With 12 games under his belt as the starting quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, Desmond Ridder continues to draw criticism for his performance and whether or not he should remain QB1 for the franchise throughout the remainder of the season and in the future. Unfortunately for the second-year signal-caller, Sunday’s loss to the Titans in which he went 8-for-12 for 71 yards and was sacked five times and became the league leader in turnovers with 12 this season, was brutal. And all that damage happened in the first half.
With an unexpected turn of events, at the start of the third quarter, the Falcons opted for backup Taylor Heinicke to take the reins of the offense, something many Atlanta fans have been calling for the past couple of weeks. And while Ridder was now on the bench, the reason for Arthur Smith’s decision to make the QB change was a result of concerns for Ridder’s wellbeing as the team had him checked for a concussion following the series of sacks that he took in the first half.
So while the move to Heinicke, who is in first season with the Falcons, may have satisfied some fans and critics, with Smith making it clear that the Ridder being benched was more of a safety precaution and not “performance based” had 92-9 The Game’s Steak Shapiro ask his guest co-host Mike Johnson of The Morning Shift, if Ridder is the ‘future’ of the quarterback position for the franchise, to which he believes that if Falcons General Manager, Terry Fontenot and Smith were to convey to owner, Arthur Blank that they believe in Ridder for the future of the team, “that’s the wrong answer, right? That can’t be your answer,” Shapiro said to Johnson
Admitting that he does not believe that ‘right now’ Ridder is the answer for Atlanta, Johnson added that following Sunday’s loss to Tennessee, he has more questions about Ridder. “I felt really good about Desmond even after the three interception game. I said ‘this is a functioning offense,’ not a functioning offense in the first half yesterday,” Johnson told Shapiro.
Click link above to hear Shapiro and Johnson’s conversation in its entirety:




