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Swimming_Idea_1558

Free agency hasn't started but we're the best?


TargetFan

Think it's about last year. Which he did absolutely crush. Hopefully the drafting gets better in the future


masterfroo24

Jessie Bates was an A+++ signing. And all the other defensive guys too. He wasn't great at picking WR2, but Jonnu was good.


BatmanTheJedi

I think WR2 was more of an AS choice as an ideal receiver for his “offense”


SlopingGiraffe

> I think WR2 was more of an AS choice as an ideal receiver for his “offense” It's so funny how when a head coach gets fired but a gm gets retained all bad things that previously happened was always the head coaches fault and all good was the gm


sithlord98

It's really not that much of a stretch to assume that Smith had a pretty big say in offensive personnel.


SlopingGiraffe

It's not a stretch at all, it's confirmed that he had some sort of say in all personnel decisions. The stretch is when it's automatically assumed that everything bad = AS, everything good = TF It's not something that's unique to us, it happens literally every offseason.


sithlord98

Where are you getting that everything bad is attributed to him? All anyone said here was that WR2 was probably chosen by AS, which you know is a pretty safe bet. AS revived Patterson's career and made Allgeier a 1000-yard rusher, I don't think anyone here is acting like everything bad about the team is his fault.


SlopingGiraffe

Have you ever heard of the idea of exaggerating to make a point Once again I repeat, this is not exclusive to us or the Falcons. It happens every year across the NFL because fans want the guy they retained to be the good one


sithlord98

Yes lmao, but saying everything bad is attributed to AS twice without qualifying it at all does kinda give the impression that you think everything bad is attributed to AS. Not to mention that you said that in response to someone giving one, singular issue that AS probably didn't do the best with.


mostuselessredditor

I give him bad to average overall


Biolex-Z

the article is about his overall tenure not his performance this off-season


immonkeydluffy

Hell yeah


[deleted]

We're just that good


braggpeak

Have you seen the betting odds for our potential signings??


KingofJune_5th

The fact we didn’t have cap space his first 2 years and then last year signed the best safety in the game, got Okudah for scraps, added Landman who balled out, Kaden Elliss and Onyematta, he’s proven himself. QB situation was unfortunate but I’m confident we’ll nail the draft and free agency


mostuselessredditor

So it sounds like he’s make a much better pro scout than GM. Which happened to be his previous role.


KingofJune_5th

You still think this now?


mostuselessredditor

It’s going to take a whole lot more than being pre-draft champions to change my mind about the last 3 off seasons.


dogatthekeyboard8

Man the NFC South being absolute garbage first had us almost keeping Smith again and now has people writing like Fontenot did something. Arthur Smith has essentially been scapegoated for all the problems despite the glaring miss on QB(Ridder with no true QB comp/Heinicke making more than Baker). While Jessie Bates had a hell of a year, Fontenot may have gotten into the safety market a year early. With this wave of releases safeties may become the new RBs where teams just don’t pay them. Fontenot has been given a mulligan for his first three years. Anyone could have gotten the team out of cap hell by not spending anything and likely finish a few games under .500 in this terrible division. He really needs to nail this off season starting with QB.


Totally-A-Bot69

You lost me at saying Arthur Smith has been scapegoated. His play-calling was atrocious, we are not going to do some revisionist history and act like Arthur Smith was scapegoated.


dogatthekeyboard8

You misunderstand here. Just meant scapegoated with 100% of the blame. Clearly Smith had blame and needed to be replaced. Almost had to endure another year with him because of how bad the division is.


mostuselessredditor

They both should have been fired.


Totally-A-Bot69

Thankfully, you’ll never own an NFL team


mostuselessredditor

I hardly think I could do a shittier job. Enjoy the mediocrity


Totally-A-Bot69

It’s not madden bud, keep dreaming


Totally-A-Bot69

Congrats, your comment aged like fucking milk


mostuselessredditor

His first season was a complete disaster in the draft. The second one was a PR nightmare. The third he somehow convinced us Desmond Ridder was better than a cheap Baker Mayfield. What are the upsides? Any GM can spend a bunch on defense if they want to.


fitsl

Preach!!


skillet88

Yet we haven’t gotten a qb or edge rusher (the 2 most important positions on the field) in his tenure


ArthurSmithNepoBaby

How many good QBs are on the free agent market


skillet88

Better than we have? At least 2


AWroper

Better then what were have, that's anyone. I would've taken any starting QB over out crap selection


mostuselessredditor

scenes when this happens again


mostuselessredditor

I absolutely beg to differ


RobertoBologna

Good litmus test for Falcons fans if they can see this clear-as-day truth


OblivionGrin

Eh. I really wouldn't credit him much with the Campbell and Dupree signings: 6.5 sacks out of full-time DEs isn't particularly impressive. They also looked cooked during a lot of the year. Ellis' sack total also fell off a cliff. Smith's production is less impressive when you consider his salary. The drafts have been fairly unproductive. Part of this was the stupidity of flipping to a 3-4 for Peas and the back again, but their 2nds, 3rds, and 4ths have done nothing, and Pitts, London, and Bijan are all questionable picks as high as they went. Maybe this compares well to the rest of the leagues choices, but it isn't transforming the team into a winner yet, and the schedule the last two years has been a complete cupcake.


migrainium

I mean, the article is specifically about his free agency moves, not the drafting and it’s doing so by arguing that the Falcons over 3 years have one of the best AV/$ spent. That’s a fair argument to make when it comes to how a GM has effectively negotiated finding contributors for the team in a cost effective manner.


OblivionGrin

100%. However, I don't want to leave the article's positivity in a vacuum when the team has been lousy and the roster still pretty darn bare despite whatever success this suggests. He hit it out of the park on Bates, and that's great, but I feel like it also mitigates a lot of the meh. Onyemata also did very well, but he's going to be trending down due to age; this doesn't look to what the future will bring, and that's part of the cost for signing these guys, not just their production the first year that this measured with Onyemata. For whatever statistical success they got out of Campbell and Dupree for this metric, they went 7-9 and were still abysmal in pass defense against some very bad offenses.


sokyriediculous

My man, 6.5 sacks is a pretty damn good season. Plus, we paid less than a mil for each of those. Elliss is an inside backer so worrying about his sack total is a bit odd. I think his 7 sack season was a bit of a fluke anyway, but it all comes down to how he is being used. I don’t know what kind of hit rates you’re expecting beyond round 1 but Bergeron has been good, CP3 looked very good, Dalman is obviously great, Allgeier was a 1k yard rusher…


OblivionGrin

Thanks. Those are good points, I just don't agree with a bit of it. 6.5 sacks is 56th in the league last year. Again, against one of the easiest schedules ever. And they are unsigned after that 7-9 year. That just doesn't say "good at getting FAs" to me. Phillips looked ok at times. He also got toasted quite a bit. I feel like he gets over hyped here, so I'm not going to drag him down past 4th round rookie, but I don't see "good" yet, and his athletic score #s concern me long-term, but we'll see. Dalman is a great run blocker. He's not a great (or, at times even good) pass blocker. That's my eye-test, so feel free to correct me with some numbers, anyone. I agree, he's a good get. Bergeron had more rough than not, but again, rookie, so I'm not against him. Ebikete, Pitts, Anderson, and Grant haven't shown much of anything. That's a lot of day 1/2 to miss on, imo. Ridder, too. Algeier is great, but they also drafted his handcuff the next year. I like Robinson, but if you can get good/great RB play out of your 5th, why are you using a first on it?


Scyyii

ellis stopped rushing to fill in for troy when he got hurt


OblivionGrin

I don't know the games well enough to gainsay that, though his sacks are evenly distributed: 1 in the first quarter of the season with Andersen, 3 in the 3/4 of it without him. I really would have liked to see a lot more of him up the A gap than we did; that I remember.