Respectability would have been enough. There was a sizable portion of the Atlanta Falcons fanbase just looking for this season to be over and Arthur Smith to be gone, but I think it has been clear for a long time that Arthur Blank would’ve liked a reason to keep Smith around. He just didn’t get one on Sunday, and the result was that we had to watch the Falcons get thrashed by the team we all hate.
The Falcons kept it competitive throughout the first half, with the team scoring a pair of touchdowns and managing a long field goal drive to go into halftime tied up at 17.