Though he was excluded by his team just 11 games into his tenure, Falcons coach Dan Quinn placed his stamp of approval on a Monday players-only meeting.
Mired in a four-game losing streak, the team held what was described as a productive players-only meeting on Monday to air their issues in an attempt turn the Falcons course before they are eliminated from the playoff picture.
“Honestly, I was jacked that they did it,” Quinn said on Wednesday. “Some coaches might be uptight and I’m just the opposite. I’ve been a part of it where that’s been really effective.”
The Falcons (6-5) have dropped five of their past six games after a 5-0 start. They are set to play at Tampa Bay (5-6) on Sunday.
Sometimes, players-only meetings have no effect.
“Probably if you have to do it two or three or four times,” Quinn said. “Sometimes they can be a catalyst and a spark.”
Wide receiver Roddy White, the vocal leader of the offense, broached the idea of the meeting. He had support from wide receiver Julio Jones and linebacker O’Brien Schofield, who played for Quinn in Seattle and has assumed more of a leadership role as the season has unfolded.
The players spoke on Wednesday in generalities about “family” and “togetherness,” White electing to speak only to the team’s website. Jones and Schofield didn’t speak with the media and running Devonta Freeman said he didn’t want to violate “the rule” of non-disclosure when asked about specifics of the meeting.
“I appreciate the leadership on our team so much that it’s all hands on deck for everybody to play at their best,” Quinn said. “Honestly, I was jacked. Hey, man, it tells you how passionate they are, how far they are willing to go for one another. I was just the opposite (of concerned). I was really pleased about it.”
“It was a good meeting,” defensive tackle/end Adrian Clayborn said. “We just talked about some things. It was all good. Just about getting on the right track pretty much.”
The Falcons’ struggles are largely due to a sputtering offense, but the players wanted to show a unified front.
“It’s a family thing,” free safety Ricardo Allen said. “We’re talking indoors. We talked amongst each other. It’s just like when the coaches are talking. When the players talk, we’re going to try to take it as motivation and keep building as a team. We are just going to come together and keep working.”
While members of the offense have spoken about piecing things back together after a hot start, defensive players believe they can help out by creating more turnovers.
“We are a team,” Allen said. “We work together. We do our job and they do their job. We are just going to keep doing the best we can to get the ball back into the offense’s hands as many times as possible. It’s not necessarily considered a carry, but it’s a marriage. We work together.”
Since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger, 66 of 72 teams (91.7 percent) that started the year 5-0 went on to make the playoffs, according to STATS research. The Falcons could become the seventh team not to make the playoffs after their fast start if they don’t start winning.
If the playoffs started today, the Falcons would not qualify. They are tied in the wild-card standings with Seattle (6-5), which has a tiebreaker advantage (better conference record) over the Falcons.
The only teams that did not make the playoff after starting 5-0 were the 2009 Denver Broncos (8-8), 2009 New York Giants (8-8), 2003 Minnesota Vikings (9-7), 1993 New Orleans Saints (8-8) and 1987 Washington Redskins (8-8).
“Just at this point, everybody knowing the situation that we put ourselves in,” linebacker Paul Worrilow said. “It’s time we start winning games. That’s what it is. That’s the situation that we are in.”
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