When Mike Smith talks about giving equal opportunities to all the quarterbacks on the roster, he apparently means it. Joey Joe Joe will get the starting nod on Saturday against one of the best teams in the league despite barely being mentioned in the race for starter thus far.

Joey's kind of stuck in a bad situation, though. Unless he plays his butt off the next three games, he's likely to top out as the #3 quarterback on the roster. He's a pretty cool guy about demotions and the like, but I can't imagine he's going to want to spend the whole season buried at the bottom of the depth chart. If that's the case, perhaps the Falcons ought to watch his value and swap him out, keeping Shockley for the third spot as a project.

As we're finding out with Joe Horn, unhappy players don't serve much use.