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ATLANTA – If you're looking for visual metaphors of the Atlanta Falcons' season, it's tough to beat this one: a drain backed up just outside the team's locker room, spewing water and God knows what else onto the Georgia Dome floor.
Falcons head coach Mike Smith knows this lesson by heart at this point: just when you think things can't get any worse, they somehow do. And in all likelihood, he'll remove that job title from his name by nightfall Monday.
Coming into this Sunday, Smith had watched his Falcons bumble their way to a 6-9 record, including inexcusable losses to the Detroit Lions in London and the Cleveland Browns at home. And yet, thanks to the stunning complementary incompetence of the rest of his division, Smith entered Sunday's game with an opportunity to win the freaking NFC South, to take this misbegotten team to the playoffs even though his seat had been nuclear-hot all season.
A loss would have been fine. A loss would have been ... well, if not acceptable, at least expected. The Falcons did not lose. The Falcons imploded. The Falcons detonated. The Falcons looked so woeful that a fourth-quarter song played over the Georgia Dome from the soundtrack to the heartbreaking "The Fault in Our Stars" served not to motivate, but to accentuate the misery of this team.*
Pick-sixes, sacks, defensive miscues ... Atlanta did nothing right in its 34-3 loss to the Carolina Panthers, and that's why the Falcons end a second straight season with more talent in theory than in practice. Everyone except all-everything wide receiver Julio Jones and kick-it-from-anywhere Matt Bryant deserves blame for the debacle, but Smith stands at the center. He knows it.*
“I’m here as the football coach until [Falcons owner] Arthur Blank tells me anything different," Smith said after the game, his frustration at answering the exact question so many weeks in a row evident.
Blank needs this team to be good. He is less than three years from opening a new dome that nobody seems to believe is necessary, and he's trying to sell personal seat licenses to a fanbase that's growing increasingly disenchanted with the product. After the game, he declined to answer questions from a television reporter, barked at a Falcons assistant, and ignored repeated questions from an Atlanta newspaper columnist.
The Falcons' brass has questions to answer, as well: an ESPN report Sunday morning indicated that Atlanta had already hired a search firm to suss out a replacement for Smith -- this, of course, before Smith was actually done with his job. It's the kind of amateur move that's not befitting a team who, under Blank, has had more success in branding and public relations than on the field.
"This is a business about winning football games, that's how you're judged." Smith said. "I understand that, and I'll leave it at that."
Smith's judgment will likely come swiftly. And it likely won't be any prettier than the messes both outside and inside the Falcons' locker room.
____
Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter.
Follow @jaybusbee
And keep up with Jay over on Facebook, too.
Falcons head coach Mike Smith knows this lesson by heart at this point: just when you think things can't get any worse, they somehow do. And in all likelihood, he'll remove that job title from his name by nightfall Monday.
Coming into this Sunday, Smith had watched his Falcons bumble their way to a 6-9 record, including inexcusable losses to the Detroit Lions in London and the Cleveland Browns at home. And yet, thanks to the stunning complementary incompetence of the rest of his division, Smith entered Sunday's game with an opportunity to win the freaking NFC South, to take this misbegotten team to the playoffs even though his seat had been nuclear-hot all season.
A loss would have been fine. A loss would have been ... well, if not acceptable, at least expected. The Falcons did not lose. The Falcons imploded. The Falcons detonated. The Falcons looked so woeful that a fourth-quarter song played over the Georgia Dome from the soundtrack to the heartbreaking "The Fault in Our Stars" served not to motivate, but to accentuate the misery of this team.*
Pick-sixes, sacks, defensive miscues ... Atlanta did nothing right in its 34-3 loss to the Carolina Panthers, and that's why the Falcons end a second straight season with more talent in theory than in practice. Everyone except all-everything wide receiver Julio Jones and kick-it-from-anywhere Matt Bryant deserves blame for the debacle, but Smith stands at the center. He knows it.*
“I’m here as the football coach until [Falcons owner] Arthur Blank tells me anything different," Smith said after the game, his frustration at answering the exact question so many weeks in a row evident.
Blank needs this team to be good. He is less than three years from opening a new dome that nobody seems to believe is necessary, and he's trying to sell personal seat licenses to a fanbase that's growing increasingly disenchanted with the product. After the game, he declined to answer questions from a television reporter, barked at a Falcons assistant, and ignored repeated questions from an Atlanta newspaper columnist.
The Falcons' brass has questions to answer, as well: an ESPN report Sunday morning indicated that Atlanta had already hired a search firm to suss out a replacement for Smith -- this, of course, before Smith was actually done with his job. It's the kind of amateur move that's not befitting a team who, under Blank, has had more success in branding and public relations than on the field.
"This is a business about winning football games, that's how you're judged." Smith said. "I understand that, and I'll leave it at that."
Smith's judgment will likely come swiftly. And it likely won't be any prettier than the messes both outside and inside the Falcons' locker room.
____
Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter.
Follow @jaybusbee
And keep up with Jay over on Facebook, too.