Arthur Smith Gets Shamed
There was quite a bit of kerfuffle about the whole Falcons/Saints ending fiasco. You know me, I loved it. Chaos reigns and that will go down as one of the more chaotic moments of the year. But it naturally got a lot of discussion from all angles because it wasn’t just the Saints sticking it to their hated rivals but ended up being more complicated. I think after all the dust has settled, pretty much everyone deserves a little bit of blame and a little bit of defense.
First up: Arthur Smith. Good riddance you bum! Take your unwatchable garbage out of my eyeballs. 3 years of nothing but wasting everyone’s time. We gave this man Kyle Pitts, Drake London, and Bijan Robinson, and we’ve spent those 3 years wondering what happened to those guys. 3 straight years of wasting the top skill-position prospects. Bijan was the final straw. Smith made his resume by turning Derrick Henry into a monster in Tennessee and last year, against some odds, the Falcons churned out a respectable run game. So yeah, he wasted the talents of Pitts and London and didn’t have a QB, but surely the run game with Bijan could fucking be something! All Ridder would have to do is become a game manager and this squad could win the listless NFC South. NOPE! Bijan also gets used in bizarre fashion and the Falcons stink. All year the notoriously generous and patient Arthur Blank says Smith is safe. Then, at 12:01am EST on Black Monday, Smith is announced as fired. THANK GOD. Arthur Smith was badass. As in he was bad, and ass.
The lasting image of Arthur Smith as the Falcons head coach will be yelling obscenities at Dennis Allen after the Saints pulled a fake victory formation run play for a last-second touchdown after he was humiliated in his final game. Frankly that’s the legacy the man deserved as head coach. But on the other hand, I can at least understand why he was mad. He probably knew his time was over at that point and it can’t feel good to get owned so hard like that.
The victory formation is a weird thing. One of those unwritten rules of football is to not disrupt the victory formation. Greg Schiano broke code many years ago against the Giants and Coughlin (and most media members) ripped into him for it. This might sound weird but I remember being okay with it. Unwritten rules are dumb. The chances of causing a disruption is low but playing to the bitter end feels right to me, injury risk or not, especially in a one-score game. That’s the real issue with breaking victory formation, most of the opposing team won’t be expecting it and therefore possibly more likely to get hurt. However, this wasn’t done in a one-score game and it wasn’t the defense that was desperate, it was the team that had already won. It was kinda douchey and risky for no reason other than yucks. I can accept why Smith was angry.
Dennis Allen: At first I thought Dennis Allen had finally done something neat for the first time as a coach. He took a hot steaming piss on the hated division rival and sent the opposing coach into the shadow realm. Dickish, yes, but interesting. Not a word anyone has ever used to describe Dennis Allen before. Turns out; fake out. Allen did call for the victory formation. He did not want the Saints to break the V-Code but break the V-Code they did. This makes him less of an asshole but somehow reflects on him even worse because now his own players are just disregarding him.
One thing you notice in week 18, even among the down-and-out teams, is that many players and coaches will make small pushes to help dudes out. Pad their stats, help them hit incentives, just generally go out there and try to get the little wins for their bros. The Giants made an extra effort to get Sterling Shephard to 3 catches so he could reach #5 on the Giants all-time catches list. That’s what teams do for each other. It seems like the Saints players wanted to give Jamaal Williams his one single TD for the year so they went rogue. It makes Allen look bad because he could have, maybe even should have, been aware of this dynamic and called a play to make it official instead of a risky trick nonsense. It makes him look real bad that his players just revolted under him and broke V-code. Dennis Allen probably should be fired but I think he’s safe for one more year.
If you want some Dennis Allen catharsis, here’s Amy Trask being uncharacteristically mean in describing him. Amy Trask is a sweetie who spends all her time on twitter these days pretending to be a lawyer for people’s dogs and says Hi in every tweet. I never expected her to rip into someone like that.
Lastly, Jameis and the players. I respect them for having Jamaal’s back. I respect the level of spite and hate it takes to get into victory formation and then run a play like a troll. I respect them for telling Dennis Allen he’s a loser and just ignoring his call to help the bros out. All of that kicks ass. It was still a dickish move to pull that stunt from the victory formation. At least have the respect for the other team by lining up genuinely so they have a chance to defend.
Honestly It’s kind of amazing that Dennis Allen came out of this looking the worst. The players pulled a dickish stunt to stick it to a division rival and it’s all because none of them respect you. If that doesn’t tell you Allen lost the locker room what does? Fire Dennis Allen. Hopefully by the time you read this he’s outta there.
As for the other coach firings?
-Ron Rivera: I think if you are a person on this earth who knows who Ron Rivera is, you saw this firing coming before the season even started.
-Mike Vrabel: What the hell Titans? Stupid idiots. Vrabel is a good coach and you’ll be sorry when he’s in New England next year. Your GMs have spent the last two years sending all the team’s talent away for peanuts and you blame the results on Vrabes? Dumb. Titans must want to tear it all down and start from scratch.
-Is this the first year that more coaches got fired during the season than afterwards? Reich, McDaniels, Staley. If Allen and Belichick stay employed this is bizarre.
-Waiting for more information on this bizarre Wink/Daboll debacle
No word on Belichick as of this writing. If he truly goes don’t worry, it’ll get a comic. Even if it has to wait until the offseason.
I’m in the “if you wanted to score a touchdown, let the other team know what’s going on and don’t fake it out of the victory formation” camp, personally. No issue with running up the score, but its sorta kinda in-a-way analogous to the “False Surrender” during warfare. It seems fine in the moment, but if the other side can’t trust surrenders, then problems start to arise.
And that’s why I get why Allen responded the way he did. I think the made a MASSIVE critical fumble in how he handled it, don’t get me wrong, that’s a 1 on a Diplomacy check every day of the week, but I get him wanting to emphasize that this wasn’t a planned thing on his part and was not to be repeated. He needs to protect his players from getting chopped at the line by a defense that doesn’t trust the Victory Formation, he just should’ve found a way to do that without throwing his players under the bus like he did.
> Amy Trask is a sweetie who spends all her time on twitter these days pretending to be a lawyer for people’s dogs and says Hi in every tweet.
Amy Trask is also the person who embraces her nickname as “the Princess of Darkness” and worked for Al Davis for years. I love her vibe, but calling her a sweetie is kinda ignoring half of who she is. But this was about as personally negative as I’ve heard her get about a coworker too, so Dennis Allen must be a tremendous tool.
I have no doubt she was thick skinned and tough especially as one of the only major women of power in the sport, working for the Raiders, but these days she’s definitely more sweetie than ruthless
The one wrinkle that I’ve seen about that last play is that the Saints still had all of their TOs. If Jameis has them line up in a regular formation, Allen likely calls a TO and likely pulls him out. Jameis might have been thinking that the only way to get that play off was to run it out of the victory formation.
Galaxy-brain move: Call a timeout, make up some dumb reason, and then come out of the timeout in whatever formation you feel like. Can’t call two timeouts in a row.
I LOVE Jamaal Williams. In a profession where people love to hate black nerds, he’s as unabashedly nerdy and true to himself. If ever there was a guy who deserves a meaningless TD at the end of the year, it’s him.
That being said….I still feel like it’s a dick move. People will say “if you don’t want them to score, then stop them from scoring” but I could just as easily turn around and say “if getting Jamaal a TD is so important, call his number anytime before the last play in a blow-out from a 1-yard line after both teams have lost anything to play for.” I don’t really blame the players for not telling Allen, because he’s going to do the generic coach thing and demand V-formation. I don’t entirely blame Allen for throwing his players under the bus because….what the hell is he supposed to do? Take credit for it? Dude still wants a coaching job when he gets axed. This was a no-win situation for everybody involved, but a truly GREAT chaotic way to end the season!
This is how I feel about the whole thing. I get what the players were doing because it’s obvious they all love Jamaal Williams and just wanted to get him his TD, but there was a better way to do that where it wouldn’t result in all this discussion. I can’t blame Allen for his reaction at all because regardless of what we as fans think of unwritten rules, they still exist in coaching circles. If you’re someone trying to stay in that circle, it’s going to look really, really bad if you’re out there blatantly disregarding basic sportsmanship stuff to punk another coach while they’re down. It’s especially tough if you’re in Allen’s spot since he could full-well get fired also and he’ll be struggling to find a new job with that sort of baggage.
Just no real winners in this. That said, I still enjoy the chaos.
I think if they didn’t do the fake kneel, no one would care. Run a regular play to get your man the touchdown.
On Friday could you please do a comic about Aaron Rodgers vs Jimmy Kimmel? I want to see you’re thoughts on it.
Friday is the annual bandwagon guide
I’m trying to avoid Aaron Rodgers content because attention is all he craves and he’s become a giant troll saying more and more bullshit to keep his name in the headlines and this Jimmy Kimmel thing is just his latest bullshit in a long line of him acting like a dipshit
Agreed, Dave. “Aaron Rodgers is a self-fellating moron who spouts nonsense for attention!” isn’t exactly headline news. WINK MARTINDALE, however… holy bejeezus! You could make an entire saga out of this. The more they uncover, the more just… WOW. I’ve gone through all the feelings, and right now I’m praying Jerreh Jones picks him up.
Honestly, I think Rodgers isnt even just about the attention
I think we are realtime watching the man getting sucked into this terminaly online, full on tinfoil hat, anti government (and potentialy hardcore rightwing) conspiracy bullshit black hole and things will deteriorate rapidly once he retires. Because right now, hes still forced to go out of the house and suround himself and interact with normal people as part of his job, even if they are a lot of yes men thanks to his position as a very good QB. Id even bet you a 100 bucks that in 10 years time Rodgers will have gone full on consiracy nutjob believing that “the washington elites” drink the blood of children below a pizza parlor or whatever crazy bs they get trolled into believing by then (a lot of the more outlandish conspiracy theorys start of as “Hold my beer and watch this” type of internet shitposting after all)
This is ofc anecdotal evidence, but Ive got an uncle that went down that exact route. He was always a bit kooky and willing to believe some of the more fringe stuff like ghosts being real but he kept it to a socialy acceptable, no harm no foul, haha what a funny goofball levels. Then he had to medicaly retire in ’18, became terminaly online cause he had nothing to do all day and within 2 years he was marching in “Covid is a hoax and the vaccine is mind control nanobots to turn us all into zombie slaves controlled by 5G” demos…
Pete Carroll Absolutely deserves a comic.
I know you don’t follow college football Dave, but will you do a Nick Saban retiring comic? He is the greatest cfb coach of all time and he had a profound impact on the sport and the NFL.
The cud chewer is done? What a relief that I won’t have to watch that between every play anymore.
Carroll, Saban and Belichick within 24 hours. WOW.
The Greatest Coaches of the 21st Century, gone just like that.
I was too optimistic with my name this year, Arthur Smith was the Jeff Fischer of 7-10. Glad Arthur is gone though. Really hoping we pick up Brian flores but I’m expecting Belichick. I just hope it’s a defensive coach, In Failcons history we do not do well with OC’s as HC’s.
Only makes me even more disappointed McDaniels didn’t have the guts to shove a 77 down Payton’s throat, he deserved it more.
Also … you every have a situation where you have what you think is a really good idea in your head, but as soon as you say it out loud in front of people, you realize it’s really bad? Somehow I feel some of these “unwritten rules” of “sportsmanship” are the same … they’d look really bad if you wrote them down on paper.
When’s the playoff bandwagon guide?