Falcons Sign Luke McCown, Don’t Get Injured Matt!

The Atlanta Falcons cut Chris Redman (a favorite backup of mine) in order to sign Luke McCown on Tuesday.  The relationship between the Jaguars and the Falcons grows stronger with yet another step by the Falcons.  The Jags took their ex-quarterbacks coach, Bob Bratkowski, and ex-Offensive Coordinator, Mike Mularkey, to be their offensive coordinator and head coach, respectively.  The Falcons took Mike Smith, the defensive mind for the Jags a few years back, and made their product marketable for the first time since the early Michael Vick era.  But now they may be going too far.  The Falcons picked up Dirk Koetter, the Jags’ offensive coordinator over the past few seasons, to be their OC this season and have now tagged Luke McCown as the backup to Matt Ryan.

If the Falcons are trying to recreate some level of success that the Jags had under Koetter, I have news for them: there isn’t any.

I’ve long disliked Koetter’s philosophy (stretching the field with a vertical passing game) and his coaching.  Further, I know that his system does not work…or at least didn’t with the Jaguars’ personnel.  After the 2007 season (a very good offensive year) the Jaguars attempted to fully implement Koetter’s approach and yielded greater scoring, more yards, and less wins.  I don’t care how you win in the NFL, but that’s the ultimate measure.  Besides that, the offense wasn’t nearly as successful as they had hoped.

And now there is Luke McCown.  I’ve been a McCown fan for a while and I like him as a backup.  But only on the bench.  If you need backup to show someone up in practice, he’s your man.  If you need a backup to take a few snaps late in a game, McCown’s your man.  If your quarterback goes down for an extended period of time, McCown is  not your man.  McCown has looked good in practice since he entered the league, but the journeyman backup will forever be a backup and doesn’t have the potential to raise your team from the depression that sets in once your starting quarterback goes down.  To go further, McCown has failed at orchestrating an offense under Koetter before.  If I were running the team, this would not be the way I would want things to be going.

I like Matt Ryan, I like Mike Smith, on the whole I think the Falcons are a solid organization.  But the trend of brining in failed offensive pieces should stop.  Atlanta has been hoping to make a splash in the playoffs for some time, this is not the way to do it.

It’s a tough league out there, the Falcons shouldn’t be making it harder on themselves.

– Luke N. Sims

Feel free to leave comments on here or visit us at Facebook or Twitter!

You can also find me on Twitter @LukeNSims