It's Atlanta's second possession. They had moved the ball well on their first drive, but for whatever reason the coaching staff decided to try for the long field goal into the wind in heavy snow. The kick was on target but short. Chicago responded with a touchdown drive. So on the second drive, Atlanta moves the ball well again. It's third and six at Chicago's 24. But there is serious confusion at the line of scrimmage. The receivers bunched on the right side of the line are all looking back at the quarterback as if they didn't understand an audible or were waiting for some kind of signal. Nobody called time out. Heinecke called for the snap with most of his receivers not knowing what they were supposed to do. This sums up why head coach Arthur Smith might indeed be on the hot seat. It's week 17 and his offense still has moments where they look like they're playing the first week of preseason. This is not a well-oiled machine, and that points to the coach. The other disturbing item of the week is a hint that Smith might actually be losing the locker room. A tweet exchange from Cordarrelle Patterson made it pretty clear he's not thrilled about not being used. Arthur Smith listed him as a starter at the "Joker" position on the depth chart in the so-called positionless offense. But the wide open attack never really happened, and Patterson has become the forgotten man in the all-too-predictable scheme. As an example, the RB/WR Patterson played only 8 snaps on offense against Chicago, with no carries and no targets. By contrast, third string tight end Mycole Pruitt played 14 snaps, with one target. Patterson's contract ends this season, with 2024 being a void year. It will be sad to see him go, but at this point I don't see either side wanting to make things happen to bring him back for another year. But is it only Patterson who isn't happy? Publicly, the players are putting on the happy face for the media. But there are a lot of guys still on one-year contracts. Openly supporting the team no matter what could be a self-serving move, promoting themselves as team-first players before they hit the open market. Patterson has always been the most vocal team-first guy you could imagine during his entire stay with the Falcons. Even a hint that he's actually unhappy here HAS to be a concern that he's not the only one.
Back in the preseason with the addition of a talented players and the addition of Nielson to be the brains on defense I was convinced this team was going to excel, especially with the South Division competition. I really believed Ridder would break out and with the offensive targets and weapons such as London, Patterson, Allgeire, Pitts, Hollins and Hodge, things were set to explode. I thought they would be one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL. Nielson came in and did his job by addressing the weak defense and things went 180* to the positive, completely turned it all around. On the other hand, the Falcons cant do didley on offense outside of a couple games. My point is this in a nut-shell... If you bring in a coach that can basically revamp the D over-night, which is proven, then why couldnt Smith match on offense and get the right offensive chemistry going with all that good talent? Smith has got to go, period. I like Ragone as an OC so far and cant blame him for everything or even anything... he did well a couple years ago when he let the talent of the best offensive players do their business and the turn-around was great in 2022, one of the best turn-arounds ever in todays NFL... so if im pointing a finger, Im confident in my finger pointing at Arthur Smith. Hopefully Blank doesnt draw blanks and realizes this also... to me its obvious.
For me, the problem with Ragone isn't Ragone. It's simply that they're having him do double-duty as OC and QB coach. To me that's a horrible move, especially when you're developing a young starting QB. Ragone is a former QB. WR coach T.J. Yates is a former QB (and was even with the Falcons at one point). The team brought back former QB Matt Schaub as an analyst. But even though they have three actual ex-QBs on board, they don't have a true QB coach at all. My take is that if you want to develop younger QBs, you need a full time QB coach and probably also an assistant QB coach, and one of them needs to be really strong at developing technique and fundamentals. I loved having Charles London here for 2021-2022, but he was an X's and O's guy helping them to assimilate the scheme and break down offensive and defensive concepts. He wasn't the guy to help with throwing motion, maintaining proper balance, footwork, etc. Ridder has had Jordan Palmer working with him in the offseason on that stuff, but he needs more. You need that guy in house to work with the QBs during practice all season long. Ridder definitely needs it drilled into him on a daily basis. Heinecke could still use it too, for that matter. If Arthur Smith ends up gone, I suspect that Ragone will be out the door as well. The new HC will be tasked with kickstarting the offense, and he'll want his system implemented by his guys. And there's a chance that Ragone loses at least one hat even if Smith stays. If we could get Pat O'Hara (now passing game coordinator for the Titans) or even Ben McAdoo (disaster as head coach, subpar as OC, but rock solid QB coach) as a full time QB coach, perfect. If Ragone takes the fall, I still say I would LOVE to have Bill Musgrave as OC. I really, REALLY wanted Musgrave back when we still had Matt Ryan at QB - he was Ryan's QB coach for his first couple of seasons in the league, then moved on to the Vikings as their OC. He's been in several other organizations since then and is now a senior assistant for the Browns.
