Falcons fans’ curiosity was probably peaked last night after the Packers-Saints Sunday Night Football game when Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio brought up the possibility that Mike Smith’s future with the team was in doubt. Even with the unusual road trip to London, Smith still had his normal Monday press conference.
Smith is still upbeat about the final eight games of the season and isn’t worried about what could happen to him.
“None whatsoever,” Smith said. “We’re going to do what we’ve done for the last six plus years. Prepare each and every week like we know how to do it. I’m going to continue to do that until Mr. Blank tells me otherwise.”
The fact is, the Falcons are 6-18 since the NFC Championship Game loss to the San Francisco 49ers. They are currently second to last in the NFL for total defense, giving up 408.8 yards on average.
Like we saw Sunday, the second half was a disaster for the Falcons. In fact, they’re being outscored 127-90 in the final 30 minutes of games this season. Smith says that yesterday’s game was just another fact to testify to their struggles in the second half.
“We played like two different teams in the ballgame yesterday,” Smith said. “We were a completely different team in the first half, than we were in the second half.”
This is a bye week for the Falcons and the team is going to be away from the Flowery Branch facility for the rest of the week. After they meet Monday night the players will have time off until the following Monday, when they start to prepare for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the road.
The fans are ready to see this team win and win now. Mike Smith knows this and also realizes that he’s ultimately to blame for the shortcomings of this team.
“I haven’t done the job that I’ve needed to do,” Smith said. “I’ve let down the players, coaches, and the fans thus far. I’ll tell you what we plan on doing, we plan on getting hot and making it a really good second half of this season.”
Smith continued to say this team needs to focus on getting the next win and not a streak at this point. It has been five games since the Falcons experienced a win. They are at 2-6. That said, Smith says morale is still high.
“We’re a 2-6 football team but that’s not a 2-6 locker room,” Smith said. “That is a quality group of men in that locker room. I can assure you this, there’s no quit in them. Have we fallen short? Yes. But, there’s no quit in any of those guys.”
The Falcons do still have eight games left this season to try and turn their luck around. The good news is, they are still in the NFC South race. Carolina and New Orleans are 3-4 on the season. They have three games against one of the two of them in the next eight games. Also, they will return home for four of these remaining games.
It will be tough, but the Falcons have put themselves in this spot. Now, the only thing they can control is how they finish this season.
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