Thursday, January 12, 2012

Guys, The Roadblocks on 316 Are Not Necessary

I took a quick run this morning at the rumor that the Falcons are interested in Todd Grantham.  I guess if you are replacing one former Georgia defensive coordinator, you might as well do so by making another one, right?  Aside from the facts that Grantham's scheme is a bad fit for the Falcons' personnel and the team has neither the draft picks nor the cap space to re-tool in the offseason, I opined that there is no way in hell that Arthur Blank is going to piss off the significant portion of his fan base that spends their Saturdays barking:

A significant portion of the Falcons' fan base is comprised of Georgia fans. How exactly do we think that Georgia fans would react to losing their now-beloved defensive coordinator to the local pro football collective right before a season in which Georgia will be preseason top ten and expected to win the East and challenge for the SEC title? Arthur Blank didn't get to where he is by angering his customers. It would make a lot more sense for him to back the Brinks truck up to Steve Spagnuolo's house so the Falcons can sell their fans on the fact that they hired a Super Bowl-winning defensive coordinator.
So no, I don't think that this is happening.  In fact, I seriously doubt that the Falcons even considered it beyond "yeah, that would be a terrible idea."

If the Falcons wanted to do a change of scheme, how about the Air Raid?  It's almost certainly too radical for a winning team, but if some teams are going to move towards the spread 'n' shred, then why wouldn't someone try the other offense that is ripping up college football?  It's not like the run 'n' shoot was a resounding failure in the NFL.

1 comment:

peacedog said...

Good article, but you left off the other driving factor.

Grantham is angling for a nice contract extension/improvement. McGarity had already come out and said that while a deal was being worked on, Grantham's pay was in line with other top assistants.

As Grantham's agent, what better way than to drive up his value by having his name linked to not only a vacant NFL DC job, but one near by?

In any case, sounds like the extension will get done soon, and Grantham's recent statement was a pretty smart move from a PR standpoint. No need to worry about this disrupting the surging recruiting class (which just inked a huge target on the strength of Grantham). No need to let anything fester.