The Falcons Build A Lead
Oh my god, Falcons.
If there is any coach in this league that should probably just get fired, it’s Adam Gase. But if you open that question up to the top 2 coaches that should just get fired, it is Adam Gase and Dan Quinn. The Quinn Era needs to be over. While it was ultimately rather successful in regards to the Falcons history, it is defined by absolute choking and it always will be.
The team has been in a downswing since the super bowl collapse and they don’t have injuries to pin most of the blame on like they did last year. The Falcons have now held two massive leads late in week 2 and 3 and both times collapsed in spectacular fashion as to bring up immediate comparisons to the defining game of Dan Quinn’s coaching history. Dan Quinn is a defensive-minded coach. These were comebacks with astoundingly small chances of winning. They lost to Dallas after failing to remember how to play onside kicks (inexcusable) and then came back the next week and gave up a huge lead to Nick Foles in the 4th.
I don’t follow the Falcons closely enough to really pinpoint why this has happened so often. Does the team get prevent-D happy late in games? Are the playcalls on offense really bad like how the super bowl featured Kyle Shanahan not knowing how to bleed clock? Does the organization collectively develop brainworms? One spectacular collapse once in a blue moon…it happens to everyone. Every team has some of those on their resume. Multiple collapses of spectacular proportion within a short time span? That’s a coaching failure. Fire Quinn. The Falcons are headed into the gutter and they need to move on.
Fire Quinn so the Jets can hire him after they fire Gase.
Ugh!!! Asa falcons fan this is painful but omfg how is Dan Quinn still breathing in Atlanta. He should have b the n fired years ago.
That onside kicks blunder even made ME question how the receiving team should play them, because in my mind no way should a PROFESSIONAL NFL TEAM get it so wrong. The only logical explanation in my brain was that I was wrong, right? Right? Wow….
This is absolutely brilliant. For a moment I thought we had some kind of money fort type thing happening, then the rest happened and I did the laughing. Bravo, Dave.
I erupted into belly laughs when I saw Dak Prescott show up.
Meanwhile, off to the side, Russel Willson looks down upon them from his own tower.
“Should’ve built taller. Didn’t you know towers under 60 feet have no place in this league?”
No, no, no. The answer is not to fire Dan Quinn. You can’t have epic collapses like these unless you build a huge lead first… and building a huge lead isn’t easy.
Soooo, you take a page out of the Kurt Warner and Matt Leinart (hahahahaha) are BOTH the starting qbs playbook. Dan Quinn coaches the first half, builds up that sweet sweet lead. Then somebody else comes in to coach the second half, and prevent the collapse from happening. TADA!
I’m honestly shocked you didn’t make the tower collapse, I thought that was easily where it was going.
no no no no no fuck you let us fire fat matt don’t you let him slide through another year
Hah. Are the Falcons trash? That is the question.
This is now my new favorite comic.
The problem with the Falcons is that it just seems like we field two different teams. In the first half, it’s the spirit of our Super Bowl run. Things are electric, we have a good mix of running and passing and they’re equally effective. We march down the field pretty easily, and after scoring, our defense comes out and play lights out. Oluokun would be around almost every play (especially the Cowboys game, wow he was a monster). We generate turnovers and 3-and-outs.
Unfortunately, we very quickly get complacent and it seems like they figure, “Maybe all those other times are flukes, there’s no way they can come back from THIS one though.” We shift into a prevent defense for way too long, our defense gets uninspired and soft, and our offense decides that, maybe we don’t need a running game after all. After all, we have Matt Ryan! We have Julio! We have Ridley! Who cares about running when we can run up the score? It works all the time when we run the simulations in Madden!
It feels like a major problem is that we don’t adjust well. We find a gameplan that decimates the other team and jam that. However, when the other team figures us out, and they almost always do, we freak out and let them do whatever they want.
Ultimately, it’s a failure at every single level when we blow leads like this, but the fact that it happens this often tells me it’s likely somewhere in the coaching staff. Given that Quinn has basically been the only constant other than Raheem Morris, I am on the same thought as most that we should can them. I do feel like we shouldn’t do it in the middle of the season though, unless a really good coach shows up on the market that likely won’t be there at the end of the season. I just don’t feel like firing a head coach partway through the season leads to anything except disappointment. On the other hand, last year Quinn managed to save his job by winning a bunch of meaningless games last year after we had no chance of getting into the playoffs, so maybe it is better for Blank to fire him now before Quinn manages to stumble into a bunch of meaningless wins again and pretend that he can keep that up all season.
I miss Kyle Shanahan…
The falcons have blown leads have lost 2 super bowls yet have amazing talent each time a former MVP and a potential opoty every year they aren’t any good Dan Quinn needs to be burned in the Arizona fire. How Matty Ice is still amazing under this man is shocking the defensive play calling is ass Julio has been in the league for 9 years and is getting older Yet still amazing he needs to be trade the uniforms are a new era revamp the coaching staff it can be done SHIT DON’T CARE CUTLER COULD DO BETTER. FFS Atlanta shall be condemned to HELL SEND THEM BUMS TO TATURUS
Not gonna lie, I spent a while thinking Nick Foles’ sleeve said “69”.
The game against the Cowboy’s really did fall apart due to injuries long before the onside kick. We lost our starting OLB, Both starting pass rushers, 2 of three starting safeties, right tackle, Left tackle was playing injured, julio’s hamstring injury and that was all in the first half. By the time the 4th quarter started our reserves were tired because they couldn’t leave the field. Due to this we were fielding people who aren’t normally on the hands team for that onside kick.
Most of those players were injured for the Chicago game as well + starting corner got covid WR2 got knocked out in 1st, starting cb got injured in the 4th, SS injured in the 4th, Our kicker pulled his groin in pregame. We average about 14 players on the injury report per week since week 2.
No excuses though we should have won both games anyway. You have to have the players ready to fill in and they need to execute when on the field. It’s in our DNA to blow games at this point and Quinn should be gone.
As somebody who watches the team every week, the team builds a lead and then usually has a chance for the finishing blow. They usually mess that up but not big deal right? Big lead. And then the other team gets something going, and then the team panics. Start chucking the ball over the field instead of trying to keep things on short plays and the ground game. And then it just spirals out of control. The only constant is Matt Ryan and Dan Quinn. Matt Ryan is a top 10 qb so its not his fault. Really it has to come down to coaching and DQ has proven he can’t get it done. I like the guy but I can’t take it any more. I’d rather lose 16 games then keep having this happen.
“Fire Quinn so the Jets can hire him after they fire Gase.”
AHAHAHA YESSSSSSSSSSSSS
So, is there an added detail there in the third panel with Mr. Foles, or have the memes finally consumed me?
More observant than I. Thanks. This one gets another chuckle from me.