Though months in the making, the reality of the Falcons’ free fall from the No. 1 seed in the NFC to last place in the NFC South has settled in for general manager Thomas Dimitroff and coach Mike Smith.
Projected by many to contend for the Super Bowl title, this Falcons season became a major failure in the post AFL-NFL merger era.
Since the NFL began seeding teams for the playoffs in 1975, there have been 98 No. 1 seeds. Only three of those – the 2003 Raiders, 2005 Eagles and 20013 Falcons – finished in last place in their division in the following season.
After going 13-3 in 2012 and reaching the NFC championship game, the Falcons finished tied with Tampa Bay (4-12) for last in the NFC South. They will pick sixth overall in the upcoming NFL draft. They have all seven of their picks and could be awarded additional compensatory picks.
In reviewing their demise, Dimitroff and Smith both cited the inability to win the line of scrimmage on either side of the ball, missed tackles and coaching. They would not to lean on the injury excuse, but several of their top players ended the season on injured reserve or missed major portions of the season.
Dimitroff admitted that there was a major “missed assessment” in the revamping of the offensive line, where the team attempted to replace three starters in 2013.
“I believe where things went awry offensive line-wise is more of the missed assessment on the readiness of the offensive line to play together as a unit,” Dimitroff said. “I’ve thought over and over how I could summarize that and that’s what I came up with.”
The Falcons attempted to replace center Todd McClure with Peter Konz. They had to settle for Garrett Reynolds at right guard, where Konz started nine games as a rookie the year before, and Lamar Holmes at right tackle for the departed Tyson Clabo.
Konz and Reynolds struggled, while Holmes had to move over to left tackle after Sam Baker landed on injured reserve.
The Falcons gave up 44 sacks, which ranked 10th in the league, and 100 quarterback hits, which ranked fifth.
“Individually, we have some players that are developing along the offensive line that we think have up-side,” Dimitroff said. “Some were challenged more than others this year. Some played at times well. Other times they struggled. We are going to do all in our power to correct that at many levels.”
On the defensive side of the ball, the Falcons couldn’t stop the run and rarely mounted much of a pass rush. They gave up 135.8 yards rushing per game, which was second most in the league, and mustered only 32 sacks, which ranked 29th in the league.
“We didn’t win the line of scrimmage in most football games,” Smith said. “I thought that was a factor.”
Tackling was also an issue. They missed 126 tackles, an average of 7.8 per game, according to profootballfocus.com. Safety William Moore (17 missed tackles), defensive tackle Jonathan Babineaux (12), linebacker Paul Worrilow (12), linebacker Joplo Bartu (12), free safety Thomas DeCoud (12) and linebacker Sean Weatherspoon (11) were primary culprits.
“As I said many times as the season wore on, there was one thing that we did consistently and that was play inconsistently,” Smith said.
Smith did not have the count of games missed by projected starters, but 11 players ended the season on injured reserve, including wide receiver Julio Jones. Several key players like wide receiver Roddy White, running back Steven Jackson and Weatherspoon also missed long stretches of the season with injuries.
“We (were) fortunate in our first five seasons to stay relatively healthy,” Smith said. “Unfortunately there were injuries this season that created some challenges, but it’s our responsibility as coaches … to prepare them for the season.
“We can’t use those as excuses. Obviously, we would all like to have the guys who are No. 1 on our depth chart playing all season long. But unfortunately, that was not the case this year.”
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