3 Moves the Atlanta Falcons shouldn’t have made this off-season

3. Atlanta’s front office mismanaged the press this off-season

The nature of the NFL often demands that the front office and coaching staffs give canned non-answers. It is the nature of the position and the reasoning behind it that makes sense when you consider the business and the potential headlines if teams didn’t use this approach.

However, there are non-answers and typical GM-speak and then there is the Atlanta Falcons’ off-season approach. One that started notably with the Atlanta GM attempting to convince us this team was attempting to compete despite their off-season moves screaming otherwise.

Why go out of your way to make such a statement when you’re clearly tearing the roster down to rebuild? Competing and refusing to tank are two very different things, just because the Falcons aren’t actively tanking doesn’t mean the team is anywhere close to a contending roster.

To follow this up the Atlanta front office had the aforementioned Deshaun Watson debacle they decided to downplay in what was an awkward press conference. Despite reliable reports, the Falcons were at one time one of the final two teams in the running for Watson the team seemed to want to downplay their interest in a quarterback they obviously went all in for.

Almost as bad as the mistake itself is the front office believing the fanbase would buy their half-hearted explanations and answers for chasing a player with ongoing legal issues and in turn forcing out Matt Ryan. The team’s mismanagement and seeming belief the fans wouldn’t see through these halfhearted explanations is concerning at best. Faith in the Atlanta front office has been lowered despite what was an encouragingly competitive 2021 season because of the team’s approach.