Mike Smith Fired by the Atlanta Falcons, Bring on Rex Ryan?

Mike Smith was fired by the Atlanta Falcons today, though it may have actually happened minutes after his team was embarrassed at home, 34-3 by the Carolina Panthers. I suppose he could have been given his walking papers at halftime of that embarrassing season finale, but we’ll never know.

The Falcons were Smith’s first head coaching job, and he went to the playoffs in four of the first five years, but he only won one of those games. After a difficult loss in the NFC title game to San Francisco in January 2013, the Falcons ran into bad luck – star receiver Julio Jones got hurt in 2013, and then injuries mounted in 2014. Smith’s curiously cautious decision-making never really endeared him to fans, and when the losing mounted, owner Arthur Blank had seen enough.

So Smith is gone after a nice run in Atlanta, and the obvious question is who can inject some toughness on this terrible defense?

I think the answer could be Rex Ryan, who is known as a defensive coach, but whose Jets struggled offensively far too often in his New York tenure. Ryan was beloved by the team and the media in New York, but he never had a QB.

Perhaps the bigger question: Does general manager Thomas Dimitroff survive this disaster? I’m not sure. They were built to win three years ago, but when things fell apart in the last two years, there was zero depth.

Owner Arthur Blank won’t have much time to decide about keeping his GM – there’s another team with a stacked offense that hasn’t had a defense in a few years: the Chicago Bears. Replacing a GM and then coach in the span of a few days would be a significant task – unless Blank has been working behind the scenes this week.