For the remaining three games of the 2023 regular season, the Falcons will start Taylor Heinicke over Desmond Ridder.
Desmond Ridder has been benched for the second time this season by Atlanta Falcons coach Arthur Smith, who has started backup quarterback Taylor Heinicke in place of Ridder for the third time.
The 2023 regular season began with Ridder in the starting lineup. Despite this, Smith refused to switch quarterbacks for the majority of the first few games of the season. Then, two weeks before to Week 9, Smith appointed Heinicke as the new signal-caller. Smith flipped back to Ridder in Week 10, capping an almost complete turnaround led by Ridder’s replacement of an injured Heinicke.
Smith said Ridder would take up the position for the remainder of the season at the time of the shift. But Smith made a 180-degree turn around again after a miserable showing in Sunday’s 9-7 defeat to Carolina.
Smith stated that Heinicke will start the remainder of the season, just as he did upon Ridder’s return to the starting lineup.
With two bench appearances in his first full season as the starter, Ridder’s future in Atlanta appears to be bleak. The quarterback has briefly demonstrated his ability to rip the ball into small windows, but those were much too few and greatly outnumbered by errors. His 10 to 10 TD-INT ratio behind only Patriots QB Mac Jones (10:12) and is tied with Panthers rookie Bryce Young (9:9) for the second-worst in the NFL. With 16 turnovers overall, Ridder is tied for the fifth-most in the NFL.
