This blog has moved! Yes, already!
As of Thursday, Feb. 12, this little blog has relocated to a new home on AJC.com. It’s the same newspaper, the same Web site and the same writer (feel free to groan) — there’s just a new URL.
New features: Bigger type, more graphics, comments that load 10 times faster and a larger and more recent photo that makes me look pretty doggone old. I think you’ll like it (the blog, not the photo). But I am, as we know too well, often wrong.
Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > April > 14
Monday, April 14, 2008
Smith has something Mora and Petrino didn’t
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Flowery Branch — Between drills, Mike Smith would yell, “On the hop! On the hop!” That’s coach-talk for “move quickly to the next station,” and nobody hopped faster than Smitty himself.
Throughout his first on-field practice as a head coach, Smith scarcely stood in the same spot for consecutive snaps. (And it wasn’t just because, on a chilly spring day, he was moving to keep warm.) One minute he’d be in the middle of the defense, advising a linebacker to “open your hips.” The next he’d be watching from beyond the secondary, exhorting defenders to “make a [coverage] call, even if it’s the wrong call.”
Afterward the Falcons coach would sound almost apologetic, saying to the assembled media, “I hope I wasn’t too overbearing.” But obviously this was new stuff for Smitty, as he’s universally known, and it was likewise novel for the Falcons, who are coming off two head coaches who figured they knew everything coming in.
Mike Smith, who’s 48 and who could pass for 58, is still young enough to err on the side of enthusiasm. “I’m a very hyper guy,” he said, and it showed. He touched on the basics — “I wanted to make sure guys knew how to line up,” he said, and experience teaches us that no Falcons coach should assume even that much — but the overarching idea on Day 1 of mini-camp was (more coach-talk here) “to set a tempo.”
Every new coach seeks to set the same tempo — always faster, never slower. Some of these veterans had heard “on the hop,” or a variation thereof, from Bobby Petrino last spring and from Jim Mora before him. Said Keith Brooking, who goes all the way back to Dan Reeves: “Change isn’t always a bad thing; change can be a positive. After last year, which I don’t even want to talk about, we definitely needed a change.”
Smitty marks a clear departure from Mora, who was passionate but smug, and from Petrino, who was smart but autocratic. Said Brooking, speaking of Smith: “He’s used to dealing with NFL players on a day-to-day basis.” Then this: “His mannerisms didn’t change one bit the whole day. He’s very energetic, and this game is about having energy. You have to have fun. We lost a lot of games in the fourth quarter [last season].”
The 2008 Falcons will probably lose more games than they win, but they can’t be half as dysfunctional. Surely they won’t see this year’s quarterback — Chris Redman is the new No. 1 — indicted for dogfighting on the eve of training camp, and surely the front office will no longer house diverging agendas. Smith and Thomas Dimitroff, the new general manager, are simpatico regarding football as a concept. Said Smith, touching on an already-familiar theme: “We want to roll off the ball [on offense] and knock the line of scrimmage back [on defense].”
If Dimitroff is the new organizational key man, that doesn’t mean his chosen head coach is simply an affable cheerleader. At some point the Falcons will have to line up and play, and the GM can’t help them then. Smith isn’t as overt about his expertise as Petrino, but the new man knows his stuff. You can’t be a successful defensive coordinator without having a mind for technique.
The difference is this: Where Mora and Petrino were dreaming about being head coaches when they were in junior high, Smith gives the impression he could have another 10 years as a coordinator and still retired a happy man. We can’t know yet if the unassuming Smitty is one of those capable assistants who needed only the opportunity to prove he’s a big-picture guy or, as was the case with Marion Campbell, a capable assistant who kept proving he wasn’t.
One workout into his head-coaching life, Mike Smith knows already that some things are beyond scripting. Asked about Monday’s practice, he said: “I wish it was a little warmer — I anticipated we’d be able to get a good sweat going.”
The name’s Smith, and he wants sweat. As coaching credos go, that’s a pretty sound one.
Permalink | Comments (58) | Post your comment | Categories: Falcons/NFL
