TL:DR?
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The Atlanta Falcons have a new head football coach. Former Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith will become the fifth head coach formally hired by Falcons owner Arthur Blank, and there’s a lot of reasons Atlanta fans should be excited about it.
Smith, 38, replaces interim coach Raheem Morris, becoming the first offensive-minded head coach Blank has hired since the unspeakable Bobby Petrino disaster of 2007.
Who is Arthur Smith?
Smith, the son of FedEx founder Fred Smith, played offensive line at North Carolina from 2001-05 before transitioning into a position as a graduate assistant and then serving in various off-field roles for the Washington Redskins, Ole Miss, and Tennessee Titans before being promoted to an on-field coach in 2013. What’s both fascinating and unique about his journey is that Smith worked for FOUR different coaching regimes in Tennessee dating back to 2011, surviving an unheard of THREE coaching changes and being promoted by each of the last three head coaches. Clearly, the organization saw something promising in him.
What’s his resume?
Smith succeeded wonderboy Matt LaFleur as offensive coordinator for the Titans in 2019. LaFleur, the quarterbacks coach for Atlanta under Kyle Shanahan, moved on to become head coach of the Green Bay Packers and has amassed a record of 27-8 though his first two seasons including consecutive trips to the NFC championship game and helping Aaron Rodgers enjoy the best statistical season of his decorated career at age 37. Smith followed THAT guy as the Titans OC, and the Tennessee offense actually IMPROVED with him at the helm. And yes, that means Smith is a schematic descendant of Kyle Shanahan with a heavy emphasis on run and play action as well as using motions, shifts, and bunch sets to generate mismatches and better blocking angles. A quick comparison of the two regimes in Tennessee:
2017 (Matt LaFleur): 18th in scoring, 23rd in yardage
2018 (Matt LaFleur): 27th in scoring, 25th in yardage
2019 (Arthur Smith): 10th in scoring, 12th in yardage
2020 (Arthur Smith): 4th in scoring, 2nd in yardage
As always, there is context to those numbers -- the 2017-18 numbers include two injury riddled seasons from Marcus Mariota, a rapidly declining Demarco Murray, and a Derrick Henry who had yet to fully tap into in his mutant-like abilities. That said, the LaFleur offenses pale in comparison to the groups led by Smith the last two seasons.
The Titans ranked fourth in the league in scoring during the regular season, averaging 30.7 points per game under Smith. Tennessee finished the regular season averaging 396.4 total yards per game, good for third in the NFL. The Titans' rushing attack posted 168.1 yards per game, second only to that of the Baltimore Ravens (191.9 yards).
The Falcoholic has a great article on Smith that takes a deeper look into these numbers:
"When you view the analytical side of their numbers, the Titans are third in the NFL in drive success rate at 79%, which measures offensive drives that results in a first downs and/or a touchdown. That ranks higher than teams such as Seattle, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, and Arizona… Indeed, the most impressive stat from Arthur Smith’s tenure might be his red zone efficiency in both 2019 and 2020. In 2019, the Titans led the league with an incredible 75.6% RZ efficiency. Most assumed that was an aberration and would be nearly impossible to replicate, but they did: Tennessee finished with a nearly-identical 75.0% RZ efficiency in 2020 (2nd in the NFL).
That’s obviously the most striking change from Dirk Koetter’s offense, which was among the league’s worst in the red zone from 2019-2020. Koetter’s offenses managed a paltry 51.7% (25th) and 53.4% (26th) RZ efficiency in 2019 and 2020, respectively. To illustrate how big of a difference a better RZ efficiency could have made in the 2020 season, I took a look at how many more points the Falcons would have scored if you just changed their RZ efficiency from 53.4% to 75.0% and left everything else the same."
As I mentioned in the end-of season-podcast, the best path to red zone success is a strong running game. Five of the top-six red zone offenses (Green Bay, Tennessee, Seattle, Cleveland, New Orleans, and Minnesota) had elite run games that ranked in the top-eight of the league. Having a Derrick Henry, Dalvin Cook, or Alvin Kamara helps, but the right scheme and good offensive line play can also get elite production out of journeyman players like Matt Breida and Raheem Mostert as we saw the 49ers do en route to a Superbowl appearance in 2019.
Circling back around to Derrick Henry -- Kevin King of the Falcoholic makes a great point about Henry’s growth under Arthur Smith:
Under Smith’s direction, Derrick Henry transformed in a superstar, Ryan Tannehill resurrected his career, and Jonnu Smith and Corey Davis put together career years catching the football. In short, every skill player on Tennessee played the most productive football of their career under Arthur Smith. He has taken good (but not great) personnel and generated ELITE production, while Atlanta fans just watched one of the more talented offensive rosters in the NFL limp to a middle-of-the-pack finish in points per game.
Insert skeptical comments here: “An offense based on play action only works if you can run the ball effectively.” That’s true, but perhaps not as true as you might think. While “running the ball effectively” is a big key to successful play action, it’s not the ONLY key.
One of the beauties of the outside zone run scheme used by the McVay/Shanahan/Smith school is the way it uses movement at the line of scrimmage to compliment the backfield action. Most people picture play action as simply jabbing the ball in the belly of the running back to draw the eyes of linebackers and safeties. That’s true, but in the most effective play action schemes, that backfield action can be paired with hard run steps by the offensive lineman and tight ends that get second level defenders out-of-position.
It’s one thing to get sucked up by a fake to Derrick Henry on 2 & 2; it’s another thing for a safety to see the entire offensive line zone hard right on 2 & 2, take a step up and then realize the tight end faked his zone step and is now running uncovered down the seam. That’s what this kind of scheme is built to do, and the importance of the scheme itself cannot be emphasized enough. The presences of Derrick Henry, the scheme itself, and it’s stellar execution by Ryan Tannehill made the Titans the second most efficient team in the NFL on play-action. The brief video below provided some examples:
What about the Defense??
Having said all of that, Atlanta fans know it’s the other side of the ball that has derailed the last three seasons of Falcons football and ultimately got Dan Quinn fired. What will Arthur Smith do to fix a defense devoid of pass rush and secondary playmakers with little-to-no cap space? In the absence of elite talent and the money needed to add it, it helps to bring on an experienced, high-caliber coordinator...one kind of like Dean Pees, who officially took the job on Thursday.
Pees has coordinated two Superbowl champion defenses (New England in 2004 and Baltimore in 2012) and his units have finished top-twelve in scoring defense in eleven of his twelve seasons as a coordinator. Hiring him essentially guarantees a top-12 defense over the next few years; he has an absolutely stellar track record.
Pees bases out of a 3-4 which might seem problematic with the Falcons personnel at first glance. However, it’s worth pointing out that Dante Fowler’s career-high in sacks came playing as a 3-4 OLB for the Rams in 2019, and 2020 draft pick Mykal Walker played as a 3-4 OLB in college. Those two along with Deion Jones and Foye Oluokon in the middle give the Falcons a great head start in making the transition into an odd front. The Falcons also have promising young “tweener” defensive linemen in John Cominsky and Marlon Davidson who are perfectly suited to slide out to a 6-technique and play defensive end in the new scheme. The odd fit becomes Grady Jarrett, a true 3-technique defensive tackle who doesn’t have a clear position in a 3-4. That said, the Nickel defense has become the base set for most units in the NFL, so it’s somewhat splitting hairs to nitpick over how the current roster fits a scheme you’ll only play for about 40% of your defensive snaps.
So what can we expect from the Arthur Smith administration?
A commitment to running the football
Improved red zone efficiency
More FB and TE usage
A significant shift in defensive philosophy
Immediate, but modest defensive improvement (which isn’t saying much)
A consistent scheme and voice for the twilight of Matt and Julio’s careers
The Bottom Line
The Falcons had no choice but to hire an offensive coach. When teams with defensive head coaches hire bad offensive coordinators they get fired (See: Dan Quinn). When they hire great offensive coordinators, they rarely last more than two years on the job before moving on to head coaching positions (See: Kyle Shanahan). Arthur Smith wasn’t the sexiest pick on the market, but what separates him from uber-popular fan candidate Eric Bieniemy is his experience calling plays -- something Bieniemy hasn't done with the Chiefs. It's also hard to ignore the fact that Smith's 2020 unit managed to outperform a Chiefs offense that had Patrick Mahomes and elite outside weapons that blow away those on the Titans roster. His offensive track record along with the killer staff he’s assembling should leave the “Rise Up” nation with nothing but hope and optimism approaching the 2021 season.
Bring on 2021. Rise Up!
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