Dan Quinn preaches focus and discipline as the Falcons return to work

The jokes will flow like wine after other fanbases get their hands on Dan Quinn’s new motto, “Embrace the Suck,” which he displayed on a couple of wristbands and in his message to the team. But it’s not that the Falcons should embrace being the kind of lousy team they were throughout their history. It’s the idea that getting back to the Super Bowl is going to take a ton of hard work and fixing the issues that cost them in February, and the team has to be ready for the grind.

Jeff Schultz’s excellent AJC piece takes a look at how Quinn is going to get that done, which features this frankly incredible quote.

“Embrace The Suck,” Quinn repeated after he and his staff took rookies and first-year players through Friday’s minicamp. “Eat a crap sandwich with a smile. This is going to be hard. Your choice: It’s a victim’s mentality or a warrior mentality. It’s like, ‘I know this run is going to be long, and it’s going to be really hard. But here I go again.’”

To get there is going to take more than attitudes and platitudes, but any team coming off a Super Bowl loss first has to get past that and return to the grind. I don’t doubt that with Quinn at the helm and the type of players the Falcons have in the building that they’ll get that done, and eat that crap sandwich with a smile.

Next on the list is fixing the defense, as Schultz notes, and the Falcons have already taken strides to do just that with their personnel moves this offseason. The next great hurdle is turn those on-paper improvements into on the field results, and to turn this team from 2016 marvel to long-term juggernaut. Pray the Falcons can do it.