Falcons starting QB Desmond Ridder, bench Marcus Mariota: Source

Rising midfielder Desmond Reader will start for Atlanta Falcons When the team returns from its bye week to face off saints in New Orleans, according to a league source. Here’s what you need to know:

• Drafted by Atlanta Raider in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft. Raider helped mentor Cincinnati to appear in the College Football Playoff in the 2021 season.
• Ryder will replace the veteran Marcus Mariota, who has started every game for the Falcons this season. Mariota went 5-8 as an Atlanta starter.
• Mariota has completed 61.3 percent of his passes this season, which ranks 30th among 33 eligible quarterbacks. He threw for 2,219 yards with 15 touchdown passes and nine interceptions which resulted in an 88.2 passer rating.
• The Falcons have lost four of their last five games prior to the week fourteen of the week.

Athletic Instant Analysis:

Rating time for Ridder

We can all quibble and say, “This should have happened sooner,” but that doesn’t matter now. The Falcons have four games — assuming they don’t make the playoffs — to rate Ridder as the starting quarterback. That should be enough resume for head coach Arthur Smith and general manager Terry Fontenot to decide if they need to go another direction in the offseason. The Falcons will have plenty of cover space after the season, so in theory they could sign a quarterback in free agency, or get one in a trade or one-off draft again. But if Ridder shows enough promise, he can spend his assets elsewhere. Too bad Ridder won’t take advantage of the tight end Kyle Bates, who will miss the season, but it will be interesting to watch how other players on the offense react to a new player in the pool. – Schultz

What will Ryder face?

Rider seemed comfortable on Atlanta’s offense during an extended preseason, but has not appeared in a regular season game yet. In the final four games of the regular season he will face defenses ranked 16th (Saints) and 14th (Saints).crows), 24 (basics) and viii (hacker) In the NFL Per defensive EPA for every game allowed. How he will act now that the defenses plan to stop him is unknown, but he probably won’t be much worse than Mariota of late. From Week 9 through Week 13, a period in which Atlanta lost four out of five games, Mariota ranked 29th in the league in EPA per drop back (-0.09) and the Falcons averaged 17.6 points per game, which ranked 26th in the league. – Kendall

background story

The Falcons got into rebuilding quarterback mode during the offseason by trading away a former NFL MVP Matt Ryan to me Colts. Atlanta signed Mariota in free agency in March and drafted Reeder about a month later.

what are they saying

“We will evaluate everything. Every job is open.” Smith said after the Falcons’ Week 13 loss to the Steelers. “I have some own ideas, but we need to decompress, we need to meet as staff. Sure, we were close, but we have to evaluate everything, get back on the hump, get back to the winning category.”

Smith added, “You want to make sure you’re doing the right thing, not overreacting emotionally, but sometimes you change and, yeah, there are a lot of examples that can help spark something.”

Mariota admitted he could not be seated yet Pittsburgh Loss.

He said, “This is not the place where my mind is.” “I keep trying to think about what happened in the game. At the end of the day, they have to make the decision that is best for the team. Whatever happens, happens, but I don’t think about it at the moment.”

required reading

(Photo: Brett Davis/USA Today)