Good morning, everyone. You have surely, over the years, heard of Sports Illustrated’s The MMQB, a regular column breaking down all of the previous week’s happenings within the NFL. Since that is now obsolete, are you prepared for the MHDD?

Welcome to the Mike Hive Deep Dive.

In this recurring piece, Tasteful Profanity’s trio of Mikes will thoroughly break down the facts surrounding the Seattle Seahawks’ upcoming opponent and explain why they’re actually bad.

Buckle up, folks. You’re in for an absolutely senseless ride.

Arthur Blank

Mike C: At some point, we need to assume that Falcons owner Arthur Blank is actually an animated corpse sustained through some sort of third-party programming (think Mr. House from Fallout: New Vegas) because you have to be pronounced clinically dead in order to not fire Dan Quinn or Thomas Dimitrioff when your team is 1-6.

Super Bowl 51

Mike B: Imagine watching the Seahawks pull off the unthinkable act of blowing a Super Bowl in such tremendous fashion and then actively deciding ‘you know what, let’s fuck this up to an even greater degree’ and then actually doing it.

Mike S: NOTHING LIKE DUNKING ON THE ONLY FRANCHISE TO LOSE A SUPER BOWL IN A WORSE WAY.

Featured Players

Julio Jones

Mike B: Julio Jones has been arguably the best receiver in the league for several years now, which if anything is an indictment of the NFL’s receiving talent. And while he has drawn praise for being such an unstoppable force on the boundary, isn’t it a little funny that he’s not even the best Alabama wideout on his own team? Jones has gaudier stats, sure. But would Ridley ever drop a wide-open touchdown on 4th and 7 with the game on the line?

Because Julio did.

And would somebody who is believed to be the best at what he does in the entire world fail to score a touchdown in TWELVE consecutive regular season games?

Because Julio did.

Jones is now 30 years old and, as we all know, all wide receivers drop off the production cliff once they hit the big three oh. While Julio hasn’t hit that wall quite yet, regression is imminent and I don’t expect him to gain a single yard more in his career. Except in practice. Because Atlanta’s defense is more despicable than Tony Gonzalez’s playoff contributions.

Matt Ryan

Mike C: Matt Ryan is the WonderBread of quarterbacks, which explains analytics nerds’ fascination with him. Everything about him is painfully bland and forgettable, including his performance, his personality, and the fact that he looks like a member of Nickelback. I mean, imagine being a quarterback in the NFC South that doesn’t even try to make headlines on ESPN. Who does that, in Atlanta of all places? Then imagine having peak Julio Jones, Roddy White, Michael Turner, and Tony Gonzalez as your weapons and still not winning the Super Bowl. I mean, Aaron Rodgers did more, and he’s fucking Aaron Rodgers.

I suppose that Ryan’s play is apropos of the organization he commands, which is being just good enough to grab your attention but not sustain it. (Even the Mariners didn’t have to celebrate going consecutive seasons with non-losing records as an achievement)

A lot of this can be explained by the fact that Ryan played for Boston College, an institution that is actually located 45 minutes away from Downtown Boston and is just generally terrible because they pretend they are more morally upright than Harvard, MIT, BU, and Northeastern. That’s like saying Matt Ryan is the best quarterback in Falcons history because his predecessors killed dogs and were Jeff George.

Dan Quinn

Mike B: Like Matt Ryan, Dan Quinn has two first names and if there’s one thing I have learned in this unforgiving world we live in, it’s to never trust somebody with two first names. Arthur Blank did and he is reaping what he sowed.

Quinn began his first stint in Seattle in 2009. I posit that Jim Mora takes much of the blame for the Seahawks’ ghastly record that year, when in fact it was Quinn holding the team back. After Pete Carroll’s first year in town, Quinn departed for the University of Florida, which makes a lot of sense because Atlanta’s current defense is stinkier than gator feces.

When he returned as Seattle’s defensive coordinator, he rode the coattails of the Legion of Boom — a defense that had 28 interceptions, 3 of which were returned for touchdowns — into a head coaching gig a year later which, to reiterate, has shone even less than reptilian excrement.

Mike C: Quinn’s most valuable contribution in his career is turning Red Bryant into a good player and hiring Kyle Shanahan. Everything else, like Matt Ryan, has coasted off of extremely low expectations. From 2013-2014, Quinn was billed as the architect of the legendary Seahawks defense, which is a complete misnomer considering that everyone knows Gus Bradley was responsible for the development of Bobby Wagner, K.J. Wright, and the Legion of Boom.

The fact that this was sufficient enough to get him hired as head coach is only a reflection of Pete Carroll’s continued nepotism within the NFL. In this regard, Quinn is truly Carroll’s protégé in being able to replace terrible coaches with even worse candidates and then somehow gaining enough confidence from everyone involved to not be vilified for doing so.

Sawyer in Summation

Mike S: The Falcons tried so hard to become the Seahawks, and they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Be careful what you wish for.