The Atlanta Falcons have mostly been mired in mediocrity the last 25 years with flashes of greatness and periods of ineptitude. While they haven’t exactly had a rotating carousel of head coaches, they’ve hardly had the stability of the Pittsburgh Steelers either (no one has).
The Falcons began the century with Dan Reeves as head coach. His major success was getting stomped in the Super Bowl in 1998 by John Elway and the Denver Broncos. Maybe Eugene Robinson was to blame for that?
FUN FACT: Eugene Robinson is the only player in NFL history to lose back-to-back Super Bowls with different teams who lost to the same team. He was with the Green Bay Packers in 1997 and the Falcons in 1998, both of whom lost to the Broncos.
Reeves took a Falcons team to a Super Bowl, but it was before the beginning of the century so his hiring wouldn’t qualify for CBS Sports’ recent list of “Top 25 worst NFL coaching hires this century.” According to Cody Benjamin of CBS, the Falcons only have one coaching hire that made his list.
No. 2: Bobby Petrino
Record: 3-10
2007 was a very rough year for the Falcons (much like it was for the Miami Dolphins and Cam Cameron). There aren’t many head coaches and/or teams that could handle the fallout from losing the face of your franchise to dog fighting and interstate gambling conspiracy charges. That’s certainly the kind of incident that would put your franchise into a tailspin.
But, Bobby Petrino was bad on top of that. Sure, he had to start Joey Harrington, Chris Redman and Byron Leftwich at quarterback that year (at least two of them were high first-round picks at one point?), but he also bailed on the entire team in embarrassing fashion after just 13 games.
“There’s no doubt Petrino found himself in an unexpectedly dire situation when Michael Vick, the team’s emergent star quarterback, went to prison for dogfighting prior to the 2007 season, leaving Atlanta without answers under center,” Benjamin writes. “But Petrino’s response was even more unexpected: He resigned from his post after just 13 games, informing the Falcons of his decision via notes left in the locker room. Before the dust could even settle, Petrino was back in the college ranks as the head coach of Arkansas, his name etched into Falcons history solely for his sprint out of town.”
It really says something about Urban Meyer‘s brief time with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2021 that he beat out Petrino on this list.
Who has been coaching the Falcons the last 25 years?
The century started out pretty well for Atlanta. They had just made a Super Bowl two years prior and in 2001 they made the trade with the San Diego Chargers to move up to No. 1 in the NFL Draft and select Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick.
After that, they made the NFC Championship Game in 2004 under Jim Mora, and then we all remember what happened with Dan Quinn in 2016 when they played the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. So, they’ve definitely been relevant for a long time, but they just haven’t gotten over the hump.
Here is a full list of head coaches since 2000:
-Dan Reeves: 1997-2003
-Jim Mora: 2004-2006
-Bobby Petrino: 2007
-Emmitt Thomas: 2007 (interim)
-Mike Smith: 2008-2014
-Dan Quinn: 2015-2020
-Raheem Morris: 2020 (interim)
-Arthur Smith: 2021-2024
-Raheem Morris: 2024-present
If the Falcons don’t get things going now with Michael Penix, Jr. at quarterback they will be adding to that list of names shortly.
