Zac Robinson Defiant Amid Allegations Falcons Offense is Boring and Predictable

It's not the first time Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson has come under fire.

Robinson was in the crosshairs of ESPN's Dan Orlovsky after his very first game in charge, calling the Falcons' 226-yard effort in an 18-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, "Scheme-wise, a complete and total joke."

After the Falcons put up a goose egg on the scoreboard in Carolina in a Week 3 defeat, Robinson was a bit snarky defending the heavily used pistol formation that has the quarterback in the shotgun with a single back lined up behind him.

"Last week you guys didn't bring it up and we ran for 218 yards, but I know it's a convenient narrative each week," Robinson said after the Panthers loss.

The Falcons have fallen to No. 28 in scoring offense after back-to-back 10-point games, the second of which came against a depleted Dolphins' defense that was in the bottom five of most statistical categories.

After the last game, former MVP quarterback Kurt Warner took to X to express his frustration watching Robinson's offense.

"I love this game & breaking down tape, but I’m struggling to watch the ATL O tape!!! Predictable… boring (same plays over and over)… don’t like the spacing often… lots of miscommunication… just don’t really get it??!" Warner wrote on X.

Zac Robinson Remains Defiant

Robinson was a little more humble with his responses this week, but he remains steadfastly convinced his scheme is the right one for the Atlanta Falcons.

“Yeah, I mean, that's not – again, I can't answer to that," Robinson answered when asked about Warner's sentiments. "I think – we have plenty of good stuff that we put on tape. We talk to opposing coaches after games, and we get intel from them, and they give us some good feedback in terms of the difficulty that it can be to defend the scheme.

"Now, again, if we have the results that we've had the last couple weeks, score 10 points, of course you're going to be susceptible to the outside noise. So, we know we have a ton of different mixtures in the run game, pass game. We've got good compliments to everything that we do. Again, nothing has really changed from the times we've played well. It just so happens we've had a couple bad games that have kind of watered that down.”

Opposing coaches have told Robinson how difficult his scheme is to defend while holding them to the fifth fewest points in the NFL. Think about that for a second.

Defenses are Doing Things Simpler

Robinson went on to say that defenses have actually simplified the way teams have played the Falcons, yet the results are in decline.

"We've actually seen simpler looks than we've been anticipating," Robinson said when asked if teams are making adjustments to his scheme. "Last week was a team that had a bunch of different looks getting into that game, and they actually simplified a bunch of things, knowing how many moving parts we have on offense.

"Talked to some of their coaches afterwards, and they said, we just didn't want to screw anything up with all the different motions and all the different things that you guys have. So, we've been getting simpler looks the last couple weeks, which makes it a little bit more frustrating for everybody.

The Dolphins decided to keep things simple and held the Falcons to 213 yards, their lowest total of the season.

Contradicting the Head Coach

Head coach Raheem Morris admitted after the game that it looked like the Dolphins had an idea what would be coming play-to-play. Robinson contradicted Morris on Wednesday.

“Yeah, it didn't feel like that when we watched the tape. Of course, there are a couple tackles in the backfield that it looks bad just optically, but again, we should have body-on-body on those, and we should be in good shape for those looks," Robinson said, blaming poor execution as the reason for the Falcons' woes on Sunday.

The shelf life for most offensive coordinators is two years. From 2022 to 2024, every NFL team had changed offensive coordinators. Either they're successful and get a head job somewhere, or they fail and they're fired.

Robinson has been linked heavily with the open Oklahoma State job, and either way, it's really hard to picture him in charge of the Falcons' offense next season.