Should the Falcons Start Over, Or Do They Need To Tweak The Roster?

[Not th@t f@r from #1]

This has become an annual question in Atlanta: should the front office blow up the roster and start over, or are there pieces in place to get the Falcons back to playing something other than what we've been subjected to the last two seasons?

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Steve Wyche thinks that with $23 million in salary-cap space, the front office should "semi-gut" the roster.

[New general manager Thomas] Dimitroff and [head coach Mike] Smith have to be sure they find the right replacements, though because if they're going to make wholesale changes, they better not miss on the players they bring in. Not to say immediate results would be demanded by Blank but if things stagnate or get even worse over the next few years...

Yeah, I'd say it's probably pretty important to just not sign the biggest name in free agency, but to actually find some players that help improve the team. The former strategy didn't work out all that well when Redskins owner Dan Snyder tried it with Deion Sanders and Bruce Smith back in the late 1990s.

Wyche also writes that losing assistant general manager Billy Devaney weakens the personnel department, which is kind of a big deal for a Falcons team that lacks depth up and down the roster.

Of course, Atlanta wouldn't be in this situation if owner Arthur Blank wasn't in such a hurry to fire Jim Mora, or before him, Dan Reeves. I'll admit to thinking that Mora let the inmates run the asylum during his stint with the Falcons, but in retrospect, he might as well have been Tom Landry relative to all that's happened in the past 12 months.

[IHateThe Cowboys!]

He's an idiot! We are more than $23 Million in Free Agency signings from even making the playoffs, muchless anything else. CLEAN HOUSE!!!!! Start all over!