At this point you have to admit it.

[jetpac]

Smith was wrong. Ridder should have got the nod after the Carolina game (you know the Mariotta sideways throw game). The whole “meaningful football in December” was actually the same speech we had last year and just like last year after week 1 of December we are out of it. 
 

The thing is, so many people were praising this guy and saying how smart he was and how they trusted his process and yet after todays presser I don’t see a guy who is any of that. He looked like a defeated coach who knows he’s literally wasted an NFC south down year, a year in which the Bucs are begging us to take the division. He rode the Mariota hand when he KNEW he should have made the change long ago. Any coach in this league would have decided long ago this guy isn’t it. But Smith was defiant, arrogant and smug (as if he knew something we didn’t  regarding his QB Mariota) and he played his hand. Now his tuned as changed. Embarrassed and humbled and hoping for a “spark”.

Rookie coaches make mistakes sure, but they don’t last long when they refuse to fix personnel issues that LITERALLY cost your team week in and week out. I hope we see something after the bye that’s inspiring, because as it stands - he’s let this city down pretty hard. Which to be fair is par the course for this franchise. Instead of being the beacon of hope that we hired him for, he’s more of the same we’ve expected.

As he said himself, there are no Moral Victories in this league. 

[KCFalcon22]

I agree *** wrong 

[ThisIsNotFantasyFootball]

1 minute ago, jetpac said:

Smith was wrong. Ridder should have got the nod after the Carolina game (you know the Mariotta sideways throw game). The whole “meaningful football in December” was actually the same speech we had last year and just like last year after week 1 of December we are out of it. 
 

The thing is, so many people were praising this guy and saying how smart he was and how they trusted his process and yet after todays presser I don’t see a guy who is any of that. He looked like a defeated coach who knows he’s literally wasted an NFC south down year, a year in which the Bucs are begging us to take the division. He rode the Mariota hand when he KNEW he should have made the change long ago. Any coach in this league would have decided long ago this guy isn’t it. But Smith was defiant, arrogant and smug (as if he knew something we didn’t  regarding his QB Mariota) and he played his hand. Now his tuned as changed. Embarrassed and humbled and hoping for a “spark”.

Rookie coaches make mistakes sure, but they don’t last long when they refuse to fix personnel issues that LITERALLY cost your team week in and week out. I hope we see something after the bye that’s inspiring, because as it stands - he’s let this city down pretty hard. Which to be fair is par the course for this franchise. Instead of being the beacon of hope that we hired him for, he’s more of the same we’ve expected.

As he said himself, there are no Moral Victories in this league. 

Oh noes, can't have this sort of reasoning lest you be called childish...

[jetpac]

8 minutes ago, ThisIsNotFantasyFootball said:

Oh noes, can't have this sort of reasoning lest you be called childish...

Touché my bro

[Sun Tzu 7]

Smith hasn’t been playing the long game and it might come back to bite him in the ***.

With cap space will come expectations of improvement. But if they got it wrong with Ridder….. 

AS is not as bulletproof as some people think.

But then again people around here were arguing how Bobby Petrino wasn’t a terrible coach until they saw the “note”

[The Don™]

Better QB play and this team is 8-5 instead.

That says two things. Mariota sucks. But also speaks to the good job AS and his coaches have done outside of the QB position. The coaching is much better than the later DQ years and the team is bought in. Least penalized team and a top five rushing attack. Even with no pass rush, no QB, below average LB and safety play we still have been in games. It speaks to the good job AS has done outside of the serious deficiencies.

We as fans are overly critical but the people outside our team know AS has done a dam* good job with what he's got.

[JayOzOne]

Meh. This year was always a wash. Playing competitive football was fool's gold for some of you. Arthur knows what he's doing. We signed a bunch of dudes to one and two year deals. Putting a rookie in to improve the team next season tells them this season doesn't matter. Trust me, if Ridder was lighting it up in practice, the locker room would already have put pressure on Arthur to put him in. They want to win at least as bad as we want to see them win.

Now, we can finally see the kid play and Coach hasn't lost any credibility with his locker room. This is the way. Embrace it and let things play out unless you just like being unnecessarily stressed out.

[Killing Floor]

Wrong to essentially bench all his top draft picks and just assume he can talk his way through it. 

[JayOzOne]

1 minute ago, The Don™ said:

Better QB play and this team is 8-5 instead.

That says two things. Mariota sucks. But also speaks to the good job AS and his coaches have done outside of the QB position. The coaching is much better than the later DQ years and the team is bought in. Least penalized team and a top five rushing attack. Even with no pass rush, no QB, below average LB and safety play we still have been in games. It speaks to the good job AS has done outside of the serious deficiencies.

We as fans are overly critical but the people outside our team know AS has done a dam* good job with what he's got.

Yup. Say it again for the people in the back. They can't hear you.*

 

*Sorry, just checked. They're not listening. My bad.

[jetpac]

3 minutes ago, JayOzOne said:

Meh. This year was always a wash. Playing competitive football was fool's gold for some of you. Arthur knows what he's doing. We signed a bunch of dudes to one and two year deals. Putting a rookie in to improve the team next season tells them this season doesn't matter. Trust me, if Ridder was lighting it up in practice, the locker room would already have put pressure on Arthur to put him in. They want to win at least as bad as we want to see them win.

Now, we can finally see the kid play and Coach hasn't lost any credibility with his locker room. This is the way. Embrace it and let things play out unless you just like being unnecessarily stressed out.

Yea i’m sure this entire team of professionals and guys playing for their future and lively hood are ok with the thought that this entire season was a wash….. Makes sense my man. Great post.

[32wood84white]

Man, I get it, people are invested in this team as they should be. This is our team. But so many let emotions get in the way of perspective. In no way am I saying tank, I love watching the falcons and love it even more when they win. Especially this year because we all know how short the stack is. But going all in like the fans want with Ridder, so he gets us to the playoffs, **** we even win two of them with Ridder. What does it amount to??? Momentum for next year? **** we’ve seen this so called “momentum” before and it got us no where.

He is a rookie QB, let him sit, let him learn and when the time comes he will get his chance. It really doesn’t matter if he plays great. This roster will still be overturned yet again due to where we are with the cap but this time “hopefully” with better players due to the increased cap space we will have and our drafted guys getting better not only with the experience but with having hopefully a fuller deck around them to let them thrive.

Even then I don’t believe we are out if Tampa wins. Could be mathematically wrong, haven’t done ESPNs playoff machine yet, but even with saying this I hope Ridder comes in and goes 4-0 and gets us there. Again, it won’t amount to much going into next season because they will have to orchestrate yet another roster.

So we can hate on AS and disagree all we want, but his contract always told us what the deal was. He was here to take the lumps. And to his favor, no matter how bad he has played, this team was fun to watch and was in every game.

[RING OF HONOR]

8 minutes ago, JayOzOne said:

Yup. Say it again for the people in the back. They can't hear you.*

 

*Sorry, just checked. They're not listening. My bad.

My man....talk to em

[Lethal]

20 minutes ago, The Don™ said:

Better QB play and this team is 8-5 instead.

That says two things. Mariota sucks. But also speaks to the good job AS and his coaches have done outside of the QB position. The coaching is much better than the later DQ years and the team is bought in. Least penalized team and a top five rushing attack. Even with no pass rush, no QB, below average LB and safety play we still have been in games. It speaks to the good job AS has done outside of the serious deficiencies.

We as fans are overly critical but the people outside our team know AS has done a dam* good job with what he's got.

This is why a lot of us have been calling for Mariotas head for so long but “we’re winning games” had people looking past the fact that he was absolute garbage and bottoming out this offense.  
 

Smith should have pulled the trigger much sooner, assuming he even pulls it now I have to see it to believe it.  Waiting til we are out of playoff contention to swap the position in large part causing the team to fall out of playoff contention is insanity to me.

[Bunchy Carter]

8 minutes ago, Lethal said:

This is why a lot of us have been calling for Mariotas head for so long but “we’re winning games” had people looking past the fact that he was absolute garbage and bottoming out this offense.  
 

Smith should have pulled the trigger much sooner, assuming he even pulls it now I have to see it to believe it.  Waiting til we are out of playoff contention to swap the position in large part causing the team to fall out of playoff contention is insanity to me.

I've BEEN saying that waiting for the games to be meaningless to put Ridder in would be dunderheaded 

[VTCrunkler]

10 minutes ago, Lethal said:

This is why a lot of us have been calling for Mariotas head for so long but “we’re winning games” had people looking past the fact that he was absolute garbage and bottoming out this offense.  
 

Smith should have pulled the trigger much sooner, assuming he even pulls it now I have to see it to believe it.  Waiting til we are out of playoff contention to swap the position in large part causing the team to fall out of playoff contention is insanity to me.

AS managing the season like manages late game situations. 

[NorthGaBoy]

1 hour ago, jetpac said:

Smith was wrong. Ridder should have got the nod after the Carolina game (you know the Mariotta sideways throw game). The whole “meaningful football in December” was actually the same speech we had last year and just like last year after week 1 of December we are out of it. 
 

The thing is, so many people were praising this guy and saying how smart he was and how they trusted his process and yet after todays presser I don’t see a guy who is any of that. He looked like a defeated coach who knows he’s literally wasted an NFC south down year, a year in which the Bucs are begging us to take the division. He rode the Mariota hand when he KNEW he should have made the change long ago. Any coach in this league would have decided long ago this guy isn’t it. But Smith was defiant, arrogant and smug (as if he knew something we didn’t  regarding his QB Mariota) and he played his hand. Now his tuned as changed. Embarrassed and humbled and hoping for a “spark”.

Rookie coaches make mistakes sure, but they don’t last long when they refuse to fix personnel issues that LITERALLY cost your team week in and week out. I hope we see something after the bye that’s inspiring, because as it stands - he’s let this city down pretty hard. Which to be fair is par the course for this franchise. Instead of being the beacon of hope that we hired him for, he’s more of the same we’ve expected.

As he said himself, there are no Moral Victories in this league. 

You have different objectives.  AS wants to get Ridder ready for 2023 and knows this team cannot win a SB this season.  You want to get your highlight thrills in 2022.  I wonder.  Which of these best serves the Falcons long term?

Edited December 5, 2022 by NorthGaBoy

[The Don™]

22 minutes ago, Lethal said:

This is why a lot of us have been calling for Mariotas head for so long but “we’re winning games” had people looking past the fact that he was absolute garbage and bottoming out this offense.  
 

Smith should have pulled the trigger much sooner, assuming he even pulls it now I have to see it to believe it.  Waiting til we are out of playoff contention to swap the position in large part causing the team to fall out of playoff contention is insanity to me.

He's looking at this long term and not just for this year though. It's frustrating but I also get it. 

[FalconsFanSince194eva]

21 minutes ago, The Don™ said:

He's looking at this long term and not just for this year though. It's frustrating but I also get it. 

Wouldn’t the long term benefits of Ridder playing this season to adjust to NFL speed? This year was a wash like some people are saying so why stick to a player that won’t be on the team next year?

 

Mariota leash should have been short, and after the Saints blunder he should of had one more strike to go before being benched. Im on like strike 15 with Mariota, his benching (if it even happens) should have been weeks ago after the Panthers game (I think it should have been after the Bengals game but I could understand not benching him).

[Lethal]

39 minutes ago, VTCrunkler said:

AS managing the season like manages late game situations. 

Now you’re just trying to get me fired up 😂 

[VTCrunkler]

Just now, Lethal said:

Now you’re just trying to get me fired up 😂 

How about:

“It was never about this year!” 

[Lethal]

12 minutes ago, VTCrunkler said:

How about:

“It was never about this year!” 

The way this is going if I get warning points they’re on you 😂 

[VTCrunkler]

12 minutes ago, Lethal said:

The way this is going if I get warning points they’re on you 😂 

Heheheh 

[Falcons_Frenzy]

1 hour ago, Sun Tzu 7 said:

Smith hasn’t been playing the long game and it might come back to bite him in the ***.

With cap space will come expectations of improvement. But if they got it wrong with Ridder….. 

AS is not as bulletproof as some people think.

But then again people around here were arguing how Bobby Petrino wasn’t a terrible coach until they saw the “note”

It's amazing how blind people can be. The Falcons can do no wrong in their eyes. These are the same people who will criticize a mock draft then when it turns out to be right they jump on board with the pick like it's the best thing ever. 

[PriMeTiiMe]

No one will ever know if sitting Ridder was the right thing to do. 

What everyone should have known was that this team was not competing this year. They played a lot of close tough games and the talent levels lost it in some while boneheaded mistakes/decisions lost some others. Its been all about 2023 all-along. If saving Ridder from the wraths of our O-line than so be it. I know that even if he started game 1 this team was not good enough to make any legit noise.

[Sun Tzu 7]

6 minutes ago, Falcons_Frenzy said:

It's amazing how blind people can be. The Falcons can do no wrong in their eyes. These are the same people who will criticize a mock draft then when it turns out to be right they jump on board with the pick like it's the best thing ever. 

AS will probably stick with Mariota because it’s going to be a no win situation.

Because if he goes with Ridder and he plays well he’s going to look bad, real bad, for not starting him sooner when they had a real shot at the playoffs.