3 Current and former Atlanta Falcons that regressed under Arthur Smith

2. Marcus Mariota

Marcus Mariota is responsible for the turnovers and the consistent poor decision-making that led to his benching. However, if we are going to be completely fair to Mariota here look back at his career with both the Raiders and the Titans. The player that showed up in Atlanta was clearly worse and regressed throughout the season.

Arthur Smith brought his guy to Atlanta and had full control of the offense in the 2022 season. The result was Mariota regressing and playing the worst ball of his career. Unlike Ryan, Mariota may not be a franchise player but he clearly is better than what we watched in the 2022 season.

Both his tenure with the Titans and Raiders illustrated this. The current Eagles backup was held back by poor coaching and consistently bad play from receivers that yet again had no depth. Mariota wasn't the answer for Atlanta and deserves a large share of the blame for how he played. But the fact remains that Marcus is yet another veteran quarterback who under Arthur Smith regressed and played the worst ball of his career. Smith had plenty of issues in 2022 but yet again the biggest one was poor quarterback play from a player he chose, continued to start, and designed plays for.