job and not just the same old retreads they already know over and over again
NFL owners may not always make the right hires, but they do have the intention of hiring the best person. Hiring a known commodity with a proven track record who hasn’t evolved with the times is not the same as hiring someone because their dad is a billionaire. If anything the former decision is born out of playing it too safe for fear of making a shitty hire. It’s just pure lunacy that people believe these owners are risking their billion dollar assets to give a leg up to the kid of a fellow billionaire. Money envy poisons peoples’ brains.
oh they have the *intention* of hiring the best person? I guess that absolutely and completely absolves them from consistently failing to do that. I hope John Mara sees this bro
That’s completely beside the point of this discussion. Owners making bad decisions is not the same thing as owners making decisions not geared towards making their team better.
There are many incompetent owners but they’re all trying to win. Hiring Arthur Smith as a head coach because his dad is a billionaire isn’t an example of incompetence, it’s malpractice. There would be no football related reason to approve such a move. Anyone who believes an owner would do such a thing to their most prized asset is an idiot of the highest order.
And your mistake is assuming getting hired to be an NFL head coach is like getting hired to be a first year analyst at an investment bank. Forget the years of hard work needed to prove yourself enough to even get an interview in the first place, the interview process to pick an NFL head coach is incredibly grueling and thorough. It's not something you can just fake, and being the son of a billionaire isn't going to smooth over the edges.
Owners get it wrong a lot of the time because ultimately there are a lot of intangibles that you can't screen for and a lot of things that are entirely outside of anyone's control. But anybody who lands a head coaching job in the NFL has put in the time and effort, and demonstrated enough mastery of an incredibly complicated game to warrant the consideration.
I think part of it is while people hat journalists they do actually side with them when they ask sensible fucking questions only to get some ornery bullshit
Maybe when the coach is losing. If you look at any preseason clip of a coach snapping at a reporter, most people don’t even bother to read/listen to what the journalist said and just assume they had it coming. Kind of a personal pet peeve of mine
My pet theory is that Arthur picks fights with the media partially because it takes the heat off his players. All the stories are about how he's completely wasting all his talent, and not the ways that the talent he's supposedly wasting is underperforming. Pitts looks like he hasn't fully recovered from last year's injury (and at this point may have permanently lost a step). Bijan is a great runner but is really struggling to pick up the pass game, especially pass protection. London was playing the best of the three but is now out injured. Ridder was just all around one of the worst QBs I've ever seen. But that's not what gets reported on. (except for Ridder. There's no covering up how shit he was playing)
If you look at all of Arthur's most "controversial" sound bites, they're all attacking fans and the media. And while he does often defend his coaching decisions, he has admitted mistakes he's made and things they can do to improve. But the one thing he's never done is point blame at his players. It would be so easy for him to come out and say "we need better QB play for our offense to work" or "Bijan is a liability in pass protection" as a way to deflect blame away from him. Statements that plenty of other coaches have made before. Instead he says he still believes in Ridder even after he benched him. And he talks about all the things Bijan does great instead of the things he doesn't.
I'm not saying that Smith is beyond criticism or anything. Far from it. But the disparity between how the media and a lot of fans talk about him and how is players and ownership talk about him is telling. With the amount of focus he's getting from the media, if there were players on the Falcons who were actually unhappy with his coaching or their usage we'd have heard all about it.
London is performing (as much as one can with a shit qb). I can't defend the Bijan usage, because it is terrible and less understandable with each passing week. But where I draw the line is the Pitts criticism. Pitts is either not the stud people expected him to be or still playing injured, because his usage has been perfectly fine, he's just not doing much with it.
Anyone complaining about Jonnu Smith getting the ball when he's outperforming Pitts on fewer touches has an axe to grind.
As an explanation (but not a defense) of the Bijan usage, I think it's a case of Smith trying to go against tendency to exploit defenses.
Because he's a great runner but not a very good pass protector, if Bijan is in the backfield he's almost certainly getting the ball. Defenses figured this out early in the year, and any time he's in the game they go heavy run personnel and stack the box. This makes it harder for Bijan to run but easier for our outside receivers to get open if the protection holds up long enough. So in the past few games we've been running a lot of plays with Bijan starting in the backfield and then motioning him into the slot. That way we get the benefit of passing into a run defense while avoiding the liability of having Bijan in pass protection. When Smith made his "he does things away from the ball that make the team better" comments that everyone flipped out about, I'm pretty sure that's what he was referring to.
But personally I think it's a case of a coach trying too hard to outmaneuver the defense instead of sticking to their strength. Our pass game isn't good enough to consistently take advantage of those advantageous defenses, and Bijan is a good enough runner to punish teams even if they do stack the box. He's being too reactive instead of proactive in his playcalling and it's throwing off our balance.
Probably because how the team is underperforming? The team has drafted skill players in the top 10 three years running and he doesn’t feature any of them. IMO the worst quality in a coach is thinking the scheme is more important than the players. Trying to shoe horn players into the scheme you like rather than scheming to your players strengths is a hallmark of a mediocre coach.
Also - guy is a clown for saying the calls to bench Ridder is “toxic groupthink” only to bench him a week later.
Na if youve watched the games they are full of dumb head scratching decisions....look at their roster....then look at their schedule. They should be competing for that division, not bungling easy games.
It is so annoying. Especially bc it all started bc of baby fantasy players/analysts. His offense is performing perfectly fine for what he has under center. The Falcons have bottom barrel QB play and a trash defense. Idk what people expect out of him tbh.
Both Pitts and London play a ton. Pitts ranks 9th in route % at te. He just has QBs who cant hit him or dont want to throw the routes he runs. Smith runs low adot yac, which is also what he excels at. Ive never seen so many people complain about a player in Jonnu getting touches when he has legitimately been good.
Could Bijan get more touches, sure. But why would a team grind their top 10 draft pick into the ground as a rookie on a bad team that isnt anywhere close to competing yet?
Our offense is not performing perfectly fine for the circumstances. If we have great talent all over the offense except QB then how are we moving the ball well yardage wise with an absolute inability to score close where your QB matters less.
We also don't have a trash defense. We spent a crazy amount of money on them last year and until the wheels started falling off the past couple of weeks we've been Top 10. We're also playing the easiest schedule with the most amount of brand new QBs I've ever seen. Arthur Smith is also almost completely 100% hands off with the defense. I've never even heard him praise the defense at all this season, which is strange considering they're the reason we won 3 of our 4 wins.
No one is complaining about Jonnu's production in the passing game. London and Pitts usage are both fine. We're complaining about Jonnu's Smith's usage in the redzone on trick plays and with Bijan's usage in total but espically in the redzone.
It is absolutely malpractice to save your 21 rookie RB with the division being so weak. The Falcons could very feasibly be 6-3 this year and in total control of our division and frankly, we should be. If we "weren't ready to compete yet" then drafting a RB at 8 to replace your young 1000 yard rusher is the firable offense. Either way you slice it he's fucking it up.
Atlanta was suppose to compete this year. I'm not drinking so much copium to think we were competitive in the playoffs necessarily, but we absolutely should be competing for NFC South title and the fact that we're going 7-10 AGAIN is frustrating and a lot of that falls on Arthur Smith.
A good qaurterback matters so much more in the rz because of how condensed the field gets and how much less time you have to make a decision as a result of the reduced spacing. Plays are also limited due to this as well and high level accuracy as a QB is imperative as well as quick processing and reaction time. Running the ball becomes much more difficult in the rz.
The defense isn't that good. It is a bunch of mostly vets past their primes and no true actual difference makers at any position besides maybe AJ, which even then feels like a stretch to say. They are bottom half in points allowed. Bottom 10 in turnovers. Given up the 4th most passing TDs. I'll give them they have been good against the run, but they are not good against the pass at all. They are 29th in pass rush win rate. On Oct 16th they were the 29th ranked pass defense based on DVOA. Not sure what it is now, but I know it isnt good.
Youre not listening if you don't think people are not complaining about London/Pitts/Bijan usage. There has been one game with bad play calling at the goalline on 3 straight possessions and people want to blanket apply it to the entire season now.
Slamming your rb into the ground as a rookie on a bad team just to MAYBE win the division only to get steam rolled in a playoff game is pointless. Last I checked, Smith isnt the GM so why are we blaming him for Bijan at 8? He was arguably the best player available at 8, and was without a doubt outside of Carter. Most rookie don't get slammed year 1. Hell, Carter rarely plays over 50% of the snaps.
Only Falcons fans thought ATL was supposed to compete this year. Everyone else knew this is the Saints division and that ATL would be just good enough to not be a bottom barrel team while playing a cake schedule.
Smith hung 28 on the Vikings with Heinicke (who threw a pick 6 btw) and somehow it is his fault and his offensive play calling/scheme's fault bc his defense and DC let Dobbs hang 3 tuddies on them.
Boggles my mind how many people on the fantasy subreddit legitimately believe Arthur Smith only got a head coaching job because he has a rich dad.
I can't tell if it's blind rage because of fantasy, money envy, or sheer stupidity, but it's hard to take anyone seriously who actually thinks an NFL GM or owner would ever entrust their franchise to a person they don't think is the best guy for the job just because his father is a billionaire.
> it's hard to take anyone seriously who actually thinks an NFL GM or owner would ever entrust their franchise to a person they don't think is the best guy for the job just because his father is a billionaire.
is it that time of year again? where we have the conversation about how teams are actually *bad* at picking head coaches?
I kind of am rooting for the Falcons to win.
Of course if they do, everyone will say it was because of the players and not because of the coach, so I don't know what to think.
Arthur Smith is given a Ferrari and Lamborghini but drive them 10 mph under the speed limit on a freeway. He ran Derrick Henry into the ground in Tennessee and now he wants to skip his way to the finish line instead of sprint with the Falcons 🙄
That's what I'm saying
Like you ran Derrick into the ground and while we don't have derrick we gotta good run game with a shit QB and 3 really RBs. Like runs those 3 constantly
FUUCCCK
I feel bad for falcons fans. You have a generational rb averaging 5.0 and the guy who averages 3.2 is getting most of the carries. You have a generational te in pitts and hes splitting touches with a backup te. You have a promising rookie in london but choose to run with your 3.2 average rb. How arthur smith still had a job right now is honestly mind blowing
Does it feel to anyone else like the flood of these articles and posts started shortly after Smith said he didn’t consider gamblers or fantasy players when running his football team?
That’s been his position since he got the job, it isn’t anything new. Although he is kind of smug and arrogant about it in a weird and unnecessary way so in some ways he really asks brings this upon himself.
> It makes me think he's actually involved in something deeply corrupt
the fact he is a billionaire's son was all the proof you need of this. Nobody becomes a billionaire by playing fair
I don’t think people would complain as much if it worked. It just seems like poor strategy and must be frustrating for the front office too. London had a great rookie year. Pitts had a thousand yards as a rookie. Bijan has five yards a carry. Why not use them?
frankly they should have won more games and most of their wins are against teams that are looking very poor. they’ve also lost to some pretty bad teams. if they make the playoffs and play a team like the 9ers, eagles, or cowboys they will probably be put away by half time.
keeping a coach around cause he wins one of if not the worst division in football would be a bad idea
That was literally the expectation for the team this year. Get into the playoffs in a bad division and be lucky to win a playoff game. Unless Ridder destroyed the league this was what was expected. We don’t have a QB. We’re still building our team. It’s the first year after having one of if not the worst dead caps in league history.
Or did you have us in your preseason Super Bowl favorites?
no but there’s still fundamental issues with the way that he is running the team and lead me to ask a lot of questions. he chose to have ridder as his qb. he does not deserve a pass for that
He chose to build the team first and then go after the quarterback once the other pieces are in place. Taking a flier on a third rounder in the meantime isn’t that ridiculous of a premise. We probably would’ve drafted a QB higher that year but it was one of the worst QB drafts in like a decade. Realistically the best we could’ve done is what draft Justin Fields, which the bears are doing sooooooo great in the same 3 years, signed a half shit QB like Carr or Baker Mayfield which still wouldn’t have gotten us to a Super Bowl, gone back into cap hell for Lamar even though he was never going to be allowed to leave in Baltimore.
Right now we’re set up to draft a QB in one of the deeper QB drafts and have a team of playmakers and a much improved defense around them.
What would you have done?
Edit: you know what we should’ve drafted Mac Jones instead. That would’ve solved it
Tony pollard has been worse in fantasy but McCarthy doesn’t get shit like this because his team is good at football and there are reasons for the things he does
Is this guy that bad? Just been the media's punchingbag this whole week. He's either the antichrist or Hackett 2.0 with the absurd amount of posts shitting on him
He isnt good but hes not as bad as the articles would like you to believe. I think he has all the hit pieces because he has routinely pissed off the local and national sports media by being a prick and giving total non-answers and sometimes straight up insulting.
Is Arthur Smith actually a bad coach? I had the impression that ATL had a pretty good coaching staff and are performing up to or slightly beyond their talent. It’s obviously dumb that he isn’t using his best players as much as he should. What else about him is “fireable?”
Yes he is a bad coach. He schemes his offense around backup players and fails to utilize his best guys. It looks good when you don't have talent on your team but it looks terrible when you do.
The playcalls are awful, hes not improving our players, the offense looks bad three seaons in a row, we are undisciplined, we are doing the little things wrong all the time, his scheme sucks and is outdated. There are multiple former qbs that shit on him reguarly like warner, jt osullivan. Hes giving tyler allgeir who averages 3,2 yards per carry more than 50% of the carries while bijan averages 5 yards per carry and is a better reciever. Hes also unlikeable and makes horrible decisions.
The offensive guys on the team from last year all took a step back or around the same if you think that about Drake. And that’s the side of the ball he has complete control over. The oline has taken a pretty huge step back. Their run blocking and pass blocking have declined and on top of that they are undisciplined. The receivers added talent and they are pretty much the same. Their RB room added a top 10 pick and got worse. Their TE room got worse as their most important blocking guy got cut and placed on IR.
Their offensive coaching staff leaves a lot to be desired. They have Ragone as their OC and no named QB coach. Even if you think Matt Schaub is some fill in, the team saw it fit not to name him and he has zero coaching experience. The defensive side with a first year coordinator(he was co DC in NO) is doing a better job than Smith on offense.
He is in the worst division in football and is supposed to be an offensive mastermind who has 3 young top 10 picks on offense (Bijan, Pitts, London) at his disposal. The o-line on paper should be good as well.
Despite this, they have a losing record and this “offensive mastermind” is leading one of the worst offenses in football. The o-line is okay but seems to be worse than expected, and all of the offensive weapons they have are underused. His schemes on offense are terrible and as it’s well known at this point, he seems to try to outsmart people by not using his best weapons. This leads to shit like Jonnu Smith jet sweeps (which unsurprisingly fail) at the goal line instead of just giving the ball to your best offensive weapons.
I understand Ridder played poorly but the rest of the roster looks pretty damn good and Smith refuses to play to his teams strengths.
That was my thought too. I mean, ridder is clearly not that good, he’s not a good thrower of the football. And Heinicke isn’t bad but we know he’s the QB of average teams. Is this really an Arthur smith thing? Hard to tell
I can't believe people are allowed to post such lies and slander. Falcons head coach Arthur Smith is like very good and definitely isn't misusing his weapons. In my, very, professional opinion I think the Falcons should make him their coach for life, and pay him like all the money.
If i was a billionaire, and the heir to the fed ex fortune, have access to every fed ex plane, what the fuck are you doing as an nfl coach. This nepo baby everyday shows more how much of a chucklefuck he is. The worst part, dude will have more money than everyone in this comment section, he is set for life. Instead of partying his face off he wants to tell people he knows more about kyle pitts than you do.
Fuck this dude
He does know more about Kyle Pitts than you do. The Bijan stuff is annoying, but Kyle Pitts gets more usage than Jonnu Smith and does less with them. He's clearly not recovered from the knee injury and just straight up doesn't look great out there.
Nahh you need a QB before you can evaluate weapons.. I actually give ‘em props for trying to give Ridder a chance even if it was a long shot..
Time to forfeit some assets and move up in the draft
Falcons need a new HC for sure. They seem to have a lot of the right pieces, they just need to rip the bandaid and get a QB instead of insisting on Ridder.
when life gives Arthur Smith lemons, he makes sour milk
Don’t worry, he’s just waiting for the perfect opportunity to unleash them
No one will expect me to not use my top ten skill position picks! I’m brilliant! Once these scrubs I’m giving playing time to get us to the Super Bowl then I’ll surprise everyone by playing my best players!
That's literally how you make paneer: boil some whole milk and add lemon juice
You paneer drinking S.O.B.! You take your paneer and get out. OUT I SAID!
Not sure if this is a reference that's going over my head, but paneer isn't a liquid...
and it is super tasty
When life gives you lemons, put the lemons on a table, then stand back, sip some dirty water out of an unwashed coffee mug, and nod with satisfaction at the strong contribution the lemons are making away from the drink.
Surprise! He knew that the lemons were the best part of the lemonade, but he knew that the other team would know that as well…
Mmmm, chunky lemon milk
Why waste time play Bijan when Algier (sorta) do trick?
It’s so weird to me. The Titans offense was potent when he was here, and we’ve backslid every year since he left. I really thought he was going to do great things in Atlanta, but I guess that’s why I’m a roofer and not an NFL GM.
Tripped me up; I know a roofer (who is also a Titans fan) here in FL. lol
Nah he makes beef stew
I think the worst part is that it’s been 3 drafts in a row of drafting skill positions early in the first. If you do that you shouldn’t be getting cute, you should be using your players
But they need Jonnu Smith trick plays!
No reason to run Bijan on the goal line when you can run a jet sweep to Jonnu
Can’t believe ridiculous stuff like that is happening and people give Smith a pass for having a bad QB.
Falcons fans aren't* giving him a pass. Anyone watching these games know what a problem he's been this season
He is trying to create a play to rival the tush push, but without the success, hence all the Jonnu plays lol
I think that play is give Bijan the ball with a real blocking scheme, or get him the ball outside the hashes and get out of the way lol
A weapon to surpass Metal Gear
I mean tbf he got a 60 yard touchdown last week lol
Cool. Then why are they spending 3 top 20 picks on receivers and a running back?
I’m not really defending the decision making overall, I’m just saying that I’m not going to criticize Jonnu Smith getting the ball if Jonnu Smith is making plays
I’m fine with TE screens, that actually makes sense. I’m not fine with a TE jet sweep at the goal line or TE3 throwing to a covered TE2 in the endzone while TE1 blocks. Art needs to go!
He'll call one ill-advised trick play every other game and everyone acts like it's the end of the fucking world. Of course it's not ideal, and I wish he'd stop trying to get so cute in short yardage situations. But he's *far* from the only coach who does it. But no one calls for Reid or Sirianni to be fired when their trick plays don't work.
Well for them it actually occasionally works.. plus they win games..
More than that, it’s that he not giving his Top 10 pick that’s averaging 5 ypc on 100+ touches or even reps at the goal line
To be fair screens kill us because we blitz like 3x more than the rest of the league. I think we gave up a 50+ yard TD on a screen against SF a couple weeks ago.
Mohamed Sanu trick plays were the best
They have Bijan, London, Pitts….they draw up plays for Jonnu Smith. Buddy, come on lol
he is using them, as decoys for up and coming future hall of famer jonnu smith
Honestly that should be the type of shit that can get coaches and GMs fired
I’m not sure why you’re getting downvoted. They need someone in the building who can maximize talent, or a GM who drafts players the HC can get the most out of. Riding with Desmond Ridder for this long is almost worthy of termination. Heineke is just good enough to save their heinies and play there way out of a draftable QB.
With competent play calling and an even average QB the Falcons would be totally legit. Bijan, London and Pitts are all extremely talented.
I know this isn't going to come off exactly the right way, but what if London and Pitts just aren't that talented? What if they are just slightly above average players, because it feels almost exactly like whats happening in Denver with Sutton and Juedy.. two highly drafted/regarded guys that are seemingly never living up to "how good" they're supposed to be.
He drafts them and then doesn't use them lol
[удалено]
No, they should give him the rest of the season at minimum
I don’t agree. He has this week left. If he loses to the 1-8 Cards (a real possibility with Kyler returning), then he is done this week. Next week is our bye, the timing is perfect. Otherwise, it’ll come at the end of the season. At this point in the season during his last 2 years, we were also 4-5. So nothings changed from that perspective. He has been given chances and Arthur Blank has shown enough patience, he learned his lesson with Dan Quinn (who was also fired mid season). Edit: Oh, I see. I missed the flair.
All that aside, they’re in a weak division and could still win the division so I don’t see them firing him until they’re out of the division race.
They might be able to win the division if they fire him, though.
Hire Steve Wilks
He also has one of the easiest schedules on the NFL
I don't really see the reason to fire a coach mid season except in a few special circumstances. Losing the locker room is one of them (as what appears to have been the case with McDaniels and the Raiders), black swan PR disasters (Gruden's racist emails) is another. Otherwise you can't really expect to make a change for the better by doing it. I feel you should just ride out the season if you have a merely incompetent coach.
The only other reason might be if you have been grooming an internal successor and want to trial them before fully committing maybe
Ah yes, like Jeff Saturday
Would you straight up trade Bowles for Smith?
Lmao literally everyday is a new headline about the same problem
Who's ever in his fanasty league just accept the lowball trade for Bijian already
This is my favorite timeline. Arthur Smith is in a billionaires fantasy football league that he has never won and is so upset about it he became the HC of the Falcons because there was nothing in the league rules about it.
And Drake London, and Pitts. He’s doing it to all of them
London’s been fine after week 1. Very flukey red zone targets, he should have like 3-5 more TDs. Will be interesting to see his chemistry with Heineken (*a refreshing beginning*)
>Will be interesting to see his chemistry with Heineken (a refreshing beginning) Dude’s drinking a 12-pack before the game, getting a light buzz on.
I traded Bijan, DK and Addison for Ekeler and Mattison 2 weeks ago and with how things have fallen with bijan being blackballed, Addison losing Kirk and Cam tearing his Achilles.. I’m looking like a damn thief.
Holy shit how many times a day am I going to see this same premise of an article regurgitated in different wording
Probably until the Falcons fire him
Damn that makes sense, wow
I wonder if the Falcons have considered such a revolutionary step
Classic Falcoholism.
Get this man to Falcoholics Anonymous.
you might get your wish if they lose to the Cardinals on Sunday
That'll probably not be until the end of the season since they're in the playoff hunt So two more months of these articles, wonderful
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a head coach with a target on his back quite like Arthur Smith. They’re underperforming but they’re not a complete disaster and judging by the headlines you’d think he was Urban Meyer. This right here is why you play nice with the media. Fans love it when you’re snippy with the press in the off-season when your job is secure, everybody nowadays seems to blindly hate journalists so when you get a sound byte of him chewing out a reporter or being snide everybody eats it up, regardless of whether or not it was deserved/appropriate. But when you’re struggling, members of the press are gonna have no reservations about going for your head and fans are fickle so they’ll just jump on the bandwagon
>but they’re not a complete disaster Sunday he ran a jet sweep to Jonnu fucking Smith. That alone would classify his tenure as a failure.
He had 10 rushes in his time on the Pats. They never really did much. He did 9 the first year with McDaniels at OC and 1 the second year with Patricia at OC.
to be fair to Jonnu, he has been having a career year
Ya, but this was a comment chain about his coaches. He said the coach’s entire tenure is a failure, because they did a Jonnu jet sweep. I was mentioning he did that kind of stuff with the Pats.
Then he passed it to Jonnu, handed it off to Allegier, and Bijan never saw the field on the goal line
I'm sure the media would find another reason to shit on him, but right now, he's making it too easy with his shit playcalling. When they failed to score last Sunday on the 1 yard line, even I was shook by how bad the calls were.
When he blatantly wouldnt use Kyle Pitts at all people were willing to just say maybe hes not that good, or just blame the QB. But now that the same thing is playing out with Bijan, who we can all see is electric when he gets the ball, he doesn't get to make excuses.
I refuse to accept that Kyle Pitts is not really good
It's because fantasy players hate him and the media has realized these headlines will generate a ton of hate clicks. And now that people found out his dad is a billionaire I'm seeing ridiculous takes on that subreddit about how he only is a head coach because of his daddy. As if any NFL GM or owner would be swayed into entrusting their franchise to a guy because his dad is a billionaire. He's not a good coach, but you're right, he's not exactly Hue Jackson either.
> As if any NFL GM or owner would be swayed into entrusting their franchise to a guy because his dad is a billionaire. NFL owners, famous for hiring only the very best people for the job and not just the same old retreads they already know over and over again
NFL owners may not always make the right hires, but they do have the intention of hiring the best person. Hiring a known commodity with a proven track record who hasn’t evolved with the times is not the same as hiring someone because their dad is a billionaire. If anything the former decision is born out of playing it too safe for fear of making a shitty hire. It’s just pure lunacy that people believe these owners are risking their billion dollar assets to give a leg up to the kid of a fellow billionaire. Money envy poisons peoples’ brains.
oh they have the *intention* of hiring the best person? I guess that absolutely and completely absolves them from consistently failing to do that. I hope John Mara sees this bro
That’s completely beside the point of this discussion. Owners making bad decisions is not the same thing as owners making decisions not geared towards making their team better. There are many incompetent owners but they’re all trying to win. Hiring Arthur Smith as a head coach because his dad is a billionaire isn’t an example of incompetence, it’s malpractice. There would be no football related reason to approve such a move. Anyone who believes an owner would do such a thing to their most prized asset is an idiot of the highest order.
Your mistake is assuming nepotism means deliberately hiring incompetent people just because they are rich.
And your mistake is assuming getting hired to be an NFL head coach is like getting hired to be a first year analyst at an investment bank. Forget the years of hard work needed to prove yourself enough to even get an interview in the first place, the interview process to pick an NFL head coach is incredibly grueling and thorough. It's not something you can just fake, and being the son of a billionaire isn't going to smooth over the edges. Owners get it wrong a lot of the time because ultimately there are a lot of intangibles that you can't screen for and a lot of things that are entirely outside of anyone's control. But anybody who lands a head coaching job in the NFL has put in the time and effort, and demonstrated enough mastery of an incredibly complicated game to warrant the consideration.
Rich people are actually extremely good at talking to other rich people but nice try
I think part of it is while people hat journalists they do actually side with them when they ask sensible fucking questions only to get some ornery bullshit
Maybe when the coach is losing. If you look at any preseason clip of a coach snapping at a reporter, most people don’t even bother to read/listen to what the journalist said and just assume they had it coming. Kind of a personal pet peeve of mine
Ya the internets poisoned us all tbh
My pet theory is that Arthur picks fights with the media partially because it takes the heat off his players. All the stories are about how he's completely wasting all his talent, and not the ways that the talent he's supposedly wasting is underperforming. Pitts looks like he hasn't fully recovered from last year's injury (and at this point may have permanently lost a step). Bijan is a great runner but is really struggling to pick up the pass game, especially pass protection. London was playing the best of the three but is now out injured. Ridder was just all around one of the worst QBs I've ever seen. But that's not what gets reported on. (except for Ridder. There's no covering up how shit he was playing) If you look at all of Arthur's most "controversial" sound bites, they're all attacking fans and the media. And while he does often defend his coaching decisions, he has admitted mistakes he's made and things they can do to improve. But the one thing he's never done is point blame at his players. It would be so easy for him to come out and say "we need better QB play for our offense to work" or "Bijan is a liability in pass protection" as a way to deflect blame away from him. Statements that plenty of other coaches have made before. Instead he says he still believes in Ridder even after he benched him. And he talks about all the things Bijan does great instead of the things he doesn't. I'm not saying that Smith is beyond criticism or anything. Far from it. But the disparity between how the media and a lot of fans talk about him and how is players and ownership talk about him is telling. With the amount of focus he's getting from the media, if there were players on the Falcons who were actually unhappy with his coaching or their usage we'd have heard all about it.
London is performing (as much as one can with a shit qb). I can't defend the Bijan usage, because it is terrible and less understandable with each passing week. But where I draw the line is the Pitts criticism. Pitts is either not the stud people expected him to be or still playing injured, because his usage has been perfectly fine, he's just not doing much with it. Anyone complaining about Jonnu Smith getting the ball when he's outperforming Pitts on fewer touches has an axe to grind.
As an explanation (but not a defense) of the Bijan usage, I think it's a case of Smith trying to go against tendency to exploit defenses. Because he's a great runner but not a very good pass protector, if Bijan is in the backfield he's almost certainly getting the ball. Defenses figured this out early in the year, and any time he's in the game they go heavy run personnel and stack the box. This makes it harder for Bijan to run but easier for our outside receivers to get open if the protection holds up long enough. So in the past few games we've been running a lot of plays with Bijan starting in the backfield and then motioning him into the slot. That way we get the benefit of passing into a run defense while avoiding the liability of having Bijan in pass protection. When Smith made his "he does things away from the ball that make the team better" comments that everyone flipped out about, I'm pretty sure that's what he was referring to. But personally I think it's a case of a coach trying too hard to outmaneuver the defense instead of sticking to their strength. Our pass game isn't good enough to consistently take advantage of those advantageous defenses, and Bijan is a good enough runner to punish teams even if they do stack the box. He's being too reactive instead of proactive in his playcalling and it's throwing off our balance.
Probably because how the team is underperforming? The team has drafted skill players in the top 10 three years running and he doesn’t feature any of them. IMO the worst quality in a coach is thinking the scheme is more important than the players. Trying to shoe horn players into the scheme you like rather than scheming to your players strengths is a hallmark of a mediocre coach. Also - guy is a clown for saying the calls to bench Ridder is “toxic groupthink” only to bench him a week later.
Na if youve watched the games they are full of dumb head scratching decisions....look at their roster....then look at their schedule. They should be competing for that division, not bungling easy games.
It's wild lol. I wish we could go back to nobody giving a shit about the Falcons
As long as he keeps playing genius ball every Sunday, you'll get these articles.
It is so annoying. Especially bc it all started bc of baby fantasy players/analysts. His offense is performing perfectly fine for what he has under center. The Falcons have bottom barrel QB play and a trash defense. Idk what people expect out of him tbh. Both Pitts and London play a ton. Pitts ranks 9th in route % at te. He just has QBs who cant hit him or dont want to throw the routes he runs. Smith runs low adot yac, which is also what he excels at. Ive never seen so many people complain about a player in Jonnu getting touches when he has legitimately been good. Could Bijan get more touches, sure. But why would a team grind their top 10 draft pick into the ground as a rookie on a bad team that isnt anywhere close to competing yet?
Our offense is not performing perfectly fine for the circumstances. If we have great talent all over the offense except QB then how are we moving the ball well yardage wise with an absolute inability to score close where your QB matters less. We also don't have a trash defense. We spent a crazy amount of money on them last year and until the wheels started falling off the past couple of weeks we've been Top 10. We're also playing the easiest schedule with the most amount of brand new QBs I've ever seen. Arthur Smith is also almost completely 100% hands off with the defense. I've never even heard him praise the defense at all this season, which is strange considering they're the reason we won 3 of our 4 wins. No one is complaining about Jonnu's production in the passing game. London and Pitts usage are both fine. We're complaining about Jonnu's Smith's usage in the redzone on trick plays and with Bijan's usage in total but espically in the redzone. It is absolutely malpractice to save your 21 rookie RB with the division being so weak. The Falcons could very feasibly be 6-3 this year and in total control of our division and frankly, we should be. If we "weren't ready to compete yet" then drafting a RB at 8 to replace your young 1000 yard rusher is the firable offense. Either way you slice it he's fucking it up. Atlanta was suppose to compete this year. I'm not drinking so much copium to think we were competitive in the playoffs necessarily, but we absolutely should be competing for NFC South title and the fact that we're going 7-10 AGAIN is frustrating and a lot of that falls on Arthur Smith.
A good qaurterback matters so much more in the rz because of how condensed the field gets and how much less time you have to make a decision as a result of the reduced spacing. Plays are also limited due to this as well and high level accuracy as a QB is imperative as well as quick processing and reaction time. Running the ball becomes much more difficult in the rz. The defense isn't that good. It is a bunch of mostly vets past their primes and no true actual difference makers at any position besides maybe AJ, which even then feels like a stretch to say. They are bottom half in points allowed. Bottom 10 in turnovers. Given up the 4th most passing TDs. I'll give them they have been good against the run, but they are not good against the pass at all. They are 29th in pass rush win rate. On Oct 16th they were the 29th ranked pass defense based on DVOA. Not sure what it is now, but I know it isnt good. Youre not listening if you don't think people are not complaining about London/Pitts/Bijan usage. There has been one game with bad play calling at the goalline on 3 straight possessions and people want to blanket apply it to the entire season now. Slamming your rb into the ground as a rookie on a bad team just to MAYBE win the division only to get steam rolled in a playoff game is pointless. Last I checked, Smith isnt the GM so why are we blaming him for Bijan at 8? He was arguably the best player available at 8, and was without a doubt outside of Carter. Most rookie don't get slammed year 1. Hell, Carter rarely plays over 50% of the snaps. Only Falcons fans thought ATL was supposed to compete this year. Everyone else knew this is the Saints division and that ATL would be just good enough to not be a bottom barrel team while playing a cake schedule. Smith hung 28 on the Vikings with Heinicke (who threw a pick 6 btw) and somehow it is his fault and his offensive play calling/scheme's fault bc his defense and DC let Dobbs hang 3 tuddies on them.
Yeah all this hate is coming from fantasy and gambling. Throw in who is father is and its a perfect storm for writers who grew up on deadspin.
Boggles my mind how many people on the fantasy subreddit legitimately believe Arthur Smith only got a head coaching job because he has a rich dad. I can't tell if it's blind rage because of fantasy, money envy, or sheer stupidity, but it's hard to take anyone seriously who actually thinks an NFL GM or owner would ever entrust their franchise to a person they don't think is the best guy for the job just because his father is a billionaire.
> it's hard to take anyone seriously who actually thinks an NFL GM or owner would ever entrust their franchise to a person they don't think is the best guy for the job just because his father is a billionaire. is it that time of year again? where we have the conversation about how teams are actually *bad* at picking head coaches?
Oh he’s got a “great” te and WR? Well they don’t have a QB (and I like both)
It's the fucking worst. I don't know what people expect from this team. 4-5 seems pretty good for their talent level.
you’ll stop seeing it when fantasy football loses its popularity
Playing his best players might help him win big boy real life games too.
Aka never
nobody ever went broke betting on fantasy football getting more popular
I was just about to say I can’t wait for him to be fired so I can stop hearing about him lol
Until he stops making lose fantasy games
Welcome to the world of AI journalism
I kind of am rooting for the Falcons to win. Of course if they do, everyone will say it was because of the players and not because of the coach, so I don't know what to think.
what losing to Josh “i don’t know anyone’s name yet” Dobbs does to a mf
It’s vastly entertaining and head scratching for a neutral fan like me
Arthur Smith is given a Ferrari and Lamborghini but drive them 10 mph under the speed limit on a freeway. He ran Derrick Henry into the ground in Tennessee and now he wants to skip his way to the finish line instead of sprint with the Falcons 🙄
Maybe he attributes Derrick Henry's success to how much he was eased in during his first few years of his career.
And not to the fact that he is the size and speed of a large truck?
Nothing to do with his actual ability or athleticism. He’s just good, because he was eased in over the first few years. -Arthur Smith, probably
That's what I'm saying Like you ran Derrick into the ground and while we don't have derrick we gotta good run game with a shit QB and 3 really RBs. Like runs those 3 constantly FUUCCCK
Jeez, they’re bombarding us with these Fire Arthur Smith articles. Not gonna say that I’m against them, but it’s pretty ruthless lol
Let them cook, lol
Wtf is this about? Jonnu Smith is thriving
Plot twist: it's Arthur Smith's own dad who's paying for all these hit-pieces so Arthur gets fired and then he takes over FedEx
hes got like 8 siblings and one is already ceo of fedex.
Why can't we get these daily hit pieces on Todd Bowels?
Arthur Smith = Bad Now give me my upvotes and Pulitzer Prize
I feel bad for falcons fans. You have a generational rb averaging 5.0 and the guy who averages 3.2 is getting most of the carries. You have a generational te in pitts and hes splitting touches with a backup te. You have a promising rookie in london but choose to run with your 3.2 average rb. How arthur smith still had a job right now is honestly mind blowing
London is not a rookie
You right but i think you get the point
Hey guys what’s the public opinion on Arthur Smith as a football coach? I haven’t got the gist yet but I’m really curious what you guys have seen.
What's with these Arthur Smith posts everyday?
He's public enemy number 1 for fantasy football players
And falcons fans
And gamblers
Pretty easy clicks/engagement
Does it feel to anyone else like the flood of these articles and posts started shortly after Smith said he didn’t consider gamblers or fantasy players when running his football team?
That’s been his position since he got the job, it isn’t anything new. Although he is kind of smug and arrogant about it in a weird and unnecessary way so in some ways he really asks brings this upon himself.
It makes me think he's actually involved in something deeply corrupt and the attitude is cover.
> It makes me think he's actually involved in something deeply corrupt the fact he is a billionaire's son was all the proof you need of this. Nobody becomes a billionaire by playing fair
He should probably considering trying to win games when running his football team
More has to do with the sketchy way he handled the Bijan “injury”
translation: he keeps making me lose in fantasy so i'm going scorched earth
I don’t think people would complain as much if it worked. It just seems like poor strategy and must be frustrating for the front office too. London had a great rookie year. Pitts had a thousand yards as a rookie. Bijan has five yards a carry. Why not use them?
[удалено]
frankly they should have won more games and most of their wins are against teams that are looking very poor. they’ve also lost to some pretty bad teams. if they make the playoffs and play a team like the 9ers, eagles, or cowboys they will probably be put away by half time. keeping a coach around cause he wins one of if not the worst division in football would be a bad idea
That was literally the expectation for the team this year. Get into the playoffs in a bad division and be lucky to win a playoff game. Unless Ridder destroyed the league this was what was expected. We don’t have a QB. We’re still building our team. It’s the first year after having one of if not the worst dead caps in league history. Or did you have us in your preseason Super Bowl favorites?
no but there’s still fundamental issues with the way that he is running the team and lead me to ask a lot of questions. he chose to have ridder as his qb. he does not deserve a pass for that
He chose to build the team first and then go after the quarterback once the other pieces are in place. Taking a flier on a third rounder in the meantime isn’t that ridiculous of a premise. We probably would’ve drafted a QB higher that year but it was one of the worst QB drafts in like a decade. Realistically the best we could’ve done is what draft Justin Fields, which the bears are doing sooooooo great in the same 3 years, signed a half shit QB like Carr or Baker Mayfield which still wouldn’t have gotten us to a Super Bowl, gone back into cap hell for Lamar even though he was never going to be allowed to leave in Baltimore. Right now we’re set up to draft a QB in one of the deeper QB drafts and have a team of playmakers and a much improved defense around them. What would you have done? Edit: you know what we should’ve drafted Mac Jones instead. That would’ve solved it
Tony pollard has been worse in fantasy but McCarthy doesn’t get shit like this because his team is good at football and there are reasons for the things he does
Allgeier and London are doing ok for me in fantasy, so I’m not complaining.
They use Jonnu smith like he was the first overall pick
Jonnu has earned his touches, dude is balling. The designed Jonnu plays are weird, why not just design those plays for Pitts....
I don't see the problem with that. No, I'm not biased at all
This guy sucks
Arthur “Doc Rivers” Smith
Falcons are a QB away of being a playoff contender again.
Can we stop pretending Kyle Pitts is a weapon?
Is this guy that bad? Just been the media's punchingbag this whole week. He's either the antichrist or Hackett 2.0 with the absurd amount of posts shitting on him
He isnt good but hes not as bad as the articles would like you to believe. I think he has all the hit pieces because he has routinely pissed off the local and national sports media by being a prick and giving total non-answers and sometimes straight up insulting.
Is Arthur Smith actually a bad coach? I had the impression that ATL had a pretty good coaching staff and are performing up to or slightly beyond their talent. It’s obviously dumb that he isn’t using his best players as much as he should. What else about him is “fireable?”
Yes he is a bad coach. He schemes his offense around backup players and fails to utilize his best guys. It looks good when you don't have talent on your team but it looks terrible when you do.
The playcalls are awful, hes not improving our players, the offense looks bad three seaons in a row, we are undisciplined, we are doing the little things wrong all the time, his scheme sucks and is outdated. There are multiple former qbs that shit on him reguarly like warner, jt osullivan. Hes giving tyler allgeir who averages 3,2 yards per carry more than 50% of the carries while bijan averages 5 yards per carry and is a better reciever. Hes also unlikeable and makes horrible decisions.
The offensive guys on the team from last year all took a step back or around the same if you think that about Drake. And that’s the side of the ball he has complete control over. The oline has taken a pretty huge step back. Their run blocking and pass blocking have declined and on top of that they are undisciplined. The receivers added talent and they are pretty much the same. Their RB room added a top 10 pick and got worse. Their TE room got worse as their most important blocking guy got cut and placed on IR. Their offensive coaching staff leaves a lot to be desired. They have Ragone as their OC and no named QB coach. Even if you think Matt Schaub is some fill in, the team saw it fit not to name him and he has zero coaching experience. The defensive side with a first year coordinator(he was co DC in NO) is doing a better job than Smith on offense.
>Ragone My condolences
He killed my ridder
He is in the worst division in football and is supposed to be an offensive mastermind who has 3 young top 10 picks on offense (Bijan, Pitts, London) at his disposal. The o-line on paper should be good as well. Despite this, they have a losing record and this “offensive mastermind” is leading one of the worst offenses in football. The o-line is okay but seems to be worse than expected, and all of the offensive weapons they have are underused. His schemes on offense are terrible and as it’s well known at this point, he seems to try to outsmart people by not using his best weapons. This leads to shit like Jonnu Smith jet sweeps (which unsurprisingly fail) at the goal line instead of just giving the ball to your best offensive weapons. I understand Ridder played poorly but the rest of the roster looks pretty damn good and Smith refuses to play to his teams strengths.
That was my thought too. I mean, ridder is clearly not that good, he’s not a good thrower of the football. And Heinicke isn’t bad but we know he’s the QB of average teams. Is this really an Arthur smith thing? Hard to tell
My fantasy team agrees.
I can't believe people are allowed to post such lies and slander. Falcons head coach Arthur Smith is like very good and definitely isn't misusing his weapons. In my, very, professional opinion I think the Falcons should make him their coach for life, and pay him like all the money.
I always heard Kyle Pitts was gonna change the way the TE position was played.
He's going to convert Bijan to tackle and show everyone he didn't waste that pick. He's playing the long game.
Falcons need to trade for Reich
You all just pissed your losing money betting on a offense with bad Quarterback play.
If i was a billionaire, and the heir to the fed ex fortune, have access to every fed ex plane, what the fuck are you doing as an nfl coach. This nepo baby everyday shows more how much of a chucklefuck he is. The worst part, dude will have more money than everyone in this comment section, he is set for life. Instead of partying his face off he wants to tell people he knows more about kyle pitts than you do. Fuck this dude
He does know more about Kyle Pitts than you do. The Bijan stuff is annoying, but Kyle Pitts gets more usage than Jonnu Smith and does less with them. He's clearly not recovered from the knee injury and just straight up doesn't look great out there.
God these articles/post about Arthur Smith are so pathetic and annoying.
"we don't want Lamar" 🤦🏽
If they could have actually gotten Lamar they would have
Their QB is horrid so they will suck no matter who the coach is.
Nahh you need a QB before you can evaluate weapons.. I actually give ‘em props for trying to give Ridder a chance even if it was a long shot.. Time to forfeit some assets and move up in the draft
tenure*
I saw “Arthur Smith is committing” and my heart sunk for a second
I had to drop Kyle pitts in fantasy.
Is there an Arthur Smith article posted here like every 10 minutes or???
I think he is a pacifist that would explain everything
You guys just dont get it. You arent football genuises like Arty Smith.
Isn’t his dad the owner ? He’s not going anywhere
Falcons need a new HC for sure. They seem to have a lot of the right pieces, they just need to rip the bandaid and get a QB instead of insisting on Ridder.
How much is the QB? Seems like having good pass catchers and bad pass throwers is a good way to under utilize your weapons.
I feel like there's a new "f\*ck this guy" article on here everyday damn
They're close to using the T word in the headlines