By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          Dear Arthur, don’t do it.

          Dear Rich, earn your keep and don’t let him do it.

          Dear Terry, sorry you’re being screwed in your job by Arthur and Rich and seem to have little or no say in the impending – deep breath – decision.

          Those enamored by shiny objects – some said back in September that a conference championship, Heisman, and statues were coming to a team in Colorado with a new coach – are tingly at the thought of Bill Belichick or Jim Harbaugh taking over the Falcons.

          This, this is why Atlanta fans can’t have nice things.

          Cue “eyeroll” emoji.

          It’s hard to figure out how a segment so used to being teased by potential wants to be teased by potential – and flash and splash and “big name” and all that misguidedness with every coaching opening – again when the two targets have “broken hearts again” written all over them.

          L.A. Times columnist Bill Plaschke is pushing for the Chargers to hire Harbaugh, knowing there are caveats.

          “Do they want to deal with the eccentricities that have alienated him at every stop?

          “Do they want to pay him the huge sum that will be required to steal a national championship coach?

          “Do they want a personality who will be more respected than the team's owners and more popular than its quarterback?

          “Do they want to dramatically establish a singular face of the franchise for the first time since the Spanos family bought the team 40 years ago?

          “The questions are complex but the answers are simple.

          “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

          “If Los Angeles' most obscure major sports franchise wants to take advantage of their best chance to steal eyeballs, change perceptions and win games, they need to embrace all that is Jim Harbaugh.”

          Some of those don’t quite fit the Falcons, but aren’t far off. Of course, that’s assuming Harbaugh is successful.

          Plaschke, though, is overlooking what makes somebody almost unhirable. Man, the national and big-time sports media have about lost their minds anymore, from the blind absurdities of Deion Sanders and revolutionizing and epicenters – another tirade for another day – to pushing for college football to change and then whining about the changes to ignoring logic when it comes to other topics.

          Like the availability of Harbaugh and Belichick. And this idiocy about a splash or big hire or nationwide attention.

          Dear media mooks and fanconpoops: Winning is a splash. Winning indicates a big hire. Winning draws nation friggin’ attention. This ain’t college and boosters and glad-handing, so that other stuff is irrelevant.

          The right hire isn’t the right hire until the hire shows up and succeeds. Making decisions on PR concerns is a desperate and misguided mentality.

          No question Harbaugh has built a certain culture at Michigan. Remember Harbaugh’s charade a decade ago when he steamrolled into the South and kind of said folks are shady?

          Grab a mirror, bub.

          Note that he took over the winningest college football program. This wasn’t an epic rebuild. Note that he lost six straight bowl games before this season’s Rose Bowl.

          Yes, Michigan is currently back on top of Ohio State, and that’s relevant, albeit temporary, because everything is temporary.

          There is some substance to the man there, but it’s kind of overshadowed by this newfound shadiness and the general suspense of “what’s next?”

Wise business people – no matter the business – don’t like hiring people who offer such suspense when it’s often negative and a detriment to progress.

          And as is the case with all candidates, what does the fit look like with a meddling owner and an inefficient CEO and a GM rendered to the second row of the meeting room?

Previously, in The Sports Report
Column-Would Blank allow Belichick to do it his way?
Analysis- Atlanta needs to aim high and throw deep in its head coaching search
Could McKay, Belichick co-exist?
Column-The case for Raheem Morris to be Falcons head coach
On Falcons coaching search: 'The guy they are going after is Belichick'
Column-Belichick doesn’t bring good vibes as Atlanta coach
Column-Misgivings about a Blank-McKay search duo? You bet

          Not a good fit. Blank is increasingly not a good fit for many possibilities. But an attention-getting – and more for the wrong reasons than right – coach who claims innocence but wants immunity at Michigan to stay?

          Wise business people don’t really eye somebody who claims to be innocent yet wants immunity. Why, that’so absurd, you can’t … never mind.

          Harbaugh is the Roseanne Roseannadanna candidate: it’s alllllways something.

          Thanks, wise people will pass on all the baggage, salary, and unpredictability.

          Belichick is not the Belichick of even three years ago. No question he and Tom Brady worked so well together, and Brady wouldn’t be Brady without Belichick, and the decisions he made a decade or so ago.

          Folks, whoever hires Belichick isn’t getting that Belichick. Period. Not even close. Check the calendar: 2015 was a long time ago.

          He apparently didn’t want Mac Jones, but there Jones sits, needing the right coach or a new team to establish himself because he’s been damaged in New England, like Justin Fields in Chicago.

          The salary demand will be obscene, as will the desire for decision-making power. His decisions the past few years – under better circumstances than Atlanta’s – have been very iffy. And shoot, he might hire Josh McDaniels again.

          No offensive coordinator. A QB he didn’t apparently want. A team that, well, didn’t seem to play for a coach who’s future was speculated on almost all season. Team went 4-13.

          Belichick brings no momentum. Brings one playoff trip in the last four seasons. Had a team score three points one week (38-3 to Dallas) and none the next (34-0 to New Orleans) and six points five games later, and shutout again a week after that.

          Managed 20 points or more five times all year? Had clearly gone backwards the last three seasons (10-3, 8-9, 4-13)? Second-to-last in the NFL in scoring?

          Can a gruff egomaniac exist with a different egomaniacal owner – very different than Robert Kraft – and an unhelpful great-with-media team president and a general manager who, well, helped construct a nifty roster but may not be allowed to be a GM in other areas?

          Even if hiring Belichick led to the departure of McKay, it’s not worth it. And there needs to be a parting of the Atlanta-McKay ways.

          To think that Belichick can be Belichick and Blank can be Blank and foresee great things is wishful thinking, and fairly delusional.

          Thanks, wise people will pass on trying to relive the past.

          Atlanta doesn’t need either one.

          Atlanta needs stability.

          Neither brings much. Harbaugh will have issues and distractions, Belichick will hang around for maybe three years, because he’ll be 75 soon enough. Working with Blank could easily age him.

          Or he’ll leave earlier after Saban, getting itchy, calls him to start a two-man senior touring pickleball team, and he had tired of calls from Blank and while still wondering what McKay and Terry Fontenot do.

          Not every coach is a fit for every opening. Haven’t we seen that over and over? Not every successful coach will bring that same success to a new job. Haven’t we seen that over and over?

          Atlanta doesn’t need somebody who’s off-kilter. Doesn’t need somebody whose time, yes, has passed.

          Mike Vrable would certainly work, especially with this roster. Most were surprised he got canned by Tennessee, and projected him to succeed Belichick if that opening developed.

          The other interviewees all, of course, have nice resumes. You don’t really interview people who don’t (not even the Falcons). And people on the outside know nothing about those other candidates because they weren’t on the teevee a lot. We only have the general resumes, which is only part of their story.

          No candidate is perfect. None.

          But there are better candidates.

          Remember all those silly things Blank and McKay said in the post-firing press conference? Yeah, you do, and that mistrust of their judgement makes you think that a “splashy” hiring Belichick or Harbaugh is a good thing?

          The more Blank is in love with a coach, the more worried you should be. The more it seems Blank “settled” on somebody, the more optimistic you should be.

          This is a young team that doesn’t need somebody who is seemingly on a backslide, somebody who hasn’t adjusted well to a major change on his team, ala Brady’s inevitable departure, and made odd decisions the past few years. Nor does it need somebody who’s too wacky. Youth needs stability, sanity.

          Atlanta needs more of a quiet ego proven by consistent development of players, of a game plan, of other coaches, and by success.

          The top duo has interviewed a good group, a group that offers much better alternative and potential than the splashes. Here’s hoping they go against expectations.