Jan 17, 2018, 4:30 p.m.

If he’s on the job by the end of Wednesday, odds are Steve Sarkisian will be on the job with Atlanta when the 2018 season opens.

In a transient business, he may find a better fit and take another job, which would then lead to misguided joy from misguided Falcons fans who won’t think to wonder if their head coach knows how to hire and keep people because he’s doing an iffy job of it.

If Sarkisian stays, get grip, take some meds, and deal with it. And prepare to revisit some reality, that nasty word that keeps cropping up here because it’s so avoided.

Personal belief, from years of watching, listening, thinking, listening, researching, listening, and being born with a solid “reality” gene:

And about the quarterback …

People use numbers for arguments, against arguments, for context, and against context.

Numbers and context together, well, they paint a more accurate picture than when left to fend for themselves.

And thus, again, one wonders why Matt Ryan constantly gets a pass on Atlanta’s issues.

If you’re going to argue against Steve Sarkisian that stats – they’re better than people realize, and want to realize – only tell part of the story, you have to hold fast to that belief with the quarterback, too.

In sports lingo, I want to love Matt Ryan as the Falcons quarterback. I really do, have always wanted to. But I can only like him. And no, he’s not an elite quarterback. He’s not on That List, because numbers, again, don’t tell the whole tale, right?

He’s not in the same league Tom or Ben or Drew or Aaron or Russell. Not many are.

And it’s no stretch to see him being passed in a few years by youngsters Carson Wentz and Jared Goff. And, in five years, that kid from Houston County.

As it is, Ryan is in a large group of B-list quarterbacks that include Philip Rivers, Kirk Cousins, Andy Dalton, Matthew Stafford, Derek Car, Alex Smith, and so on and so on.

He has nice numbers, but even Falcons fans rejoice when he makes an A-list play, or something other than throwing to any one of so many weapons.

Ryan is a guy you want on your team, but does he lift the Falcons? Does he take advantage of all these weapons and threats everybody talks about? He can’t make the plays that Drew Brees made to bring the Saints back from 17 down on the road in the second half.

Good grief, put three upper-level receivers and two upper-level backs and an All-Pro center on an offense and you could have Steve Martin calling plays and, oh, Case or Nick or Blake do well. Hell, put Tony Romo with all that and the stability and drama-free atmosphere that is not the Dallas Cowboys.

Or do better. Be more explosive and consistent. Force the issue more.

Yes, he was an MVP, and deservedly so. But again, that was the fluke. His average QB rating for non-2016 is 90.5, which is below his 2017 mark and just above his 2015 mark. His yardage in 2017 was a yard off his excluding-2016 average.

But he is excused for being in charge of an offense that, yes, blew a 25-point lead. Sure, the defense gave up the points, and the playcalls didn’t eat clock, but Ryan can’t turn to the sideline with a “WTF?” look and change a few plays?

They’re gonna pull him if he changes a play and explains why? No, they’re not.

That blown lead absolutely has to lay on his lap as much as that suddenly-Hall-of-Fame-coordinator Shanahan and the head coach who, again, has a headset on that’s not listening to Wes and Arch to the radio call.

Can you imagine any of the quarterbacks you want to put Ryan in a class with not just taking over the game and huddle at that point? No.

Does that game tarnish his reputation? It should tarnish the rep of any quarterback that did that.

A little FYI: The Falcons have blown 11 leads of 17 points or more. Five have been with Ryan at QB.

The Saints have eight of 17 or more, Brees getting two. Patriots? Eight, Brady has three. The Charger have 10, Philip Rivers has three.

And all those comebacks? The max margin to overcome has been 16 points, once, against Carolina (4-9 at the time) in 2011. Few came against big teams in big games.

This isn’t to disparage Ryan, this is to throw some reality out there. Sure, he’s the greatest Falcons quarterback ever, but that’s hardly a stellar group. Of those who have thrown at least 1,000 passes as a Falcon, only Ryan and Jeff George – gag – have a plus-60 percent completion rate. Ryan’s 93.4 career rating is challenged by only two QBs with at least an 85, Chris Chandler and George.

And he’s certainly among the greatest Falcons ever, a first-vote retired jersey guy, but for an organization that even this century is only 13 games over .500 in the regular season and 6-8 in the playoffs.

Thus, evidence continues that, for Ryan as for the Falcons, 2016 was a fluke. Sadly, it’s highly doubtful Ryan will ever approach the across-the-board numbers of 2016. For his health, I hope he doesn’t come close to those 37 sacks again.

Ryan doesn’t take over games, he ends up pulling them out. Usually, and often against teams the Falcons shouldn’t need a fourth-quarter comeback. He survives 15 rounds, but rarely knocks anybody out, even weaker fighters.

Even in the MVP year, which, remember, was an 11-5 regular season that included a game-ending at-home pick-6 and him being sacked 37 times, second most in his career.

If the Patriots can think about trading Tom Brady, the Falcons can start thinking ahead to a life without Ryan at quarterback. Perhaps he got to Atlanta at the wrong time. The Falcons being the Falcons, there hasn’t been much consistent quality decision-making, even when things are going well.

They get stable under Mike Smith, but there appear to be behind-the-scenes stuff going on – ala some staff hires – and the Falcons have to promote people for not doing their jobs well, leading to poor player personnel moves in drafts and trades. And Smith gets fired.

A friend won't acknowledge Ryan’s mortality and visits to mediocrity, numbers aside (and he's gonna yell at me again for bringing it up). He asked if Philip Rivers was a Hall of Fame QB – he’ll pass out if Ryan’s not a first-ballot pick, and Ryan isn’t – but did so before seeing that Rivers ranks higher than Ryan in career rating, yards, yards per attempt.

And Rivers – stuck with a worse organization during his career than Ryan – gets only 7 yards less in yards per game and is less than one percentage worse in completion percentage (64.9-64.2).

If you’re going by numbers, you’re taking Ryan after Romo, Cousins, Rivers, Kurt Warner, Alex Smith, among others, and there are those others who are climbing the stat charts, too.

Note that since he got to Kansas City, Smith has a better TD-interception ratio, completion percentage and QB rating than Ryan, and is 50-26 as a starter.

Again, I’m a Matt Ryan fan. The Falcons are no doubt, absolutely no doubt, better with him than without him. If you can’t like Matt Ryan a lot, you probably shouldn’t be allowed around people, or animals. The program has, yes, grown with him.

But open eyes and open minds see and grasp that maybe we’ve seen his ceiling, seen his best, and it makes you wonder a little bit about whether that has kept the Falcons’ ceiling a little lower than it could’ve been.

Soon enough, it’ll be time to ponder a decision or fret that a window that was open has quietly closed. And the Falcons know how hard it is to re-open that window.

Related material

The Falcons of 2017 are like the Falcons of 2015, and that's who the Falcons really are.

I can disagree with but defend almost any playcall, about 99.3 percent, on any level. I realize the obvious: I’m not in the room, I’m not in the planning, I don’t see the video 32 times, I don’t have the discussions with others in the room who plan and see the video 32 times.

I do, however, listen to those who are in the room, and I grasp logic. Those meetings do not fill a room.

Every playcall is made for a reason. Somebody sees something, gets a feeling. Maybe it’s time to try something over here, work on that player, or take advantage of a tendency that has strengthened.

No doubt. I get it, which leads to arguments with people who don’t, who look simply at the result and gotta blame somebody.

But they never seem to want to blame the player – be it a sophomore in high school or 32-year-old veteran – who screws it up, nor do they want to ever credit the opposition for doing what they work to do, make a play.

That said, the two final-minute calls by Sarkisian were odd, to say the least, at that time, at that spot.

I like it when coaches unclench and try something. I still giggle at the Oklahoma pass to Baker Mayfield at the end of the first half of the Rose Bowl. God bless you, Lincoln Riley.

So I can certainly handle the shovel pass – which came in high and hard to the wrong person who should have been the recipient, and wasn’t among the better designed shovel passes – that was incomplete.

But I’d have liked to have stretched the defense a little more so there was some room, and had the right hands person in there.

And I can handle, less so, the fourth-down call, making the field smaller and much easier to defend. Can’t call that from the 2. Maybe outside the 10, give a secondary receiver a chance to get open, maybe set a subtle pick, and also maybe the RB – the right RB - won’t be on his butt and is either a throwback target or can block if Matt Ryan reverses and thinks about running.

Of course, Matt Ryan makes that wise call about twice a year when he should do it twice a game.

Nevertheless, sports being sports, we had the former-starter-now-backup QB outplaying the veteran. That, of course, was not the veteran’s fault, it was the offensive coordinator.

Or so many think. Wrongly.

Nick Foles was 23 for 30, no touchdowns or picks, for 246 yards. Matt Ryan was 22 of 36 with a touchdown and no picks, 210 yards.

Philly gained a half-yard per play more than Atlanta. Julio Jones had 9 catches for 101 yards, so let’s stop with the belief that if Julio is busy, the Falcons win. Being one-dimensional or predictable doesn’t work, yet that’s what so many people want.

And the OC doesn’t throw to anybody, or change a play at the line, or go through the pass progressions. But that veteran QB does (See sidebar).

We now reach the point where I again point out that you have to stop comparing 2017 to 2016 because that was a fluke year. Pure fluke. If it wasn’t, the Falcons would have been that good more often, and they haven’t been. Numbers are numbers, facts are fact, no matter how painfully factual.

Sarkisian is, agaaain, Atlanta’s third OC in four years. Instability rarely is a sprint to success. Don’t forget that.

It’s unfair to compare Sarkisian’s first year to Kyle Shanahan’s second year, and the adjustment to the weapons available as well as the adjustments of a normal season.

For all the grousing about this year’s first-year offensive coordinator, note that this year’s offense got more yards per play in the regular season than under the last first-year offensive coordinator.

Was a little better on third down and better in the red zone in 2015, yes.

This offense had 18 turnovers, to 30 in 2015, six fewer interceptions on 91 fewer attempts. The average drive was about the same.

The top five receivers in 2015 and their numbers:

Julio Jones, 136-1871 8 TDs; Devonta Freeman, 73-578 3 TDs; Jacob Tamme 59-657 1; Roddy White 43-506, 1; Leonard Handerson 26-327, 3 TDs

The top five receivers in 2017 and their numbers: Jones 88-1,444, 3 TDs; Mohamed Sanu 67-703, 5 TDs; Austin Hooper 49-526, 3 TDs; Freeman 36-317, 1 TD; Taylor Gabriel 33-378, 1 TD.

So the top five in 2015 teamed for 64 more catches and 571 more yards, this year’s run game average half a yard more per carry.

And this year’s defense had almost half as many interceptions as 2015s, so it helped the offense less in takeaways.

No, clearly it’s not all about numbers – re-read that I said that it’s not all about numbers - but numbers may help show that it wasn’t quite the Titanic, or as one media offering out there a few days ago saying the “offense was a dumpster fire under Sarkisian all season” and then completely contradicts that argument.

Jones caught only four touchdowns, but you can’t blame Sarkisian on a league-high 29 – or more - dropped passes, we were told. Gee, maybe those drops had something to do with Jones not getting more TD opps.

There were only personnel changes this year at guard and fullback – and, um, OC – but the Falcons had more injuries this year with two linemen and two running backs missing games, we were told.

OK, again, which is it? And injuries mean there are major personnel changes, yes?

It was pointed out that Jones, as usual, missed practice time, and even with experienced tandems, timing is timing. And tight end Austin Hooper “disappointed” all season long, but he was third in catches.

Plus how limiting is an offense when you have to take out your primary tailback because of his lack of blocking skills? How much does that give the defense an idea of what you might do? Did the first-year OC sign him to the big we-gotta-play-him-a-lot money? Nope.

Stop, and answer those questions, then continue.

Maybe Matt Ryan will ask for more input in play-calling, but we’re told that such a move isn’t part of his personality.

Welcome to the Waffle House.

And that was kind of the end of the argument on the dumpster fire. So, gee, maybe it shouldn’t all fall to the lap of the person hired by the head coach and the game plan and playbook approved by the head coach. Every argument for that was countered by facts and context that help disprove the argument more than prove it.

There was the thought that there had to be many better coordinator candidates out there instead of Sarkisian, but none were named. And doesn’t a person have to make himself a candidate to be a candidate? Maybe top candidates didn’t want the job.

And is this to make Kyle Shanahan out to be this brilliant, revolutionary OC? The guy whose offense got off to a 5-0 start in his first year as OC and didn’t make the playoffs? Who people wanted out before the end of his first season as the Falcons OC?

NFL offenses are all pretty similar, it’s just when a playcaller choose to be different, and that’s based on personnel. Sometimes, different is too different, sometimes there’s not enough different. Sometimes, people miss blocks or drop passes.

Fact is, the Falcons went three straight years recently without making the playoffs, and they weren’t without decent personnel in most spots (OK, save for Joplo Bartu, Jon Asamoah, and Malliciah Goodman, among a few others).

For all the grousing, the Falcons made the playoffs this year and won a road playoff game this year with this offensive coordinator.

And a star wideout who missed practice time. And No. 1 running back who can’t block. And injuries to the offensive line.

No doubt Sarkisian opened himself up for some second-guessing. Like Mike Tomlin did. Like Sean Payton did. Like Nick Saban did. Like, well, everybody with a title does every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

And no doubt there will be some items dismissed from the playbook and other items encouraged. There damn well better be, DQ.

No, the Falcons won’t repeat in this OC’s second year what they did in the last OC’s second year, for a variety of reasons, but they will adjust and do what they can with what they have, and with what happens as the year progress.

But please, stop laying it at the lap of one person and skip the head coach, the quarterback, situations on defense and special teams, and the fact that other teams might be better this year.

That’s the reality, which, of course, is apparently never as fun as the opposite.