As Falcons struggle to score, Arthur Smith wants to be ‘more lethal’ near goal line

Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

The Falcons are only a game out of first in the NFC South, but they’ve also lost five of their past seven, and Arthur Smith is facing questions about why he doesn’t use his best players in crucial situations around the goal line.

Atlanta had a first-and-goal at the 1 in Sunday’s loss to the Vikings and had to settle for a short field goal in what ended up a three-point loss. For the season, the Falcons rank 29th out of 32 teams in their success in goal-to-go opportunities, converting just 53% into touchdowns. They were 27th last year and 31st the year before — with better conversion rates both times — so it’s a common theme in Smith’s three seasons in Atlanta.

Stranger still, the Falcons have had 18 offensive plays inside the 5-yard line in 2023, and running back Bijan Robinson — the No. 8 overall draft pick this year, on pace for 1,348 yards of total offense — has had only one touch in those 18. Receiver Drake London, last year’s first-rounder, has two, and tight end Kyle Pitts, the No. 4 pick in 2021, has one.

So Smith spent five minutes Wednesday talking about the “nuance and context” of his goal-line playcalling, and the general theme was acknowledging it’s an area in which the team needs to improve if the Falcons want to win consistently.

“When you haven’t gotten the results you want, you should be criticized,” Smith said. “You’ve got to go look at things that didn’t work, why you did something, what your intent is. So why is the result? You have to look at your mistakes and your failures and say, ‘This was our intent, what you’re thinking about, and how do I objectively fix that?’ That’s where you need to be really honest. That’s the only way you improve.”

The Falcons have put three straight top-10 draft picks into their offense, taking Robinson, London and Pitts, and that creates optimism about that side of the ball. Atlanta ranks 11th in total offense (yards) but ranks just 25th in points per game, which would point to some level of inefficiency, especially near the goal line. Some of that was quarterback Desmond Ridder totaling 12 turnovers, and Smith has made the switch to Taylor Heinicke, who will make his second start of the season Sunday against the Cardinals (1-8).

The closer the Falcons get to the end zone, the less likely their biggest stars are to get the ball. Smith cited the team’s red-zone efficiency Wednesday: The Falcons have 14 touchdowns in 28 trips inside the opposing 20, and that 50% success rate has them tied for 19th.

“Not where you want to be,” Smith conceded. “You obviously want to score every time, but historically, if you’re in the mid to high 60s, you’re usually up there leading the league. Some years we were really good at Tennessee. We were damn near 75 percent.”

Smith is actually selling himself short. In his two years as Titans offensive coordinator, Tennessee led the league at 75.6% in 2019 and were second at 75.0%. Some of that was elite offensive talent — running back Derrick Henry had 26 red-zone touchdowns in those two seasons, getting the ball on a quarter of the red-zone snaps, and receiver A.J. Brown had 11 touchdown catches in 20 red-zone targets. The overlap between those offenses and his current Falcons team is tight end Jonnu Smith, who was targeted more than Brown in the red zone with Tennessee and had 10 touchdowns himself.

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It’s puzzling that the offensive mind behind the league’s best red-zone productivity would now be struggling with the same thing in Atlanta, but the problem gets even worse in goal-to-go situations. His Tennessee teams, in part thanks to Henry, were amazing in such spots: 88% touchdowns in 2019, 94% in 2020, both No. 1 in the league. In 2021 and 2022, after Smith left for the Falcons, the Titans stayed at No. 1 both seasons.

That goal-line dominance hasn’t followed Smith to Atlanta. The Falcons converted 58% his first year, 64% last year, and now it’s just 53%. For perspective, three NFL teams (including the one-win Cardinals team they’ll face Sunday) are still at 100% in goal-to-go, halfway through the season.

Robinson has barely been used near the goal line all season — one target (caught for a touchdown) inside the 10-yard line and two carries, compared to 10 for backup Tyler Allgeier, who has totaled 16 yards on those carries, scoring three times. There is some logic in thinking that the best players near the goal line are also going to be the most well-covered by opposing defenses, so there’s value in turning to the players left open as a result.

But Robinson wasn’t even on the field Sunday when the Falcons had three plays at the Titans’ 1-yard line. They lined up heavy with multiple tight ends and fullbacks, trying a handoff to Jonnu Smith for no gain and a run by Allgeier for a loss. Robinson later lost a fumble, contributing to the Vikings’ comeback, and when the Falcons took the lead with two minutes to go, it came on a score by Allgeier, the last of eight carries he had on the drive after replacing Robinson near midfield.

“We have a lot of guys that we think are good players on this team,” the coach said Wednesday. “So it’s not just Bijan, but it’s all those guys.”

He explained that the No. 1 read on a play might be Pitts or London, but if they’re covered, they’ll look elsewhere, and zone-read option plays might sometimes favor the quarterback holding onto the ball rather than pitching to Robinson. He said Robinson “has been at the tip of the spear on most of them, and the ball hasn’t gone to him every time.”

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In his two years as Tennessee’s offensive coordinator, Smith’s Titans failed to score touchdowns in goal-to-go situations once for every 11 chances. Now they’re basically missing every other time, and he understands that needs to improve, even if he stands by his “balanced” use of personnel in such situations.

“It’s my job to make sure we’re better than 50 percent,” he said. “Ultimately, we’ve got to score more points than the opponent, and we want to strive to score every time we’re down there. That’s how it shakes down.”

Smith wants to be “more lethal” in the red zone, but said he believes in the personnel on the field and the staff coaching them up and making the decisions on which plays to which players are best.

“We’re not excited about where we’re at,” he said. “But we’re not dead and we’re not out of it, and we get the chance to go do something about it. That’s what you want.”

Greg Auman is FOX Sports’ NFC South reporter, covering the Buccaneers, Falcons, Panthers and Saints. He is in his 10th season covering the Bucs and the NFL full-time, having spent time at the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.