When change is needed, desperately, than leave it to the Atlanta Falcons to do absolutely nothing, despite clear signs to make big changes.
Following another disappointing year, one that started off 1-7 but has since rebounded with impressive wins over the San Francisco 49ers and the New Orleans Saints, the Falcons are bringing back head coach Dan Quinn and general manager Thomas Dimitroff.
Falcons owner Arthur Blank made the decision to bring them back for 2020, according to ESPN’s Vaughn McClure.
Aside from the impressive 5-2 run, this Falcons team has long been underachieving, and has continued to take steps back since their epic collapse against the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl a few years ago.
Quinn has a career record of 42-37 through five seasons but is 23-24 since the Super Bowl LI loss to the Patriots.-+
Falcons’ quarterback Matt Ryan has looked far from MVP form, and All-Pro wide receiver Julio Jones only has so many years of elite play left in him, so the Falcons’ window is closing. Somehow, Blank felt that riding it out with Quinn and Dimitroff was the right course of action.
While it can be argued that Dimitroff should remain, it’s hard to defend the decision to bring back Quinn, who has not been what the organization had hoped he would be when they initially hired him. Quinn had made some good decisions this year, in an effort to turn the tide, such as moving assistant head coach Raheem Morris from wide receivers coach to defense to work with the secondary, and surrendering defensive playcalling duties to Morris and linebackers coach Jeff Ulbrich.
But Quinn’s shortcomings have not helped this team capitalize on their talent.
The Falcons announced that Morris will be the team’s defensive coordinator next season.
ing. It depends on what you want to continue,” Blank said in a video posted by the team. “In our case, we studied really hard the performance of the team during this year. Obviously the first half of the year, 1-7, not where we wanted to be. Horrific by any standard.
“But you look at the second half of the year, we’re 5-2. The question really is for me, were the improvements that were made, were they significant enough and did they show enough of a trend line that I feel that there’s reason to believe we can carry that kind of record and that kind of performance over to the year 2020?
“And my answer is ‘yes’ because essentially the players, we didn’t come up with Superman the second half of the year. Same number of players, same quality of players, same individuals who were playing just as hard in the first half as the second half. But we put them in better positions to win.”
For what it’s worth, the players have been fully, and publicly, supportive of Quinn.
But, with a good crop of coaches available this offseason, it’s hard to imagine that there isn’t a better fit out there than Quinn.