Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Quinn is widely regarded as sitting on the hottest seat in the NFL right now, and owner Arthur Blank isn’t doing much to make him more comfortable.
Blank dismissed suggestions that the Falcons were waiting until their upcoming Week 9 bye, but suggested Quinn’s status was being looked at on a week-to-week basis.
“I don’t think that’s fair,” Blank told Ian Rapoport of NFL Network. “I don’t have any specific timetable. Just looking at each game one at a time. It’s the bye week, yes, but it’s not a trigger for making any changes. We’ll just continue to look at what we see developing and continue to support the coach and support the general manager and continue to ask them to do everything they can to put some wins up on the scoreboard.”
Blank added, however, that it wasn’t a good sign that it was Quinn’s defense, his specialty, that was struggling the most.
“Our defense has not played well, and nobody knows that better than our coach,” Blank said. “That’s what he’s done for his entire life, a position coach, a coordinator and then a head coach. So, if there were easy answers we would’ve put them in place already. But we’re making adjustments, he’s making adjustments and hopefully they’ll put us in a better position going forward.”
It’s widely presumed that it’s just a matter of when, not if Quinn loses his job. The Falcons are 1-5, and the defense is a total disaster. Not everything is the coach’s fault, as we’ve seen in recent weeks, but it’s been a steady decline under Quinn, especially on defense. Usually, when an owner is willing to speak so freely about a potential firing, the writing is on the wall.
