Atlanta Falcons fans should feel a sense of relief and liberation

The clown show is finally over for Atlanta Falcons fans. Week 5 felt like a win even though the Falcons were outcoached and outplayed in Sunday’s loss to the Carolina Panthers.

Personally speaking, and having been a die-hard Atlanta Falcons fan since 1980, the long-overdue firings of head coach Dan Quinn and general manager Thomas Dimitroff exudes a major sense of liberation.

No more being subjected to Quinn and his rah-rah speeches, cliches and painful press conferences. To be blunt, he is a 50-year-old man who tried way too hard to fit in with younger generations.

His lingo and vocabulary did not sit well and grew old very fast with most Atlanta Falcons fans. It was quite evident he had lost the locker room, as the players just weren’t playing hard for him at all.

To be honest, his firing should have come at the very least halfway through the 2019 season, when the Falcons were 1-7 at the midway point.

He should have been let go after the Super Bowl debacle back in 2017, which the franchise still has not recovered from to this day. Quinn continued to bury his head in the sand and thought by releasing his non-catchy “embrace the suck” slogan, fans would buy into his garbage rhetoric.

The only way to completely begin the recovery process is to wipe the slate clean from top to bottom. A thorough cleansing is in dire need as this team is an absolute mess.

There might not have been a more dysfunctional and inept coaching staff during Quinn’s tenure. This was evidenced on both sides of the ball.

Quinn never held himself accountable or accepted responsibility for his low football IQ, extremely questionable hires (including himself as defensive coordinator) and inexplicable clock management decisions.

All Atlanta Falcons fans know that after offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan left to become the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, he instantly should have elevated then quarterback coach Matt LaFleur to offensive coordinator. Shanahan was the real reason the Falcons even made it to the Super Bowl in 2016.

For some mind-boggling reason, Quinn and others (apparently) in the organization were not enamored with LaFleur and his work ethic. Another one of many decisions by Quinn that resulted in utter failure.

Instead, his questionable hire of Steve Sarkisian as offensive coordinator lasted all of two seasons and the offense was average at best for most of the time he was here.

His also very questionable firing of defensive coordinator Marquand Manuel also made zero sense at the time and seemed to have an ulterior motive behind it on the part of Quinn. Marquand’s defense in 2017 was by far the best this team had during the Quinn era. The fact he was let go for no apparent reason still doesn’t resonate well with the fans.

Perhaps the most head-scratching and infuriating hire of all was Dirk Koetter as offensive coordinator for the 2019 season.

What an absolute disaster this has been.

Koetter is so delusional and unadaptable to today’s creative offensive style of playcalling in the NFL. He has led to quarterback Matt Ryan‘s regression from 2019 to the present.

Perhaps Quinn, deep down, knew all along he was in way over his head. He tried many times unsuccessfully to pull a fast one over the Atlanta Falcons fanbase.

He would always dance around questions in his press conferences and give some indirect answer by including a catchphrase such as “we’re all about the ball” time after time after time. The Atlanta Falcons were near the bottom of the league every year at forcing turnovers during the Quinn era.

The real question is: Did Quinn actually really believe what he was shovelling to Atlanta Falcons fans and the media for the past five-plus years? Perhaps he did and perhaps it was all a cover-up for his many deficiencies.

This lifelong Atlanta Falcons fan never bought into his act from day one, which was tiresome. Thankfully, his cheerleading antics are over and done with and nobody has to be subjected to it anymore.