Leftwich should play. Harrington just can not throw the ball downfield unless absolutely forced, and the one half that leftwich played this year was the best QB play we have had. Don't get me wrong, he will be injured again and harrington will have to come back in at some point, but until that happens, give it to the guy that can throw a football 20 yards.

I take back everything I said about Leftwich. HE SUCKS!!!!

WTF is going on in this game. I feel like we should be hearing that Benny Hill music.

Can someone tell Leftwich that he isn't a baseball pitcher?

The Falcons played the greatest 1st quarter of football they played all year. That is all. Probably.

Looks like Parcells is coming to Atlanta as VP of operations and will select a coach. I like Parcells as a behind the scens guy instead of a head coach. I wonder if he will have influence getting the OC from Dallas to come to the ATL.

He's going to select a GM first, which means McKay is gone (although he will be asked to stay with the organization in a different role).

EDIT: I just read that McKay won't be back as GM, anyway, even if Parcells isn't hired.

Yeah, it's kind of cool that BP will select a GM, then the 2 of them will select a head coach - and then the 3 of them can decide which QB to take in the draft.

Parcells should bring June Jones back to Atlanta and ask him to drag Colt Brennan with him.

Oh well, too late to delete these posts.

Gotta give Blank credit for going after big names to bring some credibility to Atlanta, but no way Carroll comes. He's got one of the sweetest jobs in football, and he's been very successful. I can't see him leaving for the NFL where he's had no success in the past. Has Blank contacted Madden yet?

Actually, he has had some success, but I agree that it wouldn't make sense for him to go to Atlanta.

The guys on radio made a good point about all the Falcons stuff the other day. Yeah, they keep getting rejected by their top choices, but that doesn't mean they should stop going after top talent.

They likened it to asking out all the cheerleaders, you get rejected a couple times to get it right once.

http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sp...ge_tab_newstab

New GM from the Patriots. Thank god he didnt pick Carrol for GM and Head Coach.

I guess this is a good move - finding guys in late rounds of the draft is a big success factor. I wonder which head coaches he named in his interview.

Wow...didn't know this little thread existed...I HAS FOUND MY PEOPLES!!!!

After years of watching the Smith family treat the Falcons like a closeted mongoloid sibling, I appreciate what Aurthur Blanksis trying to do. But am I the only one who thinks he's a bit of screw-up?

From the beginning, his making nicey-nice with the players eroded Dan Reeve's authority. He has made poor choices in head coaches and front office positions, probably due to his own "need to be liked" personality. This team has the emotional structure of a mildly successful NBA franchise, where players egos have swollen to expect a sense of entitled coddling and even authority. Bobby Petrino wasn't strong enough of a coach (or a man, in my opinion...soooey kiss my ass) to counter that effect.

The fact that he was (and may stil be) even considering Pete Carroll as his head coach cements my opinion. The man's minor success as an NFL head coach was illusory, and he seems clearly unfit for the job.

Seems like all the coddled Falcons talked about, during and after the Petrino debacle, was what a decent person Jim Mora was. Which I'm sure is. But he was a miserable head coach, just awful. For all the "we want to win" rhetoric coming from the locker room, they seem more concerned with being treated with "respect" than winning. And we know that when it comes to professinal athletes, "respect" is often a one-way street.

The Falcons don't need an X and O genius, or a media icon. They need a leader, someone who has shown the ability to get a team focused on winning and get the maximum out of what he has. The problem is, I don't think Blanks even realizes this. He keeps trying to plug holes with guys with whom he has "synergy" or with guys whom his woefully incompetent advisors have high "consensus" opinions. Enough with the warm and fuzzy management style; it may have worked pushing plumbing fixtures and texture sprayers in mass volume. But it has turned a borderline laughingstock NFL franchise on the rise into a full fledged laughingstock NFL franchise in a downward spiral.

Mike Singletary, anyone? Seriously, you think D'angelo Hall, who can be as good as any corner in the league, would try to pull off his playground crap with Singletary there? He wouldn't have taken it as a player, much less a coach. Those "Free Michael Vick" shirts? He may have physically ripped them off those players himself.

I think their choice for GM was a good one, much better than some of the names I heard bandied about. His skills certainly seem to jibe with what the Falcons need.

Really didn't mean to sound so negative. I like Blanks, and you have to appreciate the success he's had in his other endeavors. He seems to want the Birds to be a successful franchise, not just a shiny revenue generator. Maybe this whole comedy-of-errors season will be a kick start.

It's Dan Reeves and Arthur Blank.

You are quite correct. I also used an apostrophe incorrectly and typed a run-on word. There. Hope that somehow satisfies your sad cravings for intellectual acceptance...

So what do people think of Dimitroff? I'd say pretty good - I think coming from a successful organization, being fairly young and supposedly good at evaluating talent are good things.

So with Garrett out as HC, looks like they might wait until Giants lose (Sunday ) to talk with their DC.

Anxious to see how he does in the draft.

Looks like we're going to have to wait until after the SuperBowl to find out who the new head coach is going to be. Can't see them hiring somebody without at least talking to Steve Spagnuolo, who seems to be the favored flavor at the moment.

Hey, Leeman Bennet still lives in Atlanta...

Link

Well I am sad to see him go but the Falcons are going to get a hell of a coach in Mike Smith. The guy held together the defense the past couple of years even though the team was decimated by injuries and getting older. I have no doubt that he will do a hell of job for the Falcons.

Weel, my last post shows what I know. Apparently the Falcons have chosen Mike Smith to be their next head coach, and I think that is a hell of a choice. He has apparently been quite instrumental in turning Jacksonville into a consistently contending team.

Does anyone know the status of Hue Jackson? Did he sign with St. Louis?

I'm kind of dissappointed they didn't wait for Spagnuolo from the Giants. How bad is this team varying right now - Vick in jail, Petrino bolts, Parcells backs out, and then what were the odds the Giants make the SB and basically kill any chance of talking to Spag? I have to wonder if waiting 11 days was really out of the question.

I don't know a thing about Mike Smith (even that's funny - the Falcon go after all these big names in the game - and end up with a "Mike Smith" - lol). Well they have interviewed a lot of people, so they should have a pretty good sample what people bring to the table - and this guy sounds like he nailed his interviews.


Wow - just watched the videos on ESPN - and Marcellus Wiley just kind of ripped on Smith saying Del Rio was the real leader of the defense, not Smith - and Smith was just more a figurehead. Ugh - I don't have much faith that the Falcons got this right.

The Falcons got a good one in Dimitroff. Everybody knows Belicheck, but do many outside of NE know who Scott Pioli is? And if you do know Pioli, have you ever heard of Tom Dimitroff before the Falcons announcement? My guess is no, but he has been pivotal in NE's success. Credit should be given to Blank for choosing someone without "notoriety" but with an excellent football mind.

Dimitroff has been head of college scouting for NE since '02. He's 40, a workaholic, and starts his assessment of players from a list of 4000, every year.

It'll take two, maybe three years for him to get a nucleus of players in place. After that it'll be just filling holes. I'd be excited if I was a Falcon's fan.

Damn it, I really hate Vick. The Falcons don't get his $20 million back.


http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3229782