Here’s where the flip side of continuity shows itself. Here’s where the again-chastened players gaze across the locker room at their accentuate-the-positive coach and wonder, “If he’s the guy to lead us upward and onward, why is the whole world laughing at us again?” Here’s where the coach gazes back and says, “What part of ‘FALL ON THE BALL!’ didn’t you gentlemen understand?”
Here’s where players and a coach in their sixth season together have heard/said it all a dozen times over, and we on the outside see no evidence — not one speck — that anything has changed. On Feb. 5, 2017, these Falcons lost a Super Bowl in Texas in which their opponent never took a snap while leading. On Sept. 20, 2020, they lost a regular-season game in Texas in which their opponent never took a snap while leading.
Here’s where the franchise quarterback, who has been here since 2008, asks himself, “What else do I need to do — recover onside kicks?” Of all the crazy-beyond-measure factoids flowing from this team’s latest collapse, here, from the erudite Chase Stuart of Football Perspective, is a lollapalooza: “Matt Ryan has now lost 5 games where he hit 125+ in passer rating and threw for 250+ yards. That includes the Super Bowl and today. No other QB has lost more than 3 such games.”
Through two games, Ryan is second in the NFL in passing yardage and touchdown passes. His team is 0-2. Through two games, Calvin Ridley is tied for the league lead in receiving yards and first by himself in touchdown catches. His team is 0-2. Julio Jones is ninth in receiving yards, Russell Gage 13th. (Jones would rank higher had he not dropped Gage’s pass Sunday.) Their team is 0-2.
Not since 2007, the year Bobby Petrino came to coach Michael Vick and wound up working with Joey Harrington and then lighting out for the Ozarks, have the Falcons been 0-2. They gained 506 yards in their opener and lost by 13 points. They led by 20 in the first half of their second game and by 15 with five minutes to play and lost by one. They do whatever it takes to lose, even if they’re tasked with inventing something.
Under yet another defensive coordinator — here’s where the Flowery Branch brain trust has said the heck with continuity — they rank next-to-last in yards against and last in points yielded. The Cowboys could not have done more to lose Sunday: They fumbled four times in the first quarter, botched two fake punts and watched the conspicuously addled Mike McCarthy get every single major decision wrong. By way of side-by-side comparison, Dan Quinn looked like Bill Belichick if not Vince Lombardi. And yet …
The one play Quinn’s team had to make went forever unmade. No one of serious mind believes that these coaches told the Falcons, “Just leave the ball alone; it’ll be fine.” Not even the biggest Quinn critic would say that the absence of coaching brainpower caused this team to stare in wonderment as Greg Zuerlein’s onside kick crept along the turf. The Falcons surely knew what they were supposed to do. They just didn’t do it.
Is that bad coaching? If we define “good coaching” as “getting your guys to do what you tell them,” then yes, this was bad coaching. These guys — five of them — made a concerted effort NOT to pursue the ball. Given NFL rules, it’s nigh-impossible for the kicking team to recover an onside kick. The Falcons made it possible by doing absolutely nothing. Even the Super Bowl, the most egregious loss ever, included no single moment so egregious.
But that’s it, is it not? Something always seems to happen to the Falcons of Quinn. They’ve added Todd Gurley and Dante Fowler and Hayden Hurst. They’re 0-2. In Week 1, they became the first team ever to have three receivers manage nine catches and 100 yards in the same game. They lost. Quinn’s case for continuing employment hinges on him having led the Falcons to the Super Bowl, but his latest team just made us revisit that moment in a way that seems grounds for dismissal.
At this late date, does anyone — Arthur Blank included — believe Quinn is capable of leading this franchise to brighter tomorrows? He saved his job by going 6-2 when it didn’t matter. Come the new season, when it does, his team is 0-2. On the one day he clearly outcoached the guy on the other sideline, his guys still contrived to blow it at the end. It doesn’t much matter if the flaw is in the message or the messenger or the audience. This team is 14-20 since Sept. 6, 2018. That’s not a small sample size. This isn’t working.
There’s a word that Quinn uses in postgame briefings now, and that word is no longer “brotherhood.” The word is “pissed,” as in angry. And he should be. Everyone associated with the Falcons should be. They were fooled by a fast finish. They tried to stay the course. They’re 0-2 and Charles Barkley, who covers basketball, is making fun of them. But they have maintained continuity. They were bad. They still are.
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