This situation just showing that coaching really matters in player production.
He has all the tools to be a top 5 TE but the coaching is awful and wasting talent of Pitts.
Poor coaching? Did you pick the Falcons to be tied for first place with the Bucs in their division 7 games into the season? They easily could have won two of those games as well. Look at their upcoming schedule. There are lots of winnable games. The “poor coaching” thing is far from true. The Falcons have massively over-exceeded their expectations so far this season. If anything—if there was a vote for coach of the year at this point in the season—you’d have to consider the Falcons coach. NFL coaches don’t care about fantasy production. We care about that. An NFL coach is supposed to devise a strategy that gives his team the best chance of winning. For the Falcons—that is limiting the number of possessions by keeping the clock running, and to try to limit turnovers. They run the ball a lot to keep the clock running, and most of the passes they attempt are short and high percentage. This recipe has put one of the least talented football teams at a tie at the top of their division, and has kept them really competitive in all but 1 game so far. It’s just odd that people still think that somehow their coaching sucks given all of this.
the Falcons have a negative point differential, are 0-2 in their division (Bucs are 2-1 and Panthers are 2-0)
a NFL coach IS supposed to devise a strategy that gives his team the best chance of winning. typically this involves using your best players in ways that maximize them. in this game they found a way to get Tyler Allgeier 16 touches, Caleb Huntley 5 and Olamide Zaccheaus 3 touches. Drake London and Kyle Pitts combined for 4 touches on 6 targets. they attempted 13 passes and 30% of their targets went to Zaccheaus! if they burned an 8th overall and a 4th overall pick on London and Pitts, and aren't using them then they wasted those picks. 1 target for Drake London is incredible. for comparison, the Bengals got their backup TE two targets.
they have topped 150 passing yards exactly once in their last 5 games (229 vs Seattle 5 games ago) - the last two have been 129 and 124. they are averaging 21.4 pass attempts per game, just ahead of Chicago who is at 19.4 and is on a historic low. when you, on average, go 13.1 of 21.4 in the passing game for 151 yards you aren't going to win much.
they lost the TOP 27/33 to Cincy this week. they won TOP basically 33/27 vs SF. flat tie in TOP vs TB. lost TOP vs Cleveland (24/36). lost TOP to Seahawks 28/31. flat tie vs Rams. won TOP 26/33 vs the Saints. this is despite having the 4th most rushing attempts per game - in a weird flip they run 37.7 attempts at home and 29.5 on the road.
the Falcons are right in the middle of the pack in turnovers. they aren't particularly good at getting turnovers (+2 for the year), they aren't particularly good at not turning it over,
people think their coaching staff sucks because it isn't a sustainable process moving forward and isn't a way to win games short/medium/long term.
you are acting like they are the Eagles. Eagles lead the NFL in TOP at 33:59 average, lead the NFL in turnovers at +12 in turnovers (2 turnovers , 14 takeaways), average 20/30 for 238 passing yards per game (they are 24/32 in passing attempts in the league), rush the most of any team in the NFL, have a +56 point differential and are 2-0 in their division.
just because they share the same general concepts of running it a lot, hope to win TOP, don't pass that much doesn't mean it's a good game plan with the players they have.
they are absolutely not the Eagles. the game vs the Bengals shows in a lot of ways what their game plan is. they exit halftime down 11 points at 17-28. in the second half they go 3 and out (rush, pass, pass), 3 and out (rush, sack, scramble), 5 and out for 9 yards (rush, pass, rush, scramble, sack) then have a 9 play drive followed by a punt. TOP for each drive was 50 seconds, ~2 min, 3:20, 5 min. in the second half of a game they could have made closer they had 4 drives, 4 punts, 20 plays, 40 yards for an average of 2 yards per play. for comparison, the Bengals had 4 drives, 34 plays, 197 yards, 5.8 YPP. they turned it over on dows, scored a TD, punted and then finished the game with a 17 play, 94 yard drive that finished with them kneeling it on the 3 yard line to end the game. that's a horrific game plan from the Falcons no matter how you look at it.
