National Football League

Arthur Smith says 'Drake London doesn't care' about targets, but Falcons fans do

Published Sep. 12, 2023 9:06 a.m. ET

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Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

The Falcons pulled off a 24-10 home win against the Panthers on Sunday to open the season on a positive note, and yet some fans are still unhappy with coach Arthur Smith.

The reason? Frustration over Smith barely utilizing two recent first-round picks in receiver Drake London and tight end Kyle Pitts, who combined for just four targets in Sunday's victory.

A reporter pointed out to Smith after the game that London had fewer catches than Falcons quarterback Desmond Ridder, whose first pass of the game was batted in the air and into the quarterback's hands for a reception. London had no catches and was targeted only once, and Smith didn't like that kind of question just minutes after a 14-point win.

"Let the fantasy guys worry about that," he said. "We've got to clean some things up. We can all be better in our spacing, and targets is the most misunderstood thing in the National Football League. There's progressions, there's spacing, if somebody underneath is not right, that's the stuff where I'm a little irritated as a coach. We had to fix it at halftime. That's on me. That's on everybody. 

"We don't care. Drake London doesn't care. All we care about is 1-0. We have a lot of work — and that has to improve because it's not going to sustain every week. Every week is its own entity. We don't care about the stats. We care about winning."

A question about why a prominent player was barely used isn't really a fantasy football question. It's very much a Falcons question these days, even after an encouraging division win. London was the eighth overall pick in 2022 and Pitts was the fourth pick in 2021, and Falcons fans just want to see more of them, given how big an investment the team made. Pitts has just three touchdowns in two seasons, and London didn't have the same rookie production as the Saints' Chris Olave or the Jets' Garrett Wilson, both picked after him.

The Falcons were extremely conservative Sunday with their young quarterback going up against the Panthers and rookie Bryce Young, the top pick in this year's draft. Young threw two interceptions that led to Falcons points, and to his credit, Ridder committed no turnovers.

But Ridder was barely throwing the ball. He went 15-for-18 for 115 yards, and nine of those completions went to running backs Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier, who accounted for 34 touches in Atlanta's 48 offensive plays. Ridder attempted just five passes to wide receivers, and the only long completion was a 34-yard throw to Pitts with five minutes left. Since 1950, there has been only one game where a quarterback completed that high a percentage of that many passes for fewer yards, and that was a 2007 Peyton Manning already-clinched season finale where he left early in the second quarter.

"Drake London doesn't care" was a claim questioned by plenty of fans. Smith means that players want to win, first and foremost, but it's only natural for a team's No. 1 receiver to be dissatisfied with such a small role under any circumstances. And Carolina lost its best cornerback, Jaycee Horn, to a hamstring injury in the second quarter, putting a backup on the field for the final 32 snaps, so it would seem a smart adjustment would be to attack an unexpected vulnerability at some point.

Of course London cares. When Ridder took over at quarterback for the final four games last season, the Falcons featured London. He had 36 targets in those four games, getting 25 catches for 333 yards. On Sunday, he had a single target early in the second quarter and that was it. 

Olave, picked three spots later in the same draft, had 10 targets in the Saints' win Sunday, catching eight balls for 110 yards. Wilson, picked two spots after London, had five catches for 34 yards Monday night, including a touchdown to tie the game in the fourth quarter on the way to an overtime win. All three receivers enjoyed wins this weekend, but what's the point in taking a player so high in the draft if you're not going to feature him?

"I could [not] care less if we go out there and pass the ball 300 times or two times," Ridder said after the game, echoing Smith's sentiments. "As long as we get a W at the end of the day, it doesn't matter."

They can say it doesn't matter because their plan yielded a win Sunday, against a rookie QB and a struggling opponent. But the Falcons totaled just 13 first downs Sunday — the other three NFL teams that had that few this weekend lost by an average of 13 points. Since Thanksgiving last year, NFL teams mustering 13 first downs or fewer are 2-22, including the Falcons' win. The last time the Falcons won while moving the chains that little was 2009.

Ignore some of your star players in a victory, and you can get away with almost any answer in postgame and have the scoreboard on your side. But do it and lose, and you face real, non-fantasy questions as to why a franchise wastes high draft picks on players it doesn't feel compelled to use.

Where will Buccaneers, Panthers, Saints & Falcons finish?

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The Falcons face another young quarterback Sunday when Jordan Love and Green Bay come to town (1 p.m. ET on FOX). Love will be making just his third NFL start, three fewer than Ridder. So perhaps Atlanta and Smith will play it safe and lean on their run game and defense again, hoping their defense can force three takeaways again and set up the offense's talented backs to grind out another win.

Or perhaps they get London more involved. His Week 2 last year saw him catch a career-high eight passes for 86 yards, with a touchdown and a two-point conversion. Ridder, it should be known, has never lost a home game as a starting quarterback in college or the NFL, going 26-0 at Cincinnati and now 3-0 with the Falcons, and perhaps he'll get a chance to be a more active part of another home victory.

"We certainly want to be more balanced," Smith said in postgame. "Somehow we come out of this game — and I'll never apologize for winning — and it's like, ‘Hey, there they go running again,' but we can do a better job."

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.

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Greg Auman