National Football League

With Falcons on outside looking in, why didn't they do more at QB?

Published Dec. 28, 2023 4:55 p.m. ET

The easy read on the Falcons today is the same as it looked last summer: a promising, well-rounded team with a question mark at quarterback.

Atlanta is 7-8, having just matched its win total from each of the past two seasons, but the Falcons are a game back in the NFC South and need help to avoid extending their playoff drought to six straight years.

So it's fair to ask a question that many people asked before the season began: Why were the Falcons content to go with Desmond Ridder as their starter?

Atlanta has a defense that ranks in the top 10 in points allowed and yards allowed. Only five NFL teams can boast that this season, and the other four (Ravens, Cowboys, Bills, Chiefs) are all headed to the playoffs, with the help of four quarterbacks all making at least $40 million a year.

Then there's the Falcons, who made a firm commitment to Ridder, despite him playing only four games as a rookie, needing until December to push Marcus Mariota off the field. Ridder has 10 touchdowns and 10 interceptions this year, twice losing his job to Taylor Heinicke. Of the 24 NFL quarterbacks to throw at least 350 passes, only the Jets' Zach Wilson has fewer touchdowns, and Ridder is tied for the eighth-most interceptions.

Atlanta made sure Ridder was well-armed, equipping its offense with three straight top-10 draft picks in running back Bijan Robinson, receiver Drake London and tight end Kyle Pitts. Those three have combined for 12 total touchdowns. Atlanta paid well to make sure its offensive line returned intact from last season, but that wasn't enough to help Ridder make this a playoff team.

Why didn't the Falcons aim for more? They had ample salary-cap space last offseason, enough to allow for them to make an ambitious push for the best quarterbacks available. They'd tried and missed a year earlier on Deshaun Watson, and that, of course, is arguably a blessing in disguise, for as little as he's given the Browns two years into a fully guaranteed $230 million contract.

It's easy to wonder what the Falcons might be if they'd made an aggressive push for Lamar Jackson, who is now challenging for what would be his second MVP award, having led Baltimore to an NFL-best 12-3 record and potentially the top seed in the AFC. Jackson is still only 26, has thrown for a career-best 3,357 yards this season, with 19 touchdowns against seven interceptions, while rushing for 786 yards and another five scores.

Perhaps, they'll say, Jackson was never really available, and for all the awkward public differences between team and superstar in the offseason, he was always going to re-sign with the Ravens. No package of draft picks could have swayed Baltimore to part with such a promising young player. We'll never know how hard the Falcons tried to pry him away, only that Atlanta had publicly bowed out of the sweepstakes in March, and Jackson didn't re-sign with Baltimore until May.

Aggressively adding an expensive superstar doesn't always work, of course. You see that all over the league, from the Broncos and Russell Wilson to the Saints and Derek Carr to prematurely overpaying for young quarterbacks like the Giants and Daniel Jones and even the Cardinals and Kyler Murray. But even the remote chance to bring in a player like Jackson would be a game-changer for the Falcons, who instead sit 15th in the league in attendance, filling their stadium to an NFL-low 92.8% of capacity.

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Even taking Jackson out of the picture, the Falcons could have hedged their bet on Ridder and done so much better at bringing in a bargain veteran challenger. They gave Heinicke two years and $14 million to be a backup to Ridder without any real competition. In the same division, the Bucs got Baker Mayfield for one year and $4 million, and he has 27 touchdowns — as many as the Falcons offense has totaled all season. The Colts got Gardner Minshew for $3.5 million as a bridge to pair with rookie Anthony Richardson, and Minshew has thrown for 14 touchdowns and has Indy tied for first place in another bad division.

Benching Ridder and turning to Heinicke all but assures that the Falcons' 2024 quarterback is not on the current roster. They're in position to pick 10th overall in the draft by the current standings. That could allow them to draft a second-tier quarterback like LSU's Jayden Daniels, or trade that pick in a Panthers-like package for a top-two pick, swinging for the fences with USC's Caleb Williams or North Carolina's Drake Maye.

They could also turn to a new veteran — perhaps they can lure Russell Wilson on what will be a bargain contract, hoping he can show himself better than he's been in Denver the past two seasons. It could be something more modest, like bringing in Ryan Tannehill, who is 35 but made his lone Pro Bowl in 2019 when Arthur Smith was his offensive coordinator in Tennessee.

Save for the Bucs and Mayfield, the NFL teams that didn't spend on a big contract or a high draft pick at quarterback are generally disappointments this year. Washington had a Ridder-like affection for second-year pro Sam Howell, who's thrown for a ton of yards but also leads the league with 17 interceptions and is now, like Ridder, benched. The Steelers are still mathematically alive for the playoffs, but that's despite quarterback Kenny Pickett, who has 13 touchdowns in 24 career starts.

There are positions in the NFL you can cut corners on, can save money and get by with less, but quarterback is rarely one of them. And as the Falcons face the likely prospect of another year just outside the limits of postseason football, a big part of why they're there is putting a supreme confidence in a middling quarterback few others saw as a reliable NFL starter.

It might not cost Arthur Smith his job, but in a season of near-misses, it's front and center as to why the Falcons aren't in a position to clinch anything this weekend. Their search for a quarterback in the post-Matt Ryan era starts anew in 2024.

Greg Auman is FOX Sports' NFC South reporter, covering the Buccaneers, Falcons, Panthers and Saints. He is in his 10th season covering the Bucs and the NFL full-time, having spent time at the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.