Atlanta Falcons: Every single player and coach deserves blame
The Atlanta Falcons were absolutely embarrassed against the Dallas Cowboys, not much else you can say.
With that complete embarrassment comes a lot of blame. Should the blame land on Arthur Smith, Matt Ryan, the defense, or the offensive line? The answer is that it should lie on the shoulders of each and every player or coach who participated in this game.
Every single member of the Falcons should receive blame for the embarrassment
Let’s start with the Falcons head coach, Arthur Smith. Smith has had a very up and down year in his first season as a head coach. At times he has looked incapable of leading a team, while the next week he looks like he is en route to winning coach of the year.
This was most certainly the former, he put a team out there that was lost and confused.
He is the leader of the team and when the team looks like they did, a lot of blame should be on him for not having them prepared. He fielded a team that had one of the worst first-half performances in NFL history, if he was not in his first year there could be a consideration for firing him.
Moving on to the next face of the franchise, Matt Ryan, he simply looked lost outside of the first drive of the game. He was constantly throwing the ball into windows that just were not there, he was running for his life, and he was simply being harrassed by Dan Quinn’s defense.
The first interception was a great play by the defensive back, but the second one falls on his shoulders completely. It was an awful throw, one that looked like it had come from the arm of Sam Darnold. The game went so poorly that they brought in Josh Rosen—who also looked awful—because there was no hope of a comeback.
Next up is the offensive line, who much like they have all year, looked incapable of pass blocking any defender thrown their way. Jalen Mayfield had a play that made viewers think it was a screen pass because he never even touched the defender. McGary once again was a liability, overall it looked like the same line that started the year.
The defense looked like they would not even care if the Cowboys put up 100 points on them. They could not cover anyone, they were awful when the Cowboys got in fourth downs, among many other things.
Deion Jones is one player who looked to be giving little to no effort. On the first drive by Dallas they threw a screen pass to CeeDee Lamb, Deion was jogging his way over to Lamb while he was sprinting for more than a 30 yard gain. Then Debo also looked scared to take on Zeke when he was blitzing.
In a critical game, no one on the team stepped up, they were simply embarrassed all day long.
Overall, every player and coach should be blamed for this game. No one had a good game and the Falcons looked like a college team on Sunday, hopefully, a short week will let them put this behind them and move on.