FLOWERY BRANCH — Falcons coach Arthur Smith has shown a great deal of restraint when it comes to making lineup changes.
In his first season, he stayed with left guard Jalen Mayfield after the rookie made a poor showing in the season opener. After a competition, the following week he was back in the lineup. Last season, quarterback Marcus Mariota started 13 games before a move was made.
It will be interesting to see how long Smith stays with quarterback Desmond Ridder, who will be making his ninth start when the Falcons (2-2) face the Texans (2-2) at 1 p.m. Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
With the Falcons ranked last in the NFL in passing, if things don’t improve, Smith may be forced to make a decision on Ridder.
“There’s a fine line, right?” Smith said. “At some point, you have to be fair. You have to give people every opportunity.”
Ridder took over for Mariota with four games to play last season. He went 2-2 and is 2-2 to start this season.
“There’s probably never a perfect answer when it’s time to move on or you say, ‘Hey, look, I’ve seen this guy break through,” Smith said. “He’s got a chance to break through.’”
Smith, who worked with the Titans from 2011-20, remembers when the natives there were getting restless when a certain running back wasn’t churning out the yards immediately.
“So, you’ve seen in the history of people’s careers – I go back to – you all forget when it works out in the end, but Derrick Henry in Tennessee, it went like this and then all of a sudden, he got to the second part of his third year, really the last month in ‘18 changed his whole career because it was up and down,” Smith said. “Different coaches, different schemes, and when he broke through, he broke through clearly.”
Henry was taken in the second round (45th overall) in 2016. He made only two starts and rushed for 490 yards as a rookie. He started two games and rushed for 744 yards in 2017.
Henry’s breakthrough came in 2018, when he rushed for 1,059 yards and 12 touchdowns.
“That’s just one example,” Smith said. “(Tight end) Jonnu (Smith) will be another one.”
Smith was a third-round pick in 2017 by the Titans.
“Different scheme in ‘17, different scheme in ‘18, and then all of a sudden, you look at it in ‘19, Year 3, and certainly Year 4, even back here – there are so many factors,” Arthur Smith said.
There is a need for evidence for the coaching staff to believe that a player is close to a breakthrough.
“I don’t have the perfect answer, but what you know is when you have an issue, are you willing to move on because it’s not a good fit, so you don’t miss out on not keeping a Nate Landman,” Smith said.
Landman is a second-year linebacker who made the team as an undrafted free agent. He currently is a starter after Troy Andersen was lost for the season with a torn pectoral muscle. The Falcons wanted to be fair.
“Yeah, you want every draft pick to be (an) All-Pro,” Smith said. “It’s not going to work out that way, but you want to have more makes than misses, clearly, but if you got a guy in college free agency, to not give that guy an opportunity if he’s playing better, that’s going to crush morale.”
The Falcons have stressed that they want open competition at every position.
“You’re not really doing what you say in terms of playing the best players,” Smith said. “There’s not a perfect answer, but there are a lot of decisions, but you (must have) the right people collaborate. You’re never going to be perfect.”
Mayfield, who was a third-round pick in 2021 by the Falcons, ended up starting 16 games as a rookie. He played tackle in college, but the Falcons tried to convert him to a guard. He spent the 2022 season on injured reserve.
In 2023 training camp, he was moved back to tackle. He was released at the end of camp and was signed to the Giants practice squad.
“There may be guys here that we move on from that go on and get a fresh start and they’re good players, and that’s OK,” Smith said. “You don’t want to lose guys, but there are guys that have come here that have played their best ball of their career for whatever reason. It might have just clicked, timing or whatever it is.”
The Falcons stuck with Ridder against the Jaguars after he threw two inceptions on back-to-back passes in the second quarter.
“Just like the game last week, nobody ever wants that,” Smith said of the two picks, including a pick-six. “If Desmond didn’t go back out there and do what he did, you would feel a lot different. Now you just can’t make habits.”
Smith is the Falcons’ play-caller and wants to make things easier on Ridder.
“Same thing as the play-caller, you like something, you force it, you come back and you’re like, ‘Damn, I got greedy,’ or ‘Damn, I should have waited,’ or whatever it is,” Smith said. “You can play that game all day, but it’s the same. Do you really have that mindset to say, ‘Hey look, learn from this and move on.’ So, there’s a lot that goes into it.”
The confidence of the player also is a factor.
“I think it’s a little bit about their makeup and then the opportunities,” Smith said. “Some guys, they go places and they don’t get an opportunity, they’re the fourth or fifth receiver, they’re more of a gunner on special teams or whatever it is. Some week, they got two guys go down, and they (have) to start. All of a sudden the ball finds them, and they get that confidence and realize, ‘Hey, I do belong.’ and the light comes on that way.”
The Falcons clearly are hoping that the light comes on for Ridder.
