The Falcons had an active offseason last spring. That didn’t lead to any sort of improvement on the field, which very well might have been the nail in Arthur Smith’s proverbial coffin.
Atlanta canned the head coach just after the stroke midnight Monday following three straight 7-10 seasons with Smith at the helm. The Falcons had an opportunity to sneak into the postseason if they won Sunday in New Orleans and the Bucs lost to the Panthers, but Atlanta got pantsed by the Saints, crushing any hope.
This season was supposed to unlock a lot of things for the Falcons. They were in a weak division, they bolstered the defense with Jessie Bates, and the addition of Bijan Robinson in the draft was supposed to give them a three-headed monster at running back. There were plenty of questions around Desmond Ridder, but they safeguarded him by signing Taylor Heinicke, who had bailed out the Commanders plenty of times.
Yet the result was the same, and 92.9 The Game’s Beau Morgan said Monday on The Morning Shift that’s what sealed Smith’s fate.
“The ultimate dagger was the fact that record wise the team did not improve when they went out and spent money," Morgan said. "If you go 8-9 or 9-8 you can make a debate (that) look, we got better, we didn’t get better at the biggest position, but look at the improvement. You made an improvement. But you didn’t have that.
“If you got the quarterback position right last year or in the offseason -- which I’ll be 100 percent, I’ll be honest with you if you want to use all of our cliches, I thought that Ridder, based on what I saw the last four games, was not the guy that he ended up being. What I mean by that is, I never in a million years after last season, the way he played with protecting the football, would say he's a turnover machine. I was completely wrong, and that happens, it’s part of it.
“But you couldn't afford to get both of the guys wrong. If Ridder wasn’t the guy, Heinicke had to be serviceable, and to me, I didn’t think Heinicke was serviceable.”