Unfortunately he doesn’t have the guts to admit what his actual scores were for the Falcons on anything except ownership (10) and defense (4). Uh-huh, that’s the way to convince me you gave an accurate score here.

Well lets start with Blank getting a 10. The moron admits that Blank has a list of screw-ups as long as my arm in his past, such a Vick, Gonzalez, and more, but just because he improved last year he gets a 10. OK. By that standard Benson gets a 22. Blank was a great CEO for Home Depot but giving him better than a 8 here is just plain ridiculous, and the 7 I’m going to give him is still pushing it a bit.

Defense was only a 4? Well that one I’ll actually buy.

But what were the other scores? With a 62 total and only 14 points accounted for that leaves 48 to guess at and 6 more categories. If all 6 were 8’s then at least that adds up. But given that he raves about Smith, Dimitroff, and Ryan to a degree that’s truly nauseating without having the balls to give out actual scores, I’m going to give out a 9 for coaching, a 10 for front office, an 8 for Ryan, an 8 for offense, an 8 for the staff, and a 5 for the intangibles.

The coaching score isn’t that far off. Smith is a good coach. But a 9 after only one year? Yeah he turned around a franchise that looked like it was dead for years to come, but giving him a 9 is too much. He has the potential to be a 9 if he keeps it up. (I hope he doesn’t, of course, but he probably will.) As it is he is only a 7.5.

Dimitroff I wish wasn’t as good as he is too. And he is good. But again a 10 is too high. 8 is more appropriate. 9 maybe if you really want to be generous, but how hard is it truly to take a putrid team and show marked improvement? And how hard is it to take a good team and make it great? If the Falcons win 11 games this year I’ll give Dimitroff a 9 or even a 9.5, but for now he’s still an 8.

Ryan an 8? Um, no. I don’t care that he was great as a rookie. The best rookie QB in the world is still only an average player when compared with the rest of the league. Only in QB rating, sacks, and fumbles is he above middle-of-the-pack, and then only fairly slightly in each, in every other statistical category he was right at the 50% mark or below it. His leadership skills are very good and that gets him a 6 instead of the 4 he would be otherwise.

The offense was very good overall last year but it also was very good only against crappy opponents such as the Lions and the other high school teams of the AFC West and NFC North. No, sorry, they were not an 8 either. I’ll leave it at 7 because they were better than I liked them being but I’m being generous there.

Their staff is also pretty good so an 8 isn’t totally off the mark but they were also completely untested last year, and they got handled by the Cardinals who would have been last place in most other divisions. A 7 is more appropriate and a 6 wouldn’t be completely unjustifiable. But we’ll leave it at 7.

The intangibles of a rabid fan base should never be underestimated. I’m going to up that to a 7.5.

So now we have the accurate score for the Falcons. A 7 for ownership, an 8 for Dimitroff, a 7.5 for Smith, a 7 for his staff, a 6 for Ryan, a 7 for offense, a 4 for defense, and a 7.5 for intangibles. That totals a 54 which drops them to #19, and that’s about right. They are still poised to move up further if they avoid the sophomore slump, but for now they do not deserve a top-10 billing.