The thing about the Falcons is that their issues can’t be boiled down to just one or two things. That’s rarely the case for a team leaking oil like the Falcons, losers of six consecutive games, capped by the surrender at Carolina on Sunday.
But all of their problems come back to this: The Falcons have a weak foundation of talent after too many draft misses by general manager Thomas Dimitroff.
That may seem obvious now, but it was obscured by the 6-1 start. That was a mirage not so much because four wins came against teams in the hapless NFC East — a win is a win in the parity-obsessed NFL — but because once opponents got a long look at Dan Quinn’s Falcons, the talent deficit became too much for him to overcome.
There can be little doubt about the talent deficiency now that the Falcons have flopped for three seasons in a row. Quinn quickly came to see it and used his roster authority to remedy it. Since getting the job in February, he’s jettisoned 11 players drafted by Dimitroff from 2008-14.
In April, Jason Lisk of The Big Lead noted that of the 27 players drafted by Dimitroff from 2009-12 one player, Julio Jones, started at least eight games in 2014. That’s damning because those players should have been in their primes. None of Dimitroff’s six-man draft class of 2012 plays for the Falcons anymore, and four of those players are healthy street free agents.
It’s hard for any team to win with so many draft misses. Dimitroff’s shaky record with free-agent additions (and subtractions) hasn’t helped, either. Certainly the Falcons have had some bad injury luck, but then again, Dimitroff has taken a lot of injury gambles.
There’s just not much to work with for Quinn, who has been a solid rookie head coach. I picked the Falcons to win nine games because after Mike Smith cost them wins with bad game management last season, I figured Quinn would be better. And he has been, for the most part.
Yet Quinn can’t get much more out of Dimitroff’s players than Smith could in the end. The best thing Quinn has done is to field a respectable defense, even if it’s finally buckling under the weight of carrying the team. That’s the kind of thing that eventually happens when there’s a weak talent pool.
Go down the list of reasons why the Falcons have struggled to score, for instance, and you can see how it all comes back to the lack of good players.
Kyle Shanahan had no answer once opponents countered his All-Julio Jones attack, but could he be blamed when Matt Ryan started missing more open throws than ever? Neither Ryan nor Shanahan can do anything about several key drops by receivers this season.
It would be nice to run the ball more, but Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman are fumblers, and the offensive line is getting overwhelmed. Ryan’s pass protection is breaking down, making deep throws risky, but it held up for a long while as Ryan was misfiring and receivers were dropping passes and Shanahan had no Plan B and …
You get my point. For six consecutive weeks the Falcons have been unable to solve enough of their problems at the same time, in the same game. All of the explanations for it become circular, and that’s the giveaway when a team lacks talent.
The offensive line doesn’t have much pedigree because Dimitroff somewhat missed on Sam Baker and totally whiffed on Peter Konz and Lamar Holmes. Dimitroff never made a serious effort to add young talent in the receiving corps behind Jones, Roddy White and Harry Douglas. He drafted five no-impact edge rushers from 2008-14 and blundered with defensive back Dez Southward, a third-round pick in 2014 who now is on the Colts’ practice squad..
Dimitroff got his most important decision right when he drafted Ryan. The Falcons are married to Ryan, so it’s worrisome if he’s really in decline. I still believe Ryan (and Shanahan) can be better than this if he gets more good players around him.
Dimitroff no longer appears to be the personnel man who can do that. There’s no shame in it: Dimitroff helped build the Falcons into winners. No GM hits on all their picks, and few get even most of them right, but Dimitroff’s high miss rate in drafts has proved to be the Falcons’ undoing.
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