NEW ORLEANS — The future refused to reveal itself here Sunday. As ever we stumble on into the darkness. For there is not a single NFL front-office savant nor French Quarter voodoo priestess who could look at Desmond Ridder’s first game this day and predict whether he’ll be a salvation at quarterback for the Falcons or just a placeholder until the next flavor of the moment tempts us.
What we seemed to learn over the latest brutally close Falcons loss – this one 21-18 to New Orleans, one that should finally banish the word “playoff” from their locker room lexicon – is that the young man is pretty good at all the stuff leading up to the snap. It’s some of the details afterward that require work.
If Ridder worked bomb disposal, you’d say he seems very cool and efficient while arriving at the scene. His wire-cutting and touch with explosives, however, could use some refinement.
So, let’s hear it for showing up to the line of scrimmage on time.
“Operationally everything was good, and that’s all you can ask for as an O-lineman,” Falcons guard Chris Lindstrom said. “Getting up, getting to the ball, making sure we were set – he did a great job. I don’t think we were pressed on the shot clock very much.”
Said Ridder, “I thought it was really good in execution in coming in and out of the huddle, getting the play called, getting to the line of scrimmage with plenty of time on the play clock.”
Ah, but he added, “Post-snap I feel I could obviously be better.”
Thus, with the post-snap work being so very important in football, Ridder arrived at his own harsh-but-fair grade for his NFL debut: “C-minus, D,” he said. That’s about right.
Those who prefer mining for potential over wallowing in another defeat will look past the nervous beginning and the two passes that should have been intercepted but weren’t, and the humble stat line (13 of 26, 97 yards passing), and the fact that he was a practical bystander during the Falcons’ two touchdown drives. And look to his last meaningful pass of the day.
With the Falcons down three with 6:06 to play, the offense took the ball at its own 10 needing a long drive for a field goal at least.
Ridder moved the team to midfield, and there was faced with a fourth-and-5. This is where the tale could have turned downright glorious. For Ridder rolled out and hit Drake London for a lovely first down.
Sure would have liked to have seen what the kid had from there.
But London had the ball stripped from his grasp, it being his turn to commit the late turnover now that Marcus Mariota is no longer on the roster. Recovering the loose ball, New Orleans ran off most of the final two minutes of the game.
From that single moment, a coach can build a little hope.
“Talk about gotta-have-it plays,” Arthur Smith said of that late completion. “I didn’t see him flinch.”
“He’s not scared of the moment. He’ll continue to improve.”
The absolute best that can be said of Ridder today is that he’s not Mariota. Everything that happens over the final three games of this Falcons season needs to be viewed through that prism.
Informed last week that he, like us all, was replaceable, Mariota took his ball and headed home. Judging by his 13 games as the Falcons’ starting quarterback, Mariota undoubtedly then lost the ball shortly before arrival.
Rather than do the stand-up thing by staying on to help out the rook from the sidelines, Mariota chose the petty option of desertion under the guise of elective surgery. He walked all over a good reputation on his way out of town. From team leader to the deadbeat dad of quarterbacks in a matter of months.
Such an end deserved but two parting words: Good riddance.
Thus, there is nothing left to do but accept the good and bad of the rookie Ridder and perhaps wonder why Smith wasted so much time with Mariota in the first place.
It’s a matter of fact and lore that Matt Ryan’s first NFL pass for the Falcons in 2008 was a 62-yard touchdown connection to Michael Jenkins. Desmond Ridder’s first TD pass remains TBD. His genesis story will be nothing that seems written by the Brothers Grimm. More Marx Brothers, maybe.
The fact is that Ridder didn’t complete a single throw Sunday on Falcons touchdown drives of 75 and 32 yards (even requiring one horrible interception being overturned on review to keep the first drive alive). If not for Tyler Allgeier running harder than any midterm politician and tougher than any “Yellowstone” cowboy, the Falcons would still be looking for Sunday’s first touchdown.
For the record, Ridder’s first attempt was a 30-yard throw down the left side for a covered-up Cordarrelle Patterson, overthrown.
“He probably had something open underneath, you don’t want to take their initiative away,” Smith said. “He came out amped up. He settled in, and he was able to correct (some of his decision-making), which was a step in the right direction.”
Ridder was the second quarterback taken in the 2022 draft, the 74th overall pick, in the third round. Others in the class have shown great promise. The first QB taken, Kenny Pickett, has started nine games for Pittsburgh, winning four of them. The very last player taken in the draft, Brock Purdy, is now running a San Francisco team that is the cream of the NFC. The great Bailey Zappe (fourth round) won a couple games for New England. So, why not expect Ridder to show something more, and show it soon? Of course, those other teams offer more supporting talent than these Falcons.
By his own reckoning, these are Ridder’s goals for the final three games of this Falcons season: “To be better. To go out there and win. To go out there and lead the offense and execute whether that’s third down, whether that’s red zone. Not be perfect, just give guys a chance to make a play. Keep the tempo. Keep pressing the offense. Keep pushing. Keep moving forward.”
On the short list of what the Falcons need to accomplish over their final three games, one item stands far above the rest: gaining some clearer vision of where Ridder fits in this team’s future.
