Atlanta Falcons: Looking like we won’t see Desmond Ridder this year

The Atlanta Falcons have one of the worst passing offenses in the entire NFL this year and most of the blame lies directly on Marcus Mariota

Mariota has been as inaccurate as they come and it has led to all of the fans screaming for Desmond Ridder, and for once, the fans are right to be angry. It makes no sense to keep rolling with one of the league’s most inaccurate quarterbacks.

Desmond Ridder should be put in there simply because he isn’t Marcus Mariota, but it doesn’t seem like anything will change this year.

Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith isn’t ready for Desmond Ridder

The biggest question right now for the Atlanta Falcons, besides when Desmond Ridder will play, is whether the resistance by Arthur Smith to make a quarterback change is due to an allegiance to Marcus Mariota or because he fully believes Desmond Ridder is not ready yet.

Right now is the perfect time to start the rookie, he gets a full week of studying and he would get to play an awful defense, but Arthur Smith isn’t budging in the slightest.

"You can make it about the quarterback, how ’bout about the team? We had an opportunity at the end of the fourth quarter the last two weeks, and a lot of different ways, and a lot of different phases where we’ve got to get better. And we’ve got an opportunity to do that with seven games left."

He definitely has a point, the team has not played well for a couple of weeks now, but he is also deflecting the question. Marcus Mariota could have won both of the prior two games but instead, he cost them with bad plays and missed throws.

Other players at other positions would be benched if they played as poorly as Mariota has. In fact, think about Bryan Edwards who has barely been given a chance to play but went from the second receiver on the depth chart to last.

There needs to be some individual accountability here. Marcus Mariota has cost this team and if he was a baseball player, his “wins above replacement” metric would be in the negatives. Harsh to say, but most backups could easily make some of the throws he has been missing.