The coaching staff for the Atlanta Falcons reached out Saturday Night Live star Kenan Thompson to help with the team's virtual offseason program.
Falcons coach Dan Quinn knows one of the biggest things the team has missed this offseason has been the locker room comradery and after reaching out to Thompson, the team decided to do an open mic before some of the practices:
“Trying to do comedy online is hard,” Quinn said, laughing via Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated. “They’d done a Saturday Night Live from home. And so we’d asked, ‘What’s hard about it?’ He goes, ‘You don’t know if the joke is funny, because you don’t hear anybody laughing, because their mics aren’t on.’ So learning some of the technology was fun, and sometimes before meetings we’d just have open mics so you could talk s–t and have fun like a locker room does. And then I’d have to hold up the sign: OK, mics off, cameras on, let’s go.”
The NFL is about winning football games, but having a strong locker room is important, so that time spent laughing was good for the Falcons.
Quinn also brought in four-star general Paul Funk of the U.S. Army. Funk has 800,000 people under his control, so the 150 people under Quinn doesn't seem like such a big number.
Funk also told Quinn that he needs to make sure he keeps the standard high because if they let the standard slip for even one practice, that will become the new normal for the team.
Even in a tough offseason, Quinn did everything in his power to still try to improve his team.
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