Usually, when a team in the NFL or any other professional sports league decides to part ways with a head coach, one of the main reasons for the change is that the head coach has lost the respect of the players or the players in the locker room are no longer responding to what the coach is asking of them.
Over the course of the 2023 NFL regular season, Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith seemed to be someone who had lost the locker room, which became the narrative and may have ultimately led to him being fired immediately after the season came to an end for the Falcons on Sunday.
Following the decision to part ways with Smith after the team finished the season with a record of 7-10, team owner Arthur Blank tried to downplay the notion that the team fired their head coach because he lost the locker room, via Cameron Wolfe of NFL Network.
Falcons owner Arthur Blank on decision to fire Arthur Smith: “This coach never lost the locker room. I want to be clear on that.”
Blank: “We intend to win and compete at the highest levels in 2024.”
— Cameron Wolfe (@CameronWolfe) January 8, 2024
It seems that Blank wants to make it easier for Smith to get another job in the NFL after the team fired him following the Week 18 loss to the division-rival New Orleans Saints.
Clearly, Blank felt that the narrative that Smith lost the locker room might impact his coaching career moving forward, and he felt like he had to address it to make life a little easier for the 41-year-old.
At this point, there’s no telling what the immediate future will hold for Smith, as it doesn’t seem that another team will jump at the opportunity to bring him in next season.
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