We just came across this story about the Falcons having an interest in hiring USC’s Pete Carroll to be their next head coach. Really??? Is that such a good idea? We vote no.

We can’t quite figure out why Arthur Blank, recently dumped by a former and now current college coach, would take his chances with another college coach. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Granted, Pete Carroll has coached 4 seasons in the NFL, and made the playoffs in two of those. But his last run in the NFL was an 8-8 season in 1999. Not to mention that Carroll was fired by two different NFL teams.

In the NFL, Carroll would be considered an average coach. He did make the playoffs, but had a total record of 33-31. Compare that with his record at USC, an impressive 76-14. Based solely on those two pieces of information, one can easily surmise that Carroll is a tremendously better college coach than pro.

If you look at the other 3 high profile coaches to try their hand at the NFL, the results are all the same. Spurrier owned the SEC while coaching Florida (122-27-1 record there), but he clearly floundered with the Redskins, going 12-20 in just 2 seasons. And guess what he is doing now? Coaching in college again.

Then take a look at Nick Saban: 48-16 while at LSU, only 15-17 in 2 seasons with the Dolphins. And now he’s back coaching in the college ranks.

And do we even need to remind Blank about Bobby Petrino? Clearly not. When you have just gone through this episode with a college coach trying things out in the NFL unsuccessfully, why in the hell would you do the exact same thing right away?

That’s like a guy dumping his bartender girlfriend because she has to work all night, then dating a girl who works as a bartender at a different bar. The same issues are there, only the looks and the name are different.

We guess the only positive would be getting to listen to Falcons’ defensive back De’Angelo Hall whine like a little baby again after Carroll resigns to return to a college job after one year.

But we just have to question what’s going through Arthur Blank’s head. We don’t care how good of a coach Carroll has been at USC. He still was only 2 games above .500 in his NFL run. Will that be good enough for the Falcons? Or good enough for Carroll, who is used to winning at least 10 of 12 games ever year? We doubt it.

If this was the Raiders trying to hire Carroll, or the Texans, we could offer a better defense of that decision. But the Falcons just got burned by a college coach 6 weeks ago. Why test that out again? And yes, we are believers that some guys get to the NFL, realize this is not their bag, then head back to college where their skills prove more successful. And to be honest, we really don’t have a problem with that.

We just don’t want to listen to Blank talk about having his feelings hurt when Carroll goes 6-10 with the crappy bunch in Atlanta, then decides he’s better of back in the NCAA.

We will admit to one note about Carroll that makes him different from many college coaches trying to make it in the NFL - having been at USC all these years, he is used to working with paid athletes.