There is a strong possibility the Falcons have won their last game of the season. That projection isn’t based on injuries, schemes or a weekly metamorphosis along the offensive line, but rather sheer numbers.
They are 4-10. The four wins have come over losing teams with a cumulative record of 18-38. Their final two opponents, San Francisco and Carolina, are combined 20-8. So a 4-12 finish is the betting favorite.
Some may celebrate that, just as some fumed when the Falcons held on to beat the self-immolating Washington Redskins (3-11) because it dropped Atlanta in the projected draft order. And shouldn’t that be the agenda? Bench the starters, cross-tie the shoes of the backups, let the slapstick take you on a magic carpet ride to the rewards of humility: The top of the draft?
“I’ve never thought that way in my life,” said Scott Pioli, the former New England and Kansas City general manager and now an NFL analyst for an NBC Sports. “It’s so contrary to everything you’ve done in your life to get into the position of being a decision maker. You want to win every game. You’re such a competitor. Winning is a way of life. It’s a culture. You don’t even consider the benefit of losing. People say, ‘But losing is a business strategy,’ I say to them, ‘You’ve never been in this business. You’ve never been this emotionally invested. You’ve never seen or felt the pain of the people involved after a loss.’”
It’s December. NFL teams are divided into two groups: Those with Super Bowl hopes still burning. Those in ashes. The Falcons are the latter.
Pioli has a unique perspective. He experienced the highs of Super Bowls titles in New England and the lows of a 2-14 season and a firing in Kansas City.
Pioli also mentored Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff and the two remain close friends. So it follows he preferred to avoid any deep analysis of the Falcons’ season and past personnel decisions. But he said this season can be a valuable learning process for Dimitroff and others in the organization because teams often don’t learn about players until they’ve been placed in difficult circumstances.
It makes sense. For example, Dimitroff and coach Mike Smith probably were completely justified in believing they could do better on the offensive line than keeping right tackle Tyson Clabo and center Todd McClure. But they also clearly miscalculated in projecting Lamar Holmes and Peter Konz were ready to step into those roles.
Alluding to the Falcons’ early season injury problems, Pioli said, “They lost some of their best players and that impacted (other) players. Sometimes you can lose key guys and make it through. Other times it can have a really bad effect. It happened to us in Kansas City. When there are adverse conditions, it puts pressure on people who maybe had gotten comfortable.
“Adverse situations reveal what people really are. Not just players but coaches and trainers. People act a certain way. But when there’s adversity, they react. It’s interesting for the Falcons right now to watch how people react.”
I asked Pioli if a losing season can lead a general manager to evaluate coaches over a season’s final games. Response: That’s not where a general manager’s critique should begin.
“To say you’re evaluating coaches is too narrow. The first thing you have to evaluate is yourself,” he said. “If you’re the general manager, you’re responsible for how things got there. So you have to evaluate how well you’re doing and not doing.”
And Dimitroff?
“Thomas does that all the time. He’s a very harsh critic of himself. That’s how he was raised. He’s always going to look at himself before anybody else.”
For what it’s worth, neither Dimitroff nor Smith have acknowledged any missteps on personnel decisions. Maybe that will come after the season.
Certainly, there has been time to evaluate. Playoffs realistically have been a dead issue since losses to Arizona and Carolina dropped them to 2-6. But Pioli said a general manager’s job doesn’t necessarily change much during a season, win or lose. It’s still about watching film, holding draft meetings and dealing with salary issues. He actually found playoff games to be a “distraction, as strange as that sounds.
“When we went to three Super Bowls in four years in New England, I had greater anxiety as we went deeper in the playoffs because there were things we had to deal with after the season,” he said. “After we won our first Super Bowl in New Orleans, I remember Bill [Belichick] and I sitting on the plane on the way home working on our expansion list because that’s the year the [Houston] Texans were coming into the league. We felt anxiety because we were five weeks behind everybody else for the draft.”
So if you’re searching for the silver lining of this Falcons’ season, there it is: Dimitroff has had time to evaluate how things went sideways.
Doesn’t seem so satisfying, does it?
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