Falcons: Mike Smith, By The Numbers

[Peyton]

In honor of Mike Smith becoming the winningest coach in franchise history, I wanted to put his time as head coach in some perspective with some interesting numbers.

Before I get to the numbers, let's remember the situation Mike Smith took over. Not only were the Falcons recovering from the Vick debacle, but they cleaned house in the 2008 off season, moving DeAngelo Hall, and releasing Warrick Dunn and Alge Crumpler.

All four NFL.com experts picked the Falcons to go 3-13 and finish last in the division. All 13 ESPN experts picked. Sports Illustrated pegged the Falcons for 2-14. Ditto for Walter Football.

You'd be hard pressed to find any person who covers football for a living who projected the Falcons as anything but the last place team in 2008. The Falcons were not perceived as a talented team, at all.

Since that moment in time:

Mike Smith is 50-21, breaking the franchise record for wins in 4 years and 7 games.

Not only does he have the most wins, but of the 10 coaches who have coached the Falcons for at least 1 season, he has the fewest losses, with 1 less than Mora, even though Mora only coached 3 years.

Mike Smith has the best winning percentage of all active qualifying coaches (50 decisions). In fact, there isn't any coach that has coached a game since 1978 with a better record than Mike Smith. He stands 5th all time behind a guy that coached in the 20s, and three legends named Madden, Lombardi, and Allen.

As everyone knows, but it is always worth mentioning, Smith is headed for his 5th straight winning season, and the Falcons never had two straight winning seasons before he got here.

Mike Smith is 29 games over .500 in his career. The best 5 year record to .500 before Mike Smith was 5 games over from 1978-1982.

Mike Smith's road win percentage of 58% (21-15) is higher than the overall win percentage of any previous Falcons coach.

Mike Smith's Falcons have NEVER lost a game they led on the road at half time, and have only lost two such leads at all (Denver in 2008 and GB in 2011). By comparison, in the same time frame, the Saints have lost 5 such games, the Packers have lost 7, the Steelers have lost 7, and the Patriots have lost 8 games they led at halftime.

So, in light of all of these amazing accomplishments...I salute Mike Smith. I never thought I'd see the Falcons become a winner year in and year out. It's special.

[AUTiger7222]

Sporting News had the Falcons at 1-15 for 2008. They said we would field the worst NFL team in the modern era.

[googlywoogly]

Nice. It's also worth mentioning that it took Reeves 6 seasons and 13 games in the 7th to amass his 49 wins. Smith beating that total in less than 5 complete seasons is nothing but spectacular.

[Drathdon]

Great post!

[cnasty]

(10-30-2012 09:42 PM)AUTiger7222 Wrote:  Sporting News had the Falcons at 1-15 for 2008. They said we would field the worst NFL team in the modern era.

It was hard to argue with that before that season. We were all fucked up on so many levels. I didn't know what to expect, to be honest. So yeah, I'm actually glad that Vick/Petrino bullshit happened. We would've never been this good with that regime.

[Peyton]

(10-30-2012 09:49 PM)googlywoogly Wrote:  Nice. It's also worth mentioning that it took Reeves 6 seasons and 13 games in the 7th to amass his 49 wins. Smith beating that total in less than 5 complete seasons is nothing but spectacular.

Yeah....Reeves had one less win as Falcons coach but nearly 3 times as many losses as Smith currently has....59.

[Jimusmc]

(10-30-2012 09:57 PM)Peyton Wrote:  Yeah....Reeves had one less win as Falcons coach but nearly 3 times as many losses as Smith currently has....59.

i dont expect smith to have that many anytime soon.

feels great to even say that.

[AUTiger7222]

Matt Ryan's record is 50-19.

[Jesus]

The 2008 season the following four years were built around one moment Matt Ryan's first pass.

[juraitwaluzka]

And just to think, a few months back there were dumbasses talking about Smitty being on the hot seat, gonna maybe get fired after this year they said.