This article was originally published with Isportsweb.com on December 29, 2015 and can be found here.

The Atlanta Falcons made it official early on “Black Monday”, announcing that the team had parted ways with head coach Mike Smith one day after the team finished the season with a 6-10 record.

Smith, who took on the Falcons job when the franchise was in shambles back in 2008, came to Atlanta from the Jacksonville Jaguars as an unfamiliar coach with a common name and a plan to rebuild one of the worst teams in the NFL. Smith’s plan worked almost immediately, as the team rode rookie quarterback Matt Ryan to an 11-5 record and the team’s first playoff game since 2004.

His first season set a high standard that the Falcons were willing and able to live up to for the next four years, as the team posted a winning record each of these seasons; compare that to the fact that no previous Falcons coach had ever had back-to-back winning seasons, and it was apparent that Smith had found some real magic in Atlanta.

Smith’s finest hour with the Falcons came in 2012 in a season that saw the Falcons go 13-3 and hold the #1 seed in the NFC. With hopes of exercising their playoff demons (Smith had gone 0-3 in his previous playoff games), the Falcons squeaked by the Seattle Seahawks 30-28 to move onto the NFC Championship game against the San Francisco 49ers. It was a back-and-forth affair that the Falcons eventually came up short in, leaving the fans in the Georgia Dome disappointed with a tough 28-24 defeat.

While it seemed that the Falcons shot up the ranks of the NFL’s most talented teams quite quickly, the team’s dissent back into subpar play felt even quicker. With hopes of one-upping their NFC Championship Game appearance from a year ago, Atlanta came out as one of the favorites to reach the Super Bowl in 2013 but quickly fell flat, starting the season 1-4 in route to a dismal 4-12 overall record.

Despite being named Sporting News’ NFL Coach of the Year in 2012, the debacle that was the 2013 season put Mike Smith squarely on the chopping block. “Toughness” was the moniker that Smith preached in the 2014 preseason as well as on HBO’s Hard Knocks, hoping that his players would buy in, keep each other accountable, and regain the lost magic that had treated the team to great success in years past.

Unfortunately, the Falcons still struggled. After a huge overtime victory over the Saints in Week 1, the team responded with a 1-7 record in their next eight games, which included a mind-boggling loss to the Detroit Lions in London that saw the team blow a commanding 21-point lead in a matter of minutes.

Luckily for Smith, he still had a chance; the NFC South was by far the worst in the league, meaning that winning the division could possibly save his job. Atlanta stayed in the hunt for a playoff spot despite a loss to the Cleveland Browns that rested squarely on Smith’s shoulders, following that defeat on Nov.23 with a 2-2 record that led to Sunday’s win-or-go-home matchup with the Carolina Panthers.

With everything–including their coach’s job–on the line, the Falcons laid an egg at home, turning the ball over three times in a 34-3 defeat that simply served as the cherry on top of another disappointing season.

In the end, three things led to Smith’s ouster in Atlanta.

The biggest factor had to be the Falcons’ struggles in big games, which fans saw yet again in Smith’s last game with the team. In five playoff games under Smith, the Falcons went 1-4 with losses by an average margin of two touchdowns. Atlanta’s lone playoff win looks great on paper but was agonizing to watch, as the team jumped out to a 20-0 lead before Russell Wilson led Seattle on a wild scramble back that came up just short of sending the Falcons packing in the playoffs yet again.

Another issue that plagued the Falcons for far too long was a defense that was more bust than boom during the Smith era despite Smith’s extensive defensive background. The last two years were especially awful for Atlanta, and despite having a well-respected coordinator in Mike Nolan, the defense was among the worst in the NFL. Blame it on the loss of oft-injured linebacker Sean Weatherspoon or an inexperienced secondary that was torched again and again, but the numbers speak for themselves: the team finished 32^nd in the league in passing yards allowed and 21^st in rushing yards allowed, giving up almost 400 total yards per contest.

Because the defense struggled so often, Smith and the coaching staff often called on the offense to outscore the opponent’s offense, but there was a problem: Atlanta’s offense was incapable of doing this. With a running game that had not been potent since Michael Turner’s 1,340 yard season in 2012, that meant relying almost entirely on a passing game that often saw star Julio Jones hurt on the sidelines, Roddy White showing his age and propensity for dropped balls, and an offensive line that allowed the franchise quarterback to be hit again and again.

Now that it is all said and done, there’s no question that Mike Smith is the most successful head coach in Falcons’ history. He took on a bad situation muddled by the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal that almost no coach was willing to step into and turned the team into contenders almost overnight, quite a feat for a first-time head coach.

That being said, the wheels fell off of this franchise over the past two years, which meant that someone had to be accountable for the struggles. With general manager Thomas Dimitroff safe at least for another year, the bulls’ eye was placed squarely on Smith; whether you think this is fair is up to your own discretion, but it is important to remember some say that the NFL stands for “Not For Long.”

With Smith now on his way out, who will be the next head coach of the Atlanta Falcons? Here are five candidates who should be in play to become the seventeenth head coach in franchise history:

Dan Quinn, Seahawks DC – In charge of the “Legion of Boom” in Seattle for the past two years, Quinn has had an excellent two-year run with the team, being a part of a Seahawks coaching staff that has delivered twenty-seven victories as well as a Super Bowl win and currently leads the league in yards allowed and points allowed per game.

Quinn came to Seattle after two seasons with the Florida Gators, but the Morristown, New Jersey native has spent several years in the NFL, including stops with the San Francisco 49ers, Miami Dolphins, and New York Jets. The Falcons defense has been absolutely atrocious and despite the fact that Quinn has a great thing going with Richard Sherman and Company, a chance to run his own franchise should be too good to pass up.

Pep Hamilton, Colts OC – The strategy that the Falcons seemed to employ for the last few years was to produce an offense that can score enough points to make up for a subpar defense, but too many bad games from the offense left the team with some bad outings (the Panthers game on Sunday, for example). Hamilton would be an interesting coach to bring in and work on making an unreliable offense much more dangerous. An assistant under Jim Harbaugh at Stanford, Hamilton came back to the NFL with the Colts in 2013, returning after previously spending time with the New York Jets, the San Francisco 49ers, and the Chicago Bears.

Indianapolis has benefitted from his time with the team, following up a decent campaign one year ago–Indy ranked 14^th in points per game and 15^th in yards per game–with even better numbers this time around, ranking third in yards per game and sixth in points per contest. Quarterback Andrew Luck was outstanding this season, breaking Peyton Manning’s franchise record with 4,601 passing yards in a season that saw the Colts go 11-5 and win the AFC South for the second consecutive year. The forty-year-old may be able to follow the path of his predecessor Bruce Arians and parlay his success with the Colts into a head coaching job.

Rex Ryan, former Jets HC – If you follow the NFL, you know all about Ryan: he’s the son of former NFL head coach Buddy Ryan and a coach that embraces the spotlight in New York like very few fellow coaches. Ryan’s tenure as Jets head coach featured a hot start, as the team reached the AFC Championship Game in his first two years thanks to excellent defensive efforts and solid gameplay from Mark Sanchez. Eventually, New York’s inability to master the offensive side of the ball, leading four consecutive seasons with .500 or worse records and no playoff appearances.

Although some may disregard Ryan as a candidate for the Falcons, consider this: his flaw in New York was always an offense with way too few playmakers, which is far from the case of Atlanta. As long as the likes of Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, and Roddy White remain on the roster, Rex Ryan just has to make the right hire at offensive coordinator and focus his time on fixing the Falcons defense. If that occurs, this could be the makings of a great fit in Atlanta.

Todd Bowles, Cardinals DC – Arizona has been one of the major surprises in the NFL this season thanks in part to a defense that has allowed just 102 rushing yards per contest (8^th in the NFL) and a whopping 18.6 points per game, good enough for fourth in the league.

Bowles has bounced around the league after joining the Green Bay Packers player personnel staff in 1995, spending time with the Jets, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins, and the Philadelphia Eagles before joining Arians’ staff in 2013. He’s used to taking over some tough situations, including a three-game stint as Dolphins interim head coach back in 2011–he went 2-11 after Tony Sparano went 3-8 to star the year–and a midseason promotion to Eagles’ defensive coordinator in 2012.

The Cardinals locked up Bowles with an extension through 2017, meaning it will take a sweet deal to lure him out of Glendale. Will the fifty-one-year-old be willing to leave Arizona and take on a Falcons job that most consider to be a win-now situation?

Josh McDaniels, Patriots OC – McDaniels has been on the New England coaching staff for a total of fifteen years now with a pair of stops as Broncos head coach and Rams offensive coordinator in the middle of those years. While his time in Denver is marked by an 11-17 overall record, draftingTim Tebow in the first round,  and getting caught in a videotaping scandal, it seems like being fired from the Broncos after two seasons was a very quick judgment on the then-thirty-four-year-old whoBill Belichick has trusted to serve as his offensive coordinator for a total of six years now.

Despite working with a thirty-seven-year-old Tom Brady and virtually no running game, the Patriots were able to still light up scoreboards across the country, averaging a little over 29 points per contest, almost a touchdown better than the Atlanta Falcons managed this season.

McDaniels will always be linked to Belichick; whether or not the Pats are successful due to McDaniels’ input or in spite of it is certainly a conversation that many have had, especially after his run with the Broncos turned sour quickly.

Although several of Belichick’s assistants have not fared well as NFL head coaches (examples include Eric Mangini and Romeo Crennel), it seems like McDaniels has at least one more head coaching gig left in him, and with Dimitroff’s close ties to Belichick and New England, it seems absurd to think that McDaniels will not be in the running to replace Smith.

Darkhorses: It is rumored that Arthur Blank desperately wants a big name to replace Smith, so I suggest that we may hear a few rumblings involving Alabama head coach Nick Saban, LSU head coach Les Miles, former Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden, and Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops. Blank may be extremely reluctant to give it the ol’ college try again after the Bobby Petrino fiasco, but with a new stadium on the horizon and thousands of seats to sell, the businessman in Blank may convince him to take a chance and try to wow the crowds.