Atlanta Falcons Need a Better Steve Sarkisian in the 2018 Season
By Kit Anderson
The Atlanta Falcons will need much better play calling from coordinator Steve Sarkisian in 2018. Sarkisian had a rough 2017 season including blowing a chance to win a playoff game against the Eagles.
Watching the Atlanta Falcons play offense last season was best described as simply frustrating. At times they appeared to be the dominant unit of the year before and at others struggled to get a single first down.
Play calling was the biggest issue the team seemed to have. Sarkisian seemed to stubbornly call the same plays in the wrong situations. Watching the offense trying to implement the wrong plays for the wrong situations was painful.
Sarkisian shouldn’t have kept his job in my opinion. He took the top offense in the League and turned them into a frustrating and inconsistent unit that had four chances to win a playoff game and failed.
Watching the sequence of plays he called in the final seconds of the game against the Eagles should have been the last straw. It wasn’t, Coach Dan Quinn and quarterback Matt Ryan stood by Sarkisian and now it is time for him to deliver on their belief.
He will no longer have any excuses or the built-in first-year excuse of it being his first season. No matter the fact players are expected to show growth and produce in their first year the Falcon’s hope is Sarkisian can grow in his second year.
If his play calling doesn’t drastically improve it is hard to see this team being a serious Super Bowl contender. With decent play calling they should be favored to make the Super Bowl when you look at the talent on their roster.
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Watching Sarkisian this season will be interesting to see if he chooses to adjust. If not the Falcons shouldn’t hesitate to move on from their offensive coordinator and find someone capable of calling consistent sensical plays.