It's Over: A Falcons-Giants Recap

And it is not too much about individual performance.
Our problems are deeper in the organization. In the way they built the team and achieved certain consistency.
Now they are going to ask “the right questions” – perennial infamous questions of Russian intellectuals: Whose fault ? and What to do?

Mularkey has to go. Don’t hate BVG or his molestache but I hate his courage schemes.

Dunta needs to go, DeCoud needs to go.

Move Baker to RT and Clabo to RG. Draft a FS/TE in the 2nd and 3rd and look for gems in the 5th, 6th, and 7th. Preferably O" depth

I assume the Falcons will be given 1, outside chance of 2, MNF games. Now, I know odds are, yet again, that’ll it’ll be an away game at New Orleans, but you know what, I’m sick of that being the MNF game. I’m sick of the hype, I’m sick of the usual “let’s look to the game where New Orleans returned to the Superdome” video clip they always do. I’m sick of that specific game and all the controversy that always comes from it.

Wondering what everyone else would like to see as the 1 (assuming 1) MNF game. I’m thinking the Tebow bowl. Atlanta’s within 6 hours of Florida, Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, not to mention Georgia. This area is a hotbed of SEC fans, and his return to Georgia, in my opinion, would be a bigger deal than anything that could be had in New Orleans.

anyone else’s thoughts?

not unexpected. I knew we’d lose but $#$#@$. There was a glimmer of hope as a fan there always is. Without looking at the schedule did we even beat a team this year including preseason with a winning record besides the Lions. We were embarrassed all throughout this year. Whether it was our soft zones from the D or lack of intellect from MM.

I just don’t know where to start. I think a reassessment of our organization needs to be done. Do we want to win games or do we want to win Super Bowls? I understand that you can’t win Super Bowls if you’re not in the dance. But we won’t win the dance being as conservative as Mike Smith.

Chicago, Green Bay, TB #1, NO #2, Houston. Inconsistent offense, lack of pass rush.

The play calling was so predictable and pathetic it was embarrassing. Everyone could see they were dominating the Line of scrimmage, so what do we do, try and QB sneak it twice? With noone in the backfield they might as well sent Coughlin a Text message because everyone in the whole stadium knew. Ryan didn’t help himself, I think average is all we can expect from him, so once we kick Mularkey out of town, if there is no improvement, I’d be weary of franchising this guy.

I think Smith deserves another chance, so unless he is married to Mularkey for some reason, I would like for him to see another year. Mularkey should be gone. Smith and Ryan should be put on notice, though. That was just frustrating to watch.

I thought it last year, and this year just confirms it. You can set your watch to it—a decent, good regular season and a one and done trip to the playoffs. The consistent, conservative play calling works when you have enough bad and mediocre teams on your schedule. But none of those exist in the playoffs and anyone that managed to sneak in (Denver) will find a way to step up their game.

I’m in complete agreement that Mularkey needs to go. Other changes need to happen on offense, particularly on the O-line and with Turner (his best days are behind him). I’m not a fan of blowing up this team yet though. Keep BVG and MS for now and focus on solidifying the offense (more like opening up the playbook).

The problem I fear is that the predictable conservative offense goes higher than Mularkey. We’ll find out for sure some day, but I have a bad feeling that it really does start with MS. The only way he will succeed is if he finds a good OC and lets that person do their job.

Are coaching changes IMO. Even the line might perform better with better coaching and more creative play calling. I would love a dominant LT, but being realistic that isn’t really a possibility unless we find a gem in the draft.

I said it after our loss to Chicago: at some point we have to look at coaching if we continue to lose the same way.

I’m not sure if Smith should be gone or not. He is a helluva a coach and I love what he has done for our team. However if he isn’t going to be part of the solution then he is the problem. He stuck by these same coaches all year…

Atlanta has fair weather fans. You can’t expect fans to go out and support a team that routinely disappears at big moments. I am a fan of both the braves and falcons and can say that they both make it hard year after year.

Football is a business. The Atlanta teams don’t put out a product that is worth spending hard earned money on. You know why other fan bases do? They have a history of WINNING and ATL does not. Even the 90s braves consistently underperformed.

I hope blank gets this. I will probably spend hundreds of dollars next year to see my guys play as I did this year. But I am hopelessly trapped as a fan. I completely understand why other fans might decide to be fair weather.

OC: Mike Martz. But to me we need a line to be able to execute his plays.
DC: Call me crazy but I would love to grab someone from San Frans D. Or maybe dip our hands in college. Anyone else. I hate our soft zone scheme. It keeps us above average and I hate that. It could be that we used them because we don’t have a pass rush.
HC: I would like a big name but I don’t know if they are willing to come. I would petition for Jon Gruden. But thats just me.

That might be worst than the butt whooping we took yesterday…

Head Coach Mike Smith, Offensive Coordinator Jon Gruden, Defensive Coordinator Eric Mangini or Brian Billick! We would be the New England Patriots of the NFC or the next Greenbay Packers. I would make Rahim Morris my Special Teams coach and replace Eric Weems and try Jacquizz Rodgers as punt returning in some games!

I do agree that the play of the Falcons yesterday was horrendous. Props do go to the defense. Not utilizing the offensive talent we have properly gos back to coaching resulting in what we saw yesterday. No matter how well the defense played keeping them on the field eventually wears them out. This causes me to remember what Norm Van Brocklin said about one of the Falcons team he coached when their offense was not producing, “Our defense has been on the field longer than grass.”, the same could be said about yesterdays game.

…I’m waiting for Mularkey to leave. I think Smitty and Comrade will give him a chance to get hired as a head coach before canning him, but if he doesn’t land a HC gig (the chances of which had to have taken a huge hit after yesterday’s debacle), I see no way they can possibly bring him back. I’ve heard speculation that Bob Bratkowski could possibly step in and take over for Mularkey, but while I think anyone’s an improvement at this point, I’d rather see an established OC with a track record of success. Billick comes to mind, but given his apparent ego, combined with the “brother in law” thing, I’m not betting on it.

After that, prioritize “must-keep” FA’s as well as start looking at the O-line, as it’s our biggest (perhaps only??) glaring weakness player-wise. The lack of a pass-rush is, in my opinion, part reality and part perception. We have talent, but I think our execution is lackluster due at least in part to unimaginitve play calling (give Wade Phillips our D talent and see what happens..). I think it seems to be worse than it really is because every week we’re seeing the opposing D lines dominate our shit O line while our decent D line isn’t exactly blowing up decent to great O lines, thus amplifying our perception that our pass rush is lacking.

Back to FA’s, I’d like to see us keep Abe, but it depends on what the cost/commitment is. Keep Grimey and Lofton for sure, and I’d like to see Beer-man, Snelling, HD, Sanders and Hayden all return for the right price. I think Sanders is an upgrade over DeCoud, so let him walk. Walker provides depth but nothing more.

Our O-line is certainly going to be a tough fix, but hopefully we luck out and can grab a proven guy (or two) that can also help accelerate the development of a few of the younger guys and alleviate some of the burden on them. I think Hawley has potential, Clabo is decent and McClure is reliable, but aging. Beyond that I see no sure-fire “keepers” on the O-line. Guess we’ll see.

What seemed most odd to me all day was the lack of medium range throws… The Giants are so vulnerable to the 10-20 yard range tosses, particularly with a good receiving TE. I know the Giants got more pressure as the game went on, but in the first half, they were not getting too close to Ryan.

So i guess my question is… Is it Ryan’s fault for not pushing some throws into those areas? He seemed very content to dump off the ball immediately to the flat or on 3 yard over the middle routes. or is it OC playcalling that forced the ball into those areas a lot?

Yelling at the TV for Mike Smith to take a Timeout on 2nd Down after Ryan ran for a few yards right before the end of the 1st half. They were around their 40 yd line with 3 timeouts left and 40 seconds left in the quarter. They ran the clock down to under 20 seconds before they lined up for another play. I was so angry at Mike Smith for blowing that opportunity. They ended up taking 2 Timeouts into the locker room.

…. to start lobbying for Steve Spagnuolo? :o)

his groin injury. The defense was solid for a quarter but when Moore left the game the Giants were able to establish the run which opened the pass and the rest is history. Sanders made a nice play on the safety but he is definitely not a run stopper.

Our offense was stagnant and appeared out-of-synch the whole game. We will see how good the Giants D is next week but we definitely should have been able to score some points. Many people are looking at the stats for the Giants D for the year which is far from the team they have on the field now.

Secondary: We need to get rid of Decoud, never seen someone get so excited about making a simple tackle. Doesn’t help that 3 plays later he usually gets burned deep. Moore and Sanders would make a serviceable safety tandem and a FS should be drafted or picked up in FA. Grimes is a must keep, Owens played a good game for the first time since…. ever. Robinson is not a zone D player, if the next DC is planning to run a zone scheme, he needs to go, otherwise he can play man.

Linebackers: With all 3 starters healthy, solid group. Didn’t see much of Adkins in that game, may need to pickup a serviceable backup as Peterson’s days are numbered.

DLine: Need a pass rusher – whether Abe stays or not, he is only good for a soild half of a game, need to get him in a rotation with an additional solid pass rusher. Tackles are good to go.

QB: Not sure about Matt anymore, I wish I had access to the game film but I know there were receivers open downfield and he continued to check down. He is nervous in the pocket under any kind of pressure, cannot throw well on the run, and has limited mobility. He has a decent arm strength, has not shown the ability to throw an accurate deep ball. I really want to like him and he is a solid player but he is not the type of player to carry the team.

RB: When we get Ovie back, all the backs will look better. No one we have now is good enough to create yards on their own.

WR: We are solid here, we need to keep HD.

TE: TG comin back, need to get a successor in the draft.

OL: Svitek can pass block but he is a poor runblocker, opposite for Baker. Depending on what happens with the OC will determine where we need to go with this spot. Need to pickup someone who can blow ppl off the line. We are outweighed against the elite teams on both sides of the ball. Not that weight means everything but this year we couldnt get it done in short yardage situations, something needs to change.

The punter turned things around nicely and Bryant was the only guy on the team you didn’t get nervous about jacking something up. Dont see a need to hold onto an elite KR/PR as the new rules have taken them out of the game for the most part.

Coaching staff was inadequate at in game / halftime adjustments. Not sure if thats the HC or the Coords but that needs to get fixed.

Looking forward to next year, IMHO we need to get a DC who will use Spoon off the edge more and use Grimey and Dante in man coverage. We need an OC who doesnt use the 3 yards and a cloud of dust playbook. I know we pickup those 4th and short next year with Ovie leading the way – even if Arthur Blank is carrying the ball!!!

but I’ll look a the bring side: the odds of us getting to or winning the superbowl were pretty slim to begin with. So this saves me 1 more week of agony and we’ll probably get new coordinators as a silver lining.