The Atlanta Falcons were very, very poor in the 2014 season. With their season ending just several days ago and the firing of Mike Smith, much is being revealed about what appears to be a dysfunctional past regime. The Atlanta Falcons on offense was good enough to put up a fight against most teams the vast majority of the time, the defense on the other hand was weak. They were in fact the worst defense in the league. They allowed more yards than anyone else and had the next to last in the league in sacks.
But it has been revealed that Mike Smith, Mike Nolan the defensive coordinator, and general manager Thomas Dimitroff disagreed on how to build the defense in the 2014 off-season.
Last season it was expected that the Falcons would add at least one genuine pass rusher to their side, but this addition never came. Dimitroff and Smith argued about the need for a pass rusher for many weeks, but Smith eventually won the argument and no genuine pass rusher was added in the off-season. This was revealed by owner Arthur Blank.
Arthur Blank also explained his view on pressuring the quarterback within the NFL summing up the view on what people would agree with.
"Clearly we have not had the kind of pass rush for a number of years that I think is important in this league," Blank said. "Even the better quarterbacks in this league, when they're under tremendous pressure they make more mistakes than they do if they're not.
"So, in my opinion pressure is a really big deal. And we have not had pressure. We just have not, for a variety of reasons. You can get into that debate; is it coaching, is it scheming, is it players?" He told Fox Sports during a press conference.
The rumors surrounding Atlanta prior to the 2013 draft was that Smith and Nolan did not have the talent pool in the pass rusher position, which would suggest that it was Dimitroff who failed his coaching staff and didn’t get a pass rusher. However Blank reveals what really happened.
"The design -- and Smitty felt strongly, Mike Nolan felt strongly about this, I think Thomas was certainly supportive of it -- Thomas had strong feelings that we needed to get more pressure," Blank said. "Smitty and Mike, and others felt that we needed to build from the inside out, we needed to be able to stop the run and that in and of itself would create opportunities." Again he told Fox Sports.
However Blank admitted that while he and Dimitroff wanted pass rushers, he finally relented to Smiths desires of who to sign and draft. Dimitroff argues that general managers shouldn’t force feed talent on the coaching staff. Because of this Smith eventually added Tyson Jackson and Paul Soliai to stop the run.
The draft then continued to surprise everyone, instead of adding a pass rusher or at least an out and out pass rusher they drafted defensive tackle Ra’Shede Hageman. Who as it turned out had a pretty solid rookie season, but he wasn’t what the Falcons desperately needed.
This isn’t a time to kick Mike Smith when he is down, he did over the course of 8 years and 7 seasons a great job for the club. Without him the Falcons may off faded away into NFL nothingness, but the fact he refused to draft or sign a pass rusher when it was so obviously needed is baffling. But to make matters worse is the fact that Dimitroff and Blank argued that they needed this but Smith ploughed ahead and eventually paid the price.
