The weather in Atlanta may be gorgeous, but there’s a storm brewing over Flowery Branch as the Falcons find themselves on the outside looking in as the postseason race heats up and Arthur Smith coaches for his job.
Following Desmond Ridder’s game-saving red zone interception, Bryce Young led the Panthers down the field to kick the game-winning field goal, giving Carolina its second win of the season.
Ridder has been demoted, and Smith’s employment is not guaranteed in 2024. There’s a good chance that Arthur Blank will leave this offseason.
When asked about Smith’s future, Blank stated, “We’re going to play these last three games; we’re going to play ’em to win ’em.” And we’ll see how the season goes from there. Obviously, this has not been the year we anticipated.”
The organization and its head coach are going through a rough patch. To make matters worse, the NFL decided to add salt to the wound by fining the Falcons $100,000 for violating injury report guidelines.
For breaking the NFL Injury Report Policy prior to their Week 7 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the club was fined $75,000, and Smith was penalized $25,000 individually.
Bijan Robinson was present but only played 11 offensive snaps. Following the game, it was revealed that the rookie was suffering from an ailment that the Falcons had not disclosed before kickoff.
When asked about it on Friday, Smith stated:
“What I will give the league a lot of credit for is that when you go through the injury report, there are a lot of things, and clearly we understood their point of view, but they also understood our point of view, which is why it wasn’t some contentious battle.” As you go through that, there’s an inquiry and usually you have to respond with a letter – so, it’s not like you’re sitting in some court case – 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, thus that was a lesson learnt.
It was an interesting chat, and there will undoubtedly be many more in the coming months. That’s where we kind of left it.
Again, we’ve learnt our lesson, and we entirely appreciate their stance. They seemed to understand where we were coming from. That’s exactly what happened.”
The Falcons and Arthur Smith appear to be doing everything wrong these days.
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