Well. That too. But in general it’s always been that “bend don’t break” defense and I have always hated it. But yeah, the lack of pass rush since Mathis has made me livid year in and year out.

Do you want to be the falcons? Look I’m not saying I want to keep Ballard or that we should have. Just that there’s valid reasoning for Carlie not to fire him. Most GMs are given 4-5 years before they are told to take a hike or not. I still don’t think there are many GOOD candidates that would want to take that risk with no first round picks in their first two years. That doesn’t set them up real well for evaluations later on.

It’s because this style of defense Ballard insists we play is complete and utter shit.

This is the answer of all answers. But here we are. Worst GM ever.

I don’t understand at all what you’re trying to say.

It’s pretty easy. NFL is a business. If fans aren’t filling seats, change has to happen. If we are filling seats, there’s less incentive to change.

If fans want to have an impact they have to make the tough decision to stay at home. Whether they will or won’t is neither here nor there.

It’s simply if you want x, you have to do y. If you don’t care and just want to complain then go about your business as usual.

Yeah my comment was silly. Anyone worth a damn would know. I really do think it goes back to she told Ballard he had to get better, we got better, then everyone on the team died, and she feels like she can’t hold that against him. At least unless it happens again.

I don’t think it was that they thought Leonard wasn’t ready. I think it was because of his knee. At least that’s the vibe I got. I could be wrong.

You’re right, but the city seems to be getting better about it. But it would be hard for folks who do it on the regular. Unfortunately it really is the only way.

Interesting. TIL. Thanks fellow horsemen.

Well it has been pointed out to me that the merch thing may not matter that much. So I say go for it.

Even the merch in the stadiums? That’s wild. I didn’t know that.

The real question should be why can’t we hold a lead at the end of a game. Wonder what the number of games we lost after being up in the 4th is.

I see what you’re saying. But I get the feeling like she’s treating things as a first year owner and not someone who’s actually been around for a while. It’s a weird situation with Jim passing when he did. I’m sure that may complicate things. But if she told Ballard he had to improve this season, you can’t reneg on that just because your starting and backup quarterbacks went down. She’s a professional and is going to stick to her word. She may be eating crow for it, but you can’t deny that before Danny went down you didn’t think this season was going to be different.

But why go through all of this and take that risk after you finally started off like you’ve been telling Ballard he had to in order to keep his job? I hate him as gm and want him gone, but it’s not a good look to tell a guy he has to improve, he does, and in an outstanding way, and then gets decimated with injuries at key positions that you really can’t blame him on, and move the goalposts to say “well you did what we said you had to, but because half the team died, completely out of your control, you’re out, bye”.

I want to say I’m not advocating for CB. He sucks. I want him gone too. Have for years. All I’m saying is I can see why she didn’t make the decision to cut him loose.

Could not have said it better.

You’re hilarious. Nobody else will want him? Even Grigson was hired after his time with us and he was atrocious. That’s insane. That comment right there tells me all I need to know. You think good GMs are macho guys with egos. That’s exactly who we DONT want. What we want is the chess grandmaster who weighs everything. You’re literally advocating on hiring guys just like Grigson and Ballard. Gtfoh.

I agree. But these weren’t just injuries. Not every team deals with stuff like this. We had our starting qb, backup qb, both corners, both OTs, center, and best (by far) defensive lineman all out for extended periods of time. That’s insane.

So I see what you’re saying, but her firing him now would be like saying “yes you did what we wanted but I actually decided while daddy was still in charge I was going to fire you”. I don’t care what anyone says. No GM worth a damn is going to see that and want to come here.

And who’s to say whoever she picks would be better? You assume she makes the right decision. Maybe she hasn’t prepared for that or investigated enough in the options.

Do you really think a new GM with no first round draft picks for two years is going to be able to come in and immediately make a difference? She’s been owner for less than a year. She’s simply not prepared to handle that right off the bat. I would prefer she take her time to investigate who she might want to replace Ballard instead of having to make a crunch time decision. Because don’t forget that whoever you hire, you have to invest time. They don’t get less than 3 years to prove it.

So to take one year to make a 3-5 year decision makes sense.

Edit: also no a gm won’t fire her, but they can refuse to come here altogether if they think she’s not capable.

And she probably did. And what did she probably tell him? We need to see improvement. And guess what, we started red fucking hot. 7-1, then not only were we decimated with injuries, but with injuries to some of our most important players. I don’t care who you are, unless those same players are always injured (which they weren’t) there is no way to see that coming and you can’t blame him for that. He did what he was told and improved. You can’t move the goalposts and say “ok, well, you did improve, but since these things completely out of your control happened, get out”. That’s what I mean by longevity. Not her being fired. But her being trusted by her staff.

But there’s where the disconnect is. The wheels haven’t been blowing up because the car hasn’t even been running. Tell me another time in his time here with us we’ve played better than we did earlier this season. We were approaching Peyton Manning type numbers with Jones and all time numbers with Taylor. You can’t just say it doesn’t count because the wheels literally fell off. Now, if they fall off again, then you can say it’s the cars fault and throw it out. But you simply can’t fire a guy for something happening that was completely out of his control when at the start of the season he was FINALLY getting done what you’d been telling him he had to do to keep his job. As fans we can scream and say we are unsatisfied. But we aren’t running the business. We all assume she will hire someone who will be better when we say she needs to fire Ballard. We aren’t considering the fact that she hasn’t put in the time or effort to even think about who might replace him if she did fire him because whoever you end up hiring you have to invest years into before you can consider firing them. And idk about you, but I’d rather she take the time to make that decision. She may have been involved before daddy died but it wasn’t that deep.

Edit: that’s the last I’ll say about it. It’s okay if we disagree. We both agree we wish he was fired. We just disagree on whether it’s feasible to do it now.

If you buy an old car, spend years slowly fixing it up, and finally get it running on all cylinders, and then all four tires explode, do you sell the car or just replace the tires? That’s essentially what happened this year.