The weather might be beautiful in Atlanta, but there’s a storm over Flowery Branch as the Falcons find themselves on the outside of the postseason race looking in and Arthur Smith coaches for his job.
Following a back breaking red zone interception from Desmond Ridder, Bryce Young led the Panthers down the field to kick a game-winning field goal, marking Carolina’s second win of the season.
Ridder has now been benched, and Smith’s job isn’t secure in 2024. There’s a legitimate possibility that Arthur Blank will move on this offseason.
When asked about the future of Smith, Blank said, “We’re gonna play these last three games; we play ’em to win ’em. And we’ll let the season play out and go from there. Obviously this has not been the kind of year we expected.”
The organization and its head coach are in dark times. To make matters worse, the NFL decided to rub salt in the wound by handing out $100K in fines for the Falcons’ violation of injury report rules.
The club was fined $75K and Smith was personally fined $25,000 for violating the NFL Injury Report Policy prior to their Week 7 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Bijan Robinson was active but played just 11 offensive snaps. Following the game, it was revealed that the rookie was dealing with an illness that the Falcons didn’t disclose prior to kickoff.
“What I will give the league a lot of credit for is there are a lot of things, when you’re going through the injury report, and clearly we understood their point of view, but they also understood our point of view, too, which is why it wasn’t some contentious battle. As you go through that, just full transparency, there’s an inquiry and usually you have to respond with a letter – so, it’s not like it’s some court case that you’re sitting in – it wasn’t a lot of time spent, just: Here’s how we interpreted it, here’s our intent, nothing was done to try to game anything like that. I understood their point of view, so lesson learned there. It was a good conversation, and there are probably a lot of conversations that are going to be had in the spring. That’s kind of where we ended it.
Again, lesson learned, and we completely understand their position. I think they understood where we were coming from. So, that’s what ended up happening.”
The Falcons and Arthur Smith can’t seem to do anything right these days.
—
Photographer: Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire
You must log in to post a comment.