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 > August
August 2008
Restoring Braves’ luster will take years
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The era of eminence has ended. The Braves are weaker than at any time since 1990, and they’re apt to get worse before they get better.
They geared up for one last stand, but we see now that gearing up was also a masking action. By banking so heavily on aging pitchers and one high-priced rental, they sought to hide how threadbare this organization has become. Then the pitchers got hurt and Mark Teixeira got traded, and as we scan next season’s prospective roster we’re moved to ask: Is this all there is?
Frank Wren, the general manager since October 2007, believes his team “has the resources and the foundation” to retool. “We still need pieces,” he said, “but we don’t need a major overhaul.”
Hearing, a man asked: “Pieces?”
Said Wren: “They’re not little pieces — they’re big pieces.”
To look at this team is to see only two big-time players, and one of those will turn 37 in April. Writing for SI.com, Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus offered a ranking of the top 50 players around which an organization could build, and only one Brave — Brian McCann, at No. 11 — made the list. Chipper Jones, who has missed 24 games since June 1, was included as an “honorable mention.”
As it stands, Jair Jurrjens — who’s 22 and who has won two of nine starts since the All-Star break — would be the 2009 Opening Day pitcher. Three members of this proposed-but-never-intact rotation aren’t under contract beyond this season: Tom Glavine and Mike Hampton will be free agents, and John Smoltz failed to reach his vesting option by working the required 200 innings. And Tim Hudson, a fourth member, has had surgery. (As has Smoltz. As has Glavine.)
Wren: “It’s too early to talk to John and Tommy [about possible new contracts] until we get into the offseason and we have more information. There’s no sense talking about it now.”
The outfield is in similar shambles. Mark Kotsay is gone. Jordan Schafer, the heir apparent, was suspended 50 games for using HGH; now reinstated, he’s hitting .269 in Class AA with more strikeouts than hits. Jeff Francoeur is fighting to keep his average above .230. Matt Diaz hasn’t played since May. Gregor Blanco and Omar Infante have four homers between them.
Question: Do you see a “foundation”?
Yes, Wren could make a trade (or two, or three) to address deepening deficiencies, but who among Braves would yield the needed return? Yunel Escobar? (And who plays shortstop if he leaves?) Casey Kotchman? (Didn’t he just get here?) Jarrod Saltalamacchia? (Whoops, already did that deal.)
Then there’s free agency. The Braves have sworn off big-ticket signings for a decade, but there’s really no other option. With the $37 million that’s no longer earmarked for Smoltz, Hampton and Glavine, Wren has to take a look. He probably won’t like what he finds. Can anyone outbid the Yankees for CC Sabathia? Is Pat Burrell, who has had two 100-RBI seasons, worth $15 million per annum? Is Adam Dunn, who has had three?
“I don’t know what we’re going to pay [in free agency], but it has to be a function of putting together a whole team,” Wren said. “Our overriding view is that you put a team together, not just one player.”
That, sad to say, is the point. The Braves, who are 222-239 since Opening Day 2006, no longer have many real players, nor are they much of a team. The “great, grand organization” — John Schuerholz’s description — is just another mediocrity. Restoring its luster will take years.
Not months. Years.
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Decision to start Ryan was careful, correct
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They brought back Marion Campbell for a second term as head coach. They fired Jerry Glanville only to promote his No. 1 assistant. They traded up to draft Reggie Kelly.
There have been so many times we’ve wondered if the Falcons had any idea what they were doing that doubt has become a conditioned response, but this time should be different. Starting Matt Ryan at quarterback in Week 1 of Season 1 might or might not work out, but it isn’t a choice made on some light and airy whim.
This administration can cite all the unpromising precedents. They know about David Carr. They know about Tim Couch. Heck, Thomas Dimitroff was working for the Cleveland Browns when Couch was drafted and handed the keys to that franchise. But here’s what Dimitroff, now the Falcons’ general manager, said when asked before training camp if he’d be shocked were Ryan the opening day starter: “I would not be surprised.”
Looking back, the Falcons knew in minicamp. They might even have known the day they drafted him. Ryan has a presence that sets him apart. He might not be a physical specimen on the order of John Elway, but he has more than the requisite skills and an off-the-charts sense of purpose.
Over the past four months Ryan was asked repeatedly if he wanted to start right away, and not once did he say, “I’ll do whatever the team wants — hold a clipboard, wear a ballcap, whatever.” Here’s what Ryan did say: “I think everyone should be disappointed if he doesn’t start.”
In the grand scheme, the easier (and less-scrutinized) course would have been to nurse Ryan for the first month or two, to let him wait behind Chris Redman. The Falcons took a long look and decided Ryan needs no nursing. He’s already their best quarterback. At the most difficult position, he’s as ready as any rookie can be.
This isn’t to say he won’t struggle. This isn’t to say he’ll ever be an All-Pro. But if Ryan fails, it won’t be because the Falcons moved without regard to his future. For once, this frazzled franchise has made a considered decision.
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Tech tuned up without Tenuta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Tech debuts tonight, and the focus is on Paul Johnson’s offense. Relatively little has been said about the defense, which will, for the first time since 2001, be coordinated by someone other than Jon Tenuta.
Or, as I like to call him, Jonny One-Note.
Some Tech people considered Tenuta a wizard. I regarded him as the most overrated coordinator in recent collegiate annals. His defense could do one thing — blitz. If it worked, Tech would look great. If it didn’t …
It didn’t against Boston College last season, and Matt Ryan threw for 435 yards. It didn’t against Virginia Tech, and the offensively challenged Hokies mustered 481 total yards. It didn’t against Fresno State in the Humanitarian Bowl, and the Bulldogs amassed 286 yards rushing and 285 yards passing.
Tech’s D looked pretty good statistically last season — first in the nation in sacks, 20th in total defense — but those numbers were padded against lesser lights. (Notre Dame, Samford, Miami, Army, Duke.) If you had an offensive line that could protect and a quarterback who could stand and deliver, you could beat Tech and beat it badly.
Because the blitz by definition jams the line of scrimmage and because sacks are counted against a team’s rushing total, Tenuta’s teams usually did well against the run. But here, pun intended, was the catch: In six seasons under Tenuta, Tech’s defense finished above 40th in pass defense only once.
He’s now at Notre Dame, where every game is televised and the Irish fans will expect something more substantial. The Jacket defenders are guided by Dave Wommack, who has none of the aura that strangely attached itself to the aloof Tenuta but who, in the grand scheme, might just be an upgrade.
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Bradley’s Buzz: From Knowshon to Algernon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Knowshon knows how to say nothing
I can say from recent experience that prompting Knowshon Moreno to speak consecutive sentences is a challenge on the order of getting Bobby Cox to say anything negative about one of his Braves. ESPN The Magazine — the publication lots of people buy but few actually read — has splashed Moreno on its cover, and Alyssa Roenigk drew the difficult assignment of profiling a player determined to keep a low profile. Her story runs for 22 paragraphs and features four direct Knowshon quotes. The longest of those runs 15 words.
Journalism 101: When confronted with a reluctant subject, the enterprising reporter must get other people to talk. Mike Ogle of The New York Times got even less from Moreno — his story includes only one direct quote and notes that “the [phone] interview has been going on for only a short time before Moreno asks if he is done.” So Ogle made the trek to Belford, N.J., to speak with Moreno’s grandmother and legal guardian, and that interview had to be arranged through Georgia’s media information department.
It’s a tricky thing, publicizing a Heisman candidate who doesn’t want publicity. The last Georgia Bulldog to take the trophy was a famously engaging conversationalist who was more than happy to call out-of-town reporters whenever Claude Felton asked, which the Hall of Fame publicist did almost every day over three event-filled seasons. And, having been on the receiving end of two of those calls, I can attest that Herschel Walker never once asked if we were done.
Why is this worth mentioning? Because reporters (though not AJC reporters) vote on the Heisman.
Cancel those Miami reservations
An online publication called The Money Line Journal dismisses Georgia’s chances of winning the BCS title and gives the Bulldogs only a 6.2 percent chance of finishing with just one loss.
This (unnamed) mathematician believes Georgia will play in either the Capital One or the Outback bowls and avers that Matthew Stafford isn’t a “credible” passer. Which I must say is a wholly incredible assertion. Ask Auburn if Stafford can hurt you. Ask Alabama.
Braves’ new (and ugly) world
It wasn’t so long ago that the Braves brimmed with talent both at the major-league level and below. Writing for SI.com, Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus presents a list of players who would/should be the first 50 taken in a forward-looking fantasy draft. Only one Brave makes the cut — Brian McCann at No. 11. Chipper Jones rates an honorable mention.
I’m not a big stat geek, but I’d concur with that appraisal. And I’d use it to reach the following conclusion: The Braves aren’t apt to win again anytime soon because they’ve simply run low on top-shelf players.
Debating prospect Ryan
If nothing else, the Falcons’ decision to start Matt Ryan ensures that a team the wordsmith Boomer Esiason describes as “crappy” will get a disproportionate share of cyberspace. Esiason tells Clifton Brown of Sporting News Today that Ryan shouldn’t be starting. Boomer says the Falcons should do as the Bengals did with Carson Palmer and sit Ryan for a year. And that sounds like great advice, given that Palmer has gone on to reach so many Super Bowls. (Note sarcasm.)
Writing for ESPN.com, Pat Yasinskas offered a more measured take on the Ryan issue, and I can tell you the Falcons went through exactly the sort of on-the-one-hand-but-on-the-other mental gymnastics Yasinskas describes. But they believe starting Ryan is the proper course because Ryan isn’t David Carr and isn’t Tim Couch. They believe Ryan is more prepared to start than any rookie since Ben Roethlisberger. And Big Ben has won a Super Bowl.
PJ of GT and the OBS
Here’s an endorsement of Paul Johnson’s option-based spread by Gerald Ball in something called the Bleacher Report. That’s another online publication new to me, but Ball’s thesis makes some sense. Key sentences: “Teams did not abandon the option because it was ineffective. Teams adopted the passing game because it’s what gets you noticed by the media.”
Me, I think the reason teams started throwing the ball all over creation is because such a scheme is easier to sell to recruits and, even more significantly, easier to coach. The option requires precision on the part of all 11 players. The West Coast Offense requires only that some 300-pound offensive linemen hold their blocks for 1.5 seconds while a quarterback takes a three-step drop and chucks a 3-yard pass.
Algernon visits Leavenworth (but gets to leave)
Alge Crumpler, once a Falcon and now a Tennessee Titan, told Terry McCormick of The City Paper of Nashville that he’d visited Michael Vick in jail before the start of training camp. Crumpler didn’t reveal much about Vick’s state of mind or of the prison experience in general. But I’m sure Vick was happy to see him.
Then again, it’s hard to know these things. It has been nearly a calendar year since Vick addressed the public. And, giving his circumstances, you’d have to say he’s an even tougher interview than Knowshon Moreno.
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Falcons deserve measured optimism
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Owing to the softness of the early schedule, the team being forecast as the NFL’s worst could well be 2-1 by 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 21. But we shouldn’t overreact to such a start, just as we shouldn’t despair over anything we see this fall. No matter what happens, we should take the Falcons at their word.
That word is “process.” Thomas Dimitroff, the new general manager, invokes it in every conversation, as in, “This is a process.” If the Falcons don’t believe they’re going to go 1-15, neither do they, in their heart of hearts, foresee this as a playoff team. They’ve started over, and this season is, duh, just the start.
“We’re going to be systematic,” said Mike Smith, the new coach, speaking Friday night of his approach to choosing a starting quarterback. (It’ll be Matt Ryan, in case you haven’t guessed.) In the NFL, only systems succeed over the long haul. Players come and go. Once established, a system can purr on and on.
That system, you should know, isn’t fully (or even nearly) in place. Here’s Paul Boudreau, the astute line coach who has worked in the NFL since 1987: “We’d rather have our players fit the system, but we’re not going to force it. If they can’t fit the system, we’ll change and adapt to the guys we have … Right now we’ve developed an offense based on what we have. It’s like in college — you don’t run the option unless you have an option quarterback.”
The belief here is that these Falcons will play a slew of low-scoring games and will give themselves a chance to win, say, 10 times. Due to inherent personnel limitations, they’ll actually win half that number. To expect much more from a team that went 4-12 in 2007 and has changed coaches yet again and has shed four Pro Bowlers and is going with a rookie quarterback and a rookie left tackle and probably a rookie middle linebacker is simply to expect too much too soon.
But there are different kinds of losing seasons: There’s the 7-9 that should have been 10-6 (see Jim Mora’s final fling), and there’s the 5-11 that promises brighter tomorrows. That’s what this will be. There will come a time when this roster doesn’t lack talent. There will come a time when these rookies are rookies no longer.
Boudreau again: “As we expand this and we get better and we get our drafts going, we’ll start to address the needs of our team based on good players who fit our system. Thomas has made it clear we’re going to have a system here — how we’re bringing free agents in, how we’re bringing draft choices in.”
If you’re a Falcon fan — as opposed to a fan of he who must not be named unless this typist be accused of dredging up the past — that’s cause for optimism. Not giddy glee, but measured optimism. The cult of personality no longer holds sway in Flowery Branch. This regime isn’t going to install the West Coast Offense just because the head coach’s buddy happens to favor the West Coast Offense. There’s a set of beliefs shared by all who work in football operations. More than just being on the same page, Dimitroff and Smith co-wrote it.
This isn’t to say the Falcons are going to win big right away. Winning might take until 2010, and given the state of the economy and the fractured nature of this constituency, we might not see another home sellout until then. But popularity isn’t the immediate concern. Process is, process above all.
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Falcons must handle Ryan right
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s all but official: Matt Ryan is going to start against Detroit on Sept. 7. We can (and surely will) debate for the next decade whether this was the wisest course, but it’s the course the Falcons will take.
“We’re going to go back and watch the tape,” said Mike Smith, the coach, but that’s just a coach talking. There’s nothing more to see. Ryan is No. 1 now and, this franchise can only hope, for the next 10 years.
To say the rookie has seized the job would be a slight overstatement. He has been competent in preseason games, competent as opposed to spectacular. And that’s OK. Competent is a marked upgrade over what we witnessed last fall. But with any rookie quarterback there’s much more at stake than Year 1.
The Falcons wouldn’t have spent the draft’s No. 3 pick and have sunk $72 million into Ryan if they weren’t reasonably certain he could start. The issue was always going to be when, and the more they’ve seen the more Smith and Thomas Dimitroff have leaned toward immediacy. And, for all Ryan’s conspicuous aplomb, it’s reasonable to assume this fast-tracking is partially a function of another rookie’s aptitude.
Smith and Dimitroff aren’t fools. They can cite all the distressing precedents, and they know the quickest way to ruin a young quarterback is to deploy him behind lousy blocking. But in their first two practice games the Falcons have seen enough of this much-lampooned offensive line to suspect it isn’t as bad as advertised, and what they witnessed Friday surely served as the clincher.
Working against a stout Tennessee defense, Ryan was sacked once in six series, and that was on a bootleg when Jevon Kearse went unblocked. Left tackle Sam Baker, he of the infamous “short arms,” worked against Kyle Vanden Bosch, who has 31 sacks over the past three seasons, and held his own. And if a rookie manning the most important line position can hang tough until he actually learns what he’s doing … well, the rookie quarterback will stand a fighting chance.
This isn’t to say Ryan won’t have some 5-for-20 days. Rookie quarterbacks do. But he has thrown 52 preseason passes and completed 32, and only one was intercepted. On Friday night he needed six series and one nifty Jerious Norwood run to generate his second touchdown of the month, but the cold truth is that there haven’t been many Falcons touchdowns (four, to be precise) in the exhibitions and there won’t be many in the season ahead.
In the grand scheme, the date of Ryan’s first start won’t matter. What’s important is that he not be allowed to fail abjectly. Troy Aikman and Peyton Manning muddled through wretched rookie seasons — Aikman was 1-11 as a starter his first year, and Manning’s Colts were 3-13 — but that’s not the preferred career arc. The Falcons can’t be afraid to pull Ryan on those 5-for-20 days, nor should they be reluctant to sit him if the season gets out of hand.
“You have to adjust to the speed of the game,” Ryan said Friday. “Sometimes you have to go faster, and sometimes you have to slow yourself down.”
That sounds like a plan. We’ve seen enough of these Falcons to know they’re going to lose a lot of games. We’ve seen enough of Ryan to believe he’s capable of winning a lot of games if handled properly. Over these next four months, this franchise has to figure out how to ensure that losing now doesn’t preclude winning later.
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By Oct., Tech’s offense will be up and running
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It worked at Georgia Southern, where he had no size. It worked at Navy, where he had no size or speed. Why wouldn’t Paul Johnson’s offense work even better at Georgia Tech, where he has access to both?
The “option-based spread,” as Tech officially dubs the stylized offense, differs from the spread option that is all the rage, and soon enough Tech fans will be saying, “Vive la difference!” One of the great assets of Johnson’s OBS is that nobody else runs the exact same thing, and in college football, novelty is power.
Even if an opponent sees the spread option once or twice — meaning West Virginia’s or Florida’s version thereof — it won’t be seeing Paul Johnson’s. And there can be no real simulation for it in practice: Who else runs the ball as a matter of course but deploys no fullback and no tight ends? Who else has A-backs and B-backs?
“If you’re not disciplined on defense, this offense is difficult to stop,” said Tech defensive tackle Vance Walker, who has viewed the OBS in practice. And how many opposing defenses can develop that much attention to oddball detail in the course of one week’s preparation?
Said offensive tackle Andrew Gardner: “Everything is predicated on running this offense as fast as we can.”
Given a modicum of time — a month, say — that rapidity will become Tech’s ally. At the season’s onset, alas, it should be something less. The first few games will be strewn with missed reads and fumbled pitches. (Remember, the Jackets are new to this thing, too.) Come October, however, the OBS stands to be running at a high rate of RPMs.
Look for Tech to lose three of its first four conference games, with all three losses coming on the road. Then stand back and watch as the transformation takes hold. Look for the same Tech team to win three of its final four ACC tests, to finish .500 in the league and to finish above .500 all told.
As Johnson has said: “In my mind, it’s been proved this offense will work.” We’re about to see further verification. We’re about to see the OBS set up shop in one of the high-falutin’ BCS leagues, and we’re about to see the rest of the ACC scrambling to figure out how to stop it.
(Editor’s note: Want a different take on how Tech’s new offense will fare? Terence Moore says the option offense will drop the ball in ‘08.)
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Why UGA will win it all: The schedule
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia will win the BCS national title because it has the team and the seasoning, and also because it has the schedule. That’s correct. The schedule many folks feel will ultimately derail the Bulldogs’ run will actually speed their ascent.
Most teams ranked No. 1 in preseason carry some expectation of going undefeated. Because of its scheduled degree of difficulty, Georgia will surely be forgiven one loss, and maybe (as was the case with LSU last year) even two. Repeat after me: You don’t have to be No. 1 in the final BCS standings to win the national title; you only have to be No. 2.
The schedule will also serve to focus the Bulldogs on the weekly task, as opposed to the longer view. They can’t fixate on Florida in Jacksonville because they first have to negotiate South Carolina in Columbia and Arizona State in Tempe and Alabama and Tennessee between the hedges and then LSU in Baton Rouge. They have before them a step-by-step proving ground, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Nor is it a bad thing to be preseason No. 1. Only one of the past four BCS champions was ranked lower than No. 2 when it started — the exception was Florida in 2006 — and because the coaches’ poll figures in the BCS standings, it’s nice to have those folks’ attention.
“We all know it doesn’t matter where you start as much as where you finish,” coach Mark Richt said, “but the coaches’ poll is part of the decision-making process to see who plays in the big game down the road … It’s nice to have a third of [that selection process] think highly of your team as you begin.”
About the team: It’s the best Richt has had. There’s All-America talent at the skill positions, quickness across the defensive board and a burgeoning sense of self-worth fired by last season’s closing burst. Granted, lots of teams feel good about themselves in August, but no team has more cause to feel good than Georgia.
Said Knowshon Moreno, the great tailback: “Any team will be disappointed if it doesn’t win the national championship. That’s what every team is out to win.”
Only one team, however, will win the 2008 BCS title. Knowshon Moreno is part of that team.
(Editor’s note: Want a different take on how UGA’s schedule affects the Bulldogs’ chances of winning the national championship? Terence Moore says it’s too tough.)
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Ranking obnoxious SEC football fans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Any partisan can nettle a neutral. That’s the difference between passion and dispassion. And I, it must be stipulated, get paid to be neutral. So maybe I’m not the best judge.
On the other hand, I saw my first SEC game in 1969 and covered my first conference game in 1976, and over time I’ve visited each of the league’s 12 outposts. So I’ve had the opportunity to observe and collate, and today, as a preseason public service, I present this ranking of SEC football fans, starting with the least irritating and culminating with the truly insufferable.
12. Mississippi State: The only time State fans get really upset is when you make fun of their rustic town. I know this from experience. But you know what? If I’d have been a Starkvillian and read what I wrote back in 2005, I’d have gotten ticked, too.
11. Kentucky: No, not because I’m an alum. Because, contrary to popular belief, the world’s worst basketball fans actually care about football. Unlike in hoops, though, they’re not ready to fire their coach after a loss. Good thing, since the football ‘Cats lose a lot.
10. Vanderbilt: The best thing about Vandy is its academics. The worst thing about Vandy fans is their insistence in hitting you over the head with those academics. If the Commodores don’t care about winning, why are in they in this cutthroat league?
9. Ole Miss: There really aren’t that many Rebel fans, but half of that number feels the burning need to emulate William Faulkner - he was from Oxford and spent a year at the university - and write long and difficult books about Ole Miss football.
8. LSU: Winning fans tend to be the most overstated, but somehow Tiger backers manage to stay relatively polite even when they’re bragging about all their national championships. Maybe it’s because they know, win or lose, they’ll always have the best food.
7. Tennessee: Being a Kentuckian by birth and a Georgian for 24 years, I’m supposed to be disposed to hate UT fans. Sorry, but I never have. Don’t mind all the orange. Don’t mind hearing “Rocky Top” a thousand times. Don’t know why I don’t, but there it is.
6. South Carolina: Sisyphus would be a Gamecock. These fans keep showing up, sure that this will finally be be their year. When this year turns out no different from all others, they simply shrug and show up the next year. Kind of sad, but also kind of admirable.
5. Arkansas: It was over the top for Hog fans to file Freedom of Information requests to gain access to Houston Nutt’s cell phone records, but it was over the top in an amusing way. One word of warning: Don’t try that stuff with Bobby Petrino. He’ll just up and leave.
4. Alabama: Tide fans used to be the best at being boorish, but now they’re just irrelevant. They don’t have any reason to strut anymore, so they have to make do with whining about how Tennessee cheats twice as much as Bama but never gets penalized for it.
3. Georgia: Too many grown-up Bulldog fans continue to believe that a game cannot be properly enjoyed without consuming mass quantities of alcohol. A tip: Just because you’re going to watch college football doesn’t give you license to act like you’re still in college.
2. Auburn: Taking their lead from the preening Tommy Tuberville, Auburn people won’t shut up about how they’ve come to dominate Alabama. This is precisely the thing that used to frost these same folks when they were being dominated. They have become what they beheld.
1. Florida: Gator fans didn’t become obnoxious when Steve Spurrier started beating everybody. They were obnoxious when their team couldn’t win the SEC to save its life. And for all Floridians still irked by Georgia’s celebration, here are two words to Google: Gator Flop.
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Dogs can learn from talented 2004 team
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It was the most talented squad Mark Richt had assembled. Twenty of its members would be drafted by NFL clubs. Yet the 2004 Bulldogs remain the lost boys of the Richt reemergence, the one Georgia team from 2002 through 2005 not to win the SEC East, the one team from that giddy era to go down as disappointing.
As the 2008 Bulldogs enter their season ranked No. 1 in the land, it’s instructive to recall what befell the Georgia team that, until this month, held the distinction of being rated the highest in any preseason. The 2004 Bulldogs began at No. 3 in the Associated Press poll and were still No. 3 on Oct. 9. Then everything changed.
“We lost the wrong game at the wrong time,” said Thomas Brown, a freshman tailback that year. “We lost and we weren’t able to recover.”
“That may have been the craziest year,” said Tony Taylor, who was scheduled to start at linebacker in 2004 but who missed the season after hurting his knee in the G-Day game. “For us to play the way we did against LSU, and then to see what happened against Tennessee … that’s just college football.”
On Oct. 2, 2004, the Bulldogs authored their most impressive display under Richt, beating the reigning national champ 45-16 in Athens. For all the good work done in their distinguished careers, it seemed David Pollack and David Greene and Thomas Davis and Fred Gibson had saved the best for last.
The subsequent Saturday brought another home game. Tennessee arrived as a 12 1/2-point underdog, having lost to Auburn by 24 the week before. But Georgia fell behind 10-0 and could never catch up. “It was one of those games,” Taylor said. “The atmosphere in the stadium was kind of weird. It wasn’t the same as the week before.”
Those Bulldogs would likewise never be the same. They beat Florida, but Ron Zook was by then a lame duck. Come November, Auburn had grown into the team Georgia was supposed to be, and the Tigers thumped the Bulldogs 24-6. Georgia wouldn’t play for the SEC title for the first time since 2001, and its bowl destination was Tampa for the Outback against Wisconsin.
If the season wasn’t a flop — how bad can it be when you 10-2 and finish No. 7 in the AP poll? — neither was it the culmination the Bulldogs had envisioned. Such a memory can stand as a cautionary tale.
Nothing really went sour in 2004. “There was nothing going on internally,” said D.J. Shockley, who backed up Greene that season, and that’s the point: Even a gifted and harmonious team can be undone by one misstep.
Brown, Taylor and Shockley — all of them on the Falcons’ roster, which gives us some idea of the depth of the 2004 Bulldogs — believe this latest edition has a better chance than they did. “They have everything we had and more,” Brown said.
Said Taylor: “As overall talent goes, I would agree [that the 2004 team was the best of that Georgia era]. There were so many athletes. In 2002 [Richt’s breakthrough season], we’d just been a brick wall … But if you go over there now, you see something totally different. They’ve got athletes all across the board.”
As it turned out, the 2004 Bulldogs probably wouldn’t have won the BCS title had they gone unbeaten. The teams ranked above them in August — No. 1 Southern Cal and No. 2 Oklahoma — were still undefeated in January, and they met in the Orange Bowl. (Ask any Auburn fan.) But this time Georgia will begin with no school ahead of it, and that’s a major difference.
“It’s all in their hands,” Brown said. “The championship is theirs to lose.”
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Aggravation? No, aggregation!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A word or two of explanation
What you behold is a new endeavor wherein I write less — hooray, I can hear you shouting — and read more. We technical mavens are calling this an “aggregator,” which means it’s a collection of links that the aggregator-in-chief finds cuttingly incisive. Or, failing that, mildly amusing.
I make no promises beyond this: Unlike most sports aggregators you’ll find on the Web, this will not be a serial East Coast offender. Meaning, no Yankees and Red Sox; no Brady and Bundchen. (Speaking of which, here’s ESPN’s forthright ombudswoman Le Anne Schreiber trying, not entirely successfully, to come to terms with the Worldwide Leader’s East Coast bias.)
The idea in this space is to focus on our local sports scene, which I will faithfully do. Unless I can’t find anything worthwhile, in which case I might just drench you with Peter King’s latest musings about coffee. (Last week the SI.com NFL scribe gave passing marks to Panera Bread’s house brand.)
No. 1 in the nation, No. 2 in the SEC East
You’re aware that Associated Press voters followed the lead of the coaches in the USA Today poll — not to mention the Sporting News — and anointed Georgia No. 1 in the land. Matt Hayes of Sporting News begins his Georgia preview with another recap of an on-field Bulldog celebration, but not that celebration. Hayes leads with the Vanderbilt logo-stomping before getting around to you-know-what in you-know-where.
Speaking of you-know-who … Hayes’ look at the hated Gators begins with the memory of the Urban Crier ripping his players after they lost to Michigan in the Gator Bowl, and it closes with a fairly chilling number: Florida ranked 98th in Division I-A in pass defense last season.
I’ve never seen a bad defensive team win this conference. Ergo, I can’t see the Crier’s team finishing ahead of Georgia, which the Gators were picked to do during the SEC media convocation in Birmingham last month. (Me, I’ve never put much stock in anything that comes out of Birmingham.) Don’t be surprised if the Gators finish third — not first, not even second — in their division. Don’t be surprised if Tennessee beats them in Knoxville on Sept. 20.
The next next Herschel? Not!
In a lengthy post that manages to mention both Trinton Sturdivant and Paul Johnson, Dennis Dodd of CBSsports.com also calls Knowshon Moreno “the next Herschel Walker in Cadillac Williams’ body.” And that, I’m sorry to say, is simply wrong. Not the last part. The first.
Moreno is a very good collegiate back. Herschel was the greatest collegian ever. There have been as many Next Herschels as Next Dylans and Next Jordans, and every one has simply reproved the point: The original cannot be matched.
Starting prospect Ryan
Visiting a practice at Flowery Branch last week was enough to prompt Don Banks of SI.com to write that the Falcons are leaning toward starting Matt Ryan in Week 1 of the regular season. I, on the other hand, believe the Falcons are still trying to fight that powerful impulse.
They might well wind up losing the fight, but they don’t want to mess up the next 10 years by rushing Ryan this next month. That, I submit, is the chief reason they didn’t start Ryan in their home exhibition opener Saturday: There’s no need to make this any harder for a rookie quarterback than it already is.
Bankrupting prisoner Vick
At this late date, it’s possible to ask: Did Michael Vick make even one sound decision, money-wise? Lester Munson, ESPN’s legal analyst, takes a long look at Vick’s deteriorating finances and pronounces him “insolvent.” (Not so long ago, the aggregator-in-chief wrote a little something that posed the $130 million question: Where’s the money? And I’d still love to know, although I suspect we’ll never know, where it all went.)
Toward that end, I’d be remiss if I didn’t direct you to the aforementioned Peter King’s post in SI.com regarding the possibility of Vick playing next season in the upcoming United Football League, in which, King writes, quarterbacks will earn between $1 million and $4 million a year.
The UFL will have six teams — Orlando is the only one within 500 miles of Atlanta — and is scheduled to begin play next August. Let’s say Vick indeed lands with Orlando: Will local folks who insist on AJC.com blogs that they’re Vick fans forever make the trek down I-75 to see No. 7 in person?
Hey, big spender! (And I don’t mean you, Michael Vick)
Braves chairman Terry McGuirk — he used to be the president, but now John Schuerholz holds that title, which leads me to ask: What the heck does Schuerholz do, anyway? — has said he looks forward to spending serious money this winter to restock this rapidly disintegrating club. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Writing for SI.com, Jon Heyman breaks down the probable price tags of the top seven free agents, and it’s not at all encouraging if you’re a Braves’ fan. I mean, $17 million a year for Ben Sheets, who could, health-wise, be the next Mike Hampton? And $25 million per annum for CC Sabathia? No way Liberty Media shells out that much. No way, I say.
Then again, I’m sure Albie Lopez would again be happy to sign for a mere $4 million.
Another vote of confidence for your Atlanta Spirit
Someone named Fred “The F-Bomb” Richani, writing on something called LayupDrill.com, has dubbed the Hawks the NBA’s worst franchise. I confess that I’d never heard of the site until I stumbled across this posting, but I pass it along for sheer entertainment value.
Also because it enables me to do something I haven’t done all summer — say something nice about the Hawks. So here goes: The Hawks are not the NBA’s worst franchise. (They did make the playoffs.) The Clippers are still worse. At least the Hawks won’t have to play against Josh Childress next season; the poor Clips figure to see Elton Brand in person twice.
Making friends the Internet way
From my pals at The Hive, the Tech message board, comes this burning discussion: “Do we bury the hatchet with Mark Bradley?” Opinion seems split, which is what a hatchet usually does.
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Jones ‘A’ big part of Tech’s plans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Give Roddy Jones an “A” for being astute.
After Paul Johnson was hired to coach Georgia Tech, Jones made it a point to watch Navy’s bowl game. He even hopped on the Internet to view clips of Johnson’s offense. And when Tech’s new coaches told Jones they wanted him to play A-back, he didn’t say, “What’s an A-back?” He already knew.
At a time when some Jackets are still struggling with the ABCs of Johnson’s option-based spread, the A-back from Stone Mountain has already immersed himself in nuance. Heck, Jones practically offers a tutorial.
Where do the A-backs (there are two on every snap) position themselves? “Three feet outside the tackle,” Jones said, smiling. How often does an A-back venture in motion? “Ninety-nine percent of the time.” And does an A-back ever receive the ball on a straight handoff from the quarterback? “We don’t have a play like that in our playbook, at least not now.”
Said Jeff Monken, specifically charged with coaching A-backs: “I wouldn’t necessarily say Roddy’s a typical kid. He hurt his hamstring and missed a week of practice, and he still knows the plays better than anyone. He takes tremendous pride in that. He’s something.”
This marks the third time Monken has helped Johnson install his stylized spread, and Tech represents the most radical transition. “They have no background in this offense, no basis,” Monken said. “They did at Navy and Georgia Southern. They at least knew what it meant when we said, ‘Go in tail motion and catch a pitch.’ Right now it’s like teaching a new sport. Because that’s what this is - like playing a different sport.”
At Chamblee High, Jones was a traditional tailback in the I-formation. He ran inside. He didn’t block much. He didn’t catch many passes. Guess what an A-back’s responsibilities are.
Said Jones: “Catching pitches, running pass patterns, blocking safeties and defensive ends.”
The A-backs are slot backs, and they’re interchangeable. (Meaning: No A-positive and A-negative, no A-right and A-left.) They’re the pitch men on option plays, but they’re also lead blockers for the B-back, who’s a hybrid tailback/fullback. And they’re also deep threats in the passing game.
“They’ve got to have a good set of hands, and not every running back is gifted that way,” Monken said. “We’re not just running swing routes. Our guys have to run 40 yards downfield and catch the ball in traffic.”
A redshirt freshman, Jones is quick but not immense. (He’s 5-foot-9, 194 pounds.) He bears a physical resemblance to Jerry Mays, the Ramblin’ Runt of the late ’80s who likewise wore No. 20. But Mays was a tailback, albeit a tiny one. An A-back isn’t going to touch the ball nearly so often.
Monken again: “It’s a rarity when a single slot back gets double-digit carries in a game. He might get eight or nine carries, and he might catch it two or three times.”
You’d think a back accustomed to being more featured might be taken, ahem, aback by this seemingly reduced role. Jones isn’t at all. He loves the offense. He’s already a believer. Of Johnson’s hiring, he said: “I thought, ‘Wow, this guy’s been a winner wherever he’s been - there must be a method to his madness.’ “
Jones doesn’t mind having to block more, and he’s working hard at catching passes. (“You want to be known as sure-handed.”) And he, perhaps alone among Jackets, doesn’t see why there’s such a fuss over Johnson’s offense. It is, after all, still football.
Said Jones, smiling again: “It’s not rocket science.”
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How will fans in Dome receive Ryan?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Matt Ryan will play before his new audience for the first time Saturday night, and in the four months since he was drafted we’ve had cause to wonder just how he’ll be received. Most new quarterbacks arrive bearing a clean slate, but Ryan’s has been smudged, at least in the eyes of some Atlantans, because of who he isn’t.
He isn’t Glenn Dorsey, whom a seeming majority preferred as the No. 3 overall pick. Nor is he Michael Vick, whose singular skills turned the Falcons into a hot ticket. The Georgia Dome became Mike’s House, and when the confessed felon landed in the Big House more than a few of his fans swore they’d never cheer for the Falcons again.
Will any of those intransigent folks be on hand for Saturday’s exhibition against Indianapolis? If so, will they be wearing their No. 7 jerseys? Will they boo Ryan when he takes the field? (As if anything that happened to Vick was anybody’s fault but Vick’s.) Or will those who claimed to be Vick fans (as opposed to Falcons fans) simply stay home?
The guess here is that Ryan’s home debut will be warm but not effusive. He won’t set off wild cheering, but he’ll hear no chorus of booing. (Unless he throws three interceptions, in which case all bets are off.) He’ll see more No. 7 shirts than No. 2’s, but most of those wearing Vick’s jersey will be disposed to cut the new guy some slack. If not, why come at all? Where’s the fun in banging your head against yonder wall?
It helps that Ryan was clearly the best quarterback among Falcons at Jacksonville last weekend - indeed, the team reports that it actually sold a few tickets this week off the strength of that encouraging performance - and it will help even more if Ryan’s Dome baptism doesn’t wind up with him taking a figurative bath. First impressions, you know.
The guess is also that 90 percent of those self-described Vick fans who swore they’d never again support the Falcons will rush back once this team starts to win. Let’s face it: If you live in Atlanta, there’s only one NFL team to support. You can hold your breath until you’re blue in the face, or you can choose to live in the present tense.
Like it or not, Michael Vick is part of the past. Like it or not, Matt Ryan is the future.
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Falcons have a pro in charge of offensive line
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Flowery Branch — Paul Boudreau coaches the Falcons’ offensive line, which is being characterized as the worst in the NFL if not the history of football. Since line coaches tend to be tyrants as a breed, 99 percent of them would grab such a perception and brandish it as a whip.
Boudreau, you should know, falls in that other one percent. He’s an understated man who used to teach high school English, and he still considers himself a teacher at heart. He has worked in the NFL since 1987, and he has some idea what works — and what doesn’t.
“There are a lot of different ways to talk to someone,” Boudreau said Wednesday. “You can say, [growling] ‘Hey, get the heck over here,’ or you can say, [forcefully but professionally] ‘Get over here.’ It’s the same thing, but it’s a different tone … Nobody likes to get browbeat every day. They just tune you out.”
Coming after the megalomaniacal Alex Gibbs and the overmatched Mike Summers, Boudreau arrives as a jolt of calm competence. (“I’ll yell when I need to yell,” he said, “but I’m too old to jump in piles anymore.”) And those folks who expect this line to hemorrhage sacks and open no holes between now and New Year’s could be discounting the pro now in charge.
“The guys know the coach has been around,” center Todd McClure said. “We know he’s got our best interests at heart. We respect the way he treats us.”
Were they treated otherwise under Summers, a career college coach now back on campus with Bobby Petrino at Arkansas, last season? McClure: “It was a different feeling. We weren’t really treated like men. And some of us are 35, 36 years old.”
Coaching matters in every sport at every position, but nowhere does it matter more than in the offensive line. Give the wild-eyed Gibbs credit: His men blocked like crazy for him. Boudreau’s pitch is more pragmatic.
“They still learn from us,” he said. “They can get paid more and they can be first-, second-round draft choices, but every guy wants to get coached. I’ve told my guys, ‘Tiger Woods is the best golfer maybe ever, and he’s got a coach.’ I’m not going to change a lot of things, but if I see something that needs to be fixed, I’m going to try and fix it.”
Reports of this line’s ineptitude, to Boudreau’s trained eyes, have been grossly overrated. He notes that only one of their 24 rushes in the exhibition opener went for a loss. (There were five sacks, alas.) “If you’re always ahead of schedule and not calling second-and-10 and third-and-10,” he said, “those are easier to convert. Usually you make your money on first down.”
Does the coach believe this line can make a running game work on first and second down? “I do.” Why? “Because we have a big heart. We probably don’t have the premier guys in the league, but we’ve got five guys playing together, and that’s all you can ask. If you play together, you can overcome a lot of things.”
Offensive line is one place where pedigree doesn’t really register. (Is Tony Mandarich in the Hall of Fame?) Technique and tenacity matter more than raw talent, and cohesion matters above all. This coach’s goal isn’t so much to prove pundits wrong but to make the people who really count — the 11 guys on the other side of the ball — take notice.
Said Boudreau: “We want the opposing team to turn on the film and say, ‘Whoa — look at this unit.’ “
More than a few Falcons fans have worried that this line would be unwatchable. The pro now in charge believes it’s safe to uncover those eyes. He’s on the case, and he plans to make the most of this fixer-upper.
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Truth be told, Van Wieren won’t be having fun
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Pete Van Wieren will offer a eulogy at Skip Caray’s memorial Mass Monday, and that will be hard. But he expects the hardest part to come with Tuesday night’s game, with the resumption of a decades-old routine that can never be the same.
“We’ll be in the press box at Turner Field and we’ll see all the people Skip was used to seeing,” Van Wieren said. “But he’s not going to be there anymore.”
Van Wieren was flying to San Francisco on the Braves’ charter Aug. 3 when he learned his on-air partner of 33 years had died. He’d been asleep, and Braves manager Bobby Cox roused him with a tap on the shoulder, and instantly Van Wieren knew something was wrong: “Bobby never comes to the back of the plane.”
Owing to the baseball schedule, the Braves and Van Wieren won’t be able to return home until Sunday night, and the week away, he conceded, “has been tough.” His voice cracked and his eyes welled up during the opening of last Monday night’s broadcast, “but then the game starts and you’re trying to do the game … And it wasn’t really strange not seeing Skip around the hotel because he hadn’t been traveling the last couple of years.”
So Van Wieren had a week to sift through a trunk of memories. Over those 33 years the two had done everything together — “Even in the offseason, we’d do things with the wives,” Van Wieren said — and they never stopped laughing. “We’d laugh on a daily basis. We’d be doing a game and we’d laugh about somebody wearing a funny hat.”
They laughed, mostly from necessity, through the lean early years, and they laughed just as hard during the Braves’ run of 14 consecutive division titles. They’d settled into their respective roles not because they were “roles” because they were who they were. “Skip was Skip,” said Van Wieren, famously nicknamed the Professor, “and I was the guy with the record book.”
Caray had a credo: “Have fun and tell the truth.” And his brand of fun flared into all manner of tangents. Such as:
There was the time he came to the ballpark with a risque joke — Skip always had a new one — he wanted to tell on the air. He told the joke to Van Wieren, who said, “I don’t think so.”
But Skip was seldom easily deterred. “He was determined to tell this joke on the air,” Van Wieren said, and sure enough …
“He came up with the concept where he would tell the punch line only. The punch line was as clean as a whistle, but anyone listening who knew the whole joke had to be falling off his chair. So that started a whole series of punch-line-only jokes. People were sending us jokes, just to hear the punch lines.”
Then there was the time Skip was doing a late-game SuperStation promo. “It was for ‘Squirm,’ a really bad horror movie. And Skip said, ‘If anybody stays awake long enough to watch this thing and writes a review of it, we’ll send you an autographed baseball.’ We got a couple of thousand reviews.”
And then there was the time back in the ’70s when a certain newspaper ran a Sunday story claiming nobody was watching or listening to the games. “Skip was incensed,” Van Wieren said. “So he gave out the phone number of the Atlanta Journal & Constitution on the air and said, ‘If you’re listening, give them a call.’ So many people called up that it blew out their switchboard … He was always great at provoking a response.”
Atlantans will bid farewell to Caray these next two days, first at Monday’s funeral service, then at a Tuesday morning “tribute and celebration” at Turner Field. And then, hours after the latter, the surviving half of the timeless duo will gather his stats and his record book and seat himself in the familiar perch, and that’s the part he dreads most.
“It will be an awful lot different,” Van Wieren said, “going back in the booth.”
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Hawks lucky this time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The thoughtful Grizzlies did all the negotiating for them. Memphis established Josh Smith’s market value, and all the Hawks had to do was agree. And now, having matched the offer, he’s theirs for the next five seasons at a remarkably reasonable rate. What’s the downside?
Well, it’s this. Being the Hawks, they managed to turn a successful outcome — keeping their third-best player for both the short and long term — into something of a stumble. Again, they seemed plodding and slow-witted, not to mention cheap. They’ve retained Smith for $58 million, but we’re left to wonder what would have happened had he found an offer for, say, $70 million.
Regarding Smith, the Hawks got incredibly lucky. The anticipated windfall from Philadelphia never came, the Sixers preferring to spend $80 million on Elton Brand. The Clippers met with Smith but didn’t make an offer. That left Memphis as the last suitor standing, and the Grizzlies generated a fairly modest proposal.
Compare that $58 million over five seasons with what Luol Deng got to stay in Chicago ($71 million over six), or what Emeka Okafor received to re-up with Charlotte ($72 million over six), or what Andrew Bogut accepted from Milwaukee ($60 million over five). Smith is younger and better than all of the above, and the Hawks were gifted the chance to lock him up for only $13 million more than their lowball offer ($45 million over five) of last fall.
That, you should know, was the only formal bid the Hawks made before deciding late Friday night to match. As happened with Childress, they dared a free agent to go out and find a better deal. Josh C. found one, albeit in a country bordering the Mediterranean. Josh S. wasn’t so fortunate. The really big money dried up before it cascaded down on him.
Bad for Smith, but good for the Hawks. Indeed, it’s far better than they deserve. After saying their entire offseason emphasis was on keeping both Joshes, they did next to nothing toward that end. They didn’t raise their offer to Childress after Olympiakos emerged as a real player, and they let Smith shuttle between prospective employers for more than a month.
Given two chances to get it right, the Hawks were reactive both times. As Smith told the AJC’s Sekou Smith on Friday: “It wasn’t like they did a whole lot in terms of negotiations.”
To the Hawks’ credit, this laissez-faire approach did yield half a bottom-line success, but it didn’t enhance the image of a franchise that could stand any and all enhancement. You wonder what the other gifted young Hawks whose contracts will soon need renewing will make of this passivity. You wonder if the Hawks’ claim of an ongoing commitment to excellence doesn’t again seem as empty as Philips Arena too often has been.
The good feeling flowing from the Boston series has been allowed to dissipate, and in its place is the stark realization that this bright young team has already contrived to get worse. The Hawks lost Childress, who was the sixth player drafted in 2004 and who averaged at least 10 points in each of four NBA seasons, and they’ve replaced him with Maurice Evans and Randolph Morris, neither of whom was even drafted, neither of whom has averaged in double figures.
Yes, keeping Smith has lessened the damage, and thanks to the Grizzlies, keeping him was as easy as falling off a log. But simply sitting back and hoping to get lucky isn’t the hallmark of a big-time franchise. It is, sad to say, the way of a middling and muddled outfit. Like this one.
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Friends Stafford, Moreno dismiss national hype
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush were partners in glitz, winning their Heismans and gadding about L.A. and being seen with women famous for being famous. The best collegiate backfield tandem since Leinart/Bush acts rather less impressed with itself. Indeed, Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno aren’t impressed by much of anything.
They sat side by side at Georgia’s media convocation Monday, facing separate semicircles of questioners. Every so often they’d glance over at one another, and Stafford would roll his eyes and Moreno would poke the quarterback’s arm, and on it went, two young men reluctantly stoking the star-making machinery while sharing a private joke.
They arrived in the same recruiting class, Stafford to considerably more acclaim, and they’ve been buddies ever since. Stafford was the center of attention as a true freshman and bore much criticism during Georgia’s worst month under Mark Richt. Moreno redshirted in 2006 and didn’t really arrive until the seventh game of last season, but now he’s the one reaping the publicity whirlwind, whose photo USA Today chose to illustrate Georgia’s selection as No. 1 in its coaches poll a week ago.
Not that the subject much cared. “I said, ‘Cool,’ and didn’t really think about it after that,” Moreno said. Nor did he rush out and buy five copies for his mother. “I’m broke,” he said, laughing. “I can’t spend 75 cents.”
A big-name quarterback who was a big-time recruit in a big market like Dallas, Stafford learned long ago to give polite and polished answers without volunteering anything more. Moreno regards the press with a skepticism bordering on disdain. (David Pollack had the same sort of attitude.) This isn’t the greatest news for those of us seeking pithy quotes, but it serves to further the concept of team harmony.
Both Stafford and Moreno take pains not to paint themselves as special. Given every opportunity to say, “Yeah, I’m the Big Dawg now,” Moreno spent media day dismissing the notion. “We have a lot of backs,” he said. “We have a lot of receivers. And Matt Stafford can throw the ball as well as anyone.”
Moreno enables Stafford, who threw 13 interceptions as a harried freshman, to work at a more measured pace. Stafford clears room for Moreno’s whirling excursions by stretching the field with deep throws. USC won two national championships with Leinart doing the same for Bush, and vice versa.
Georgia stands a good chance of winning this national championship because of this similarly symbiotic relationship.
Said Stafford, speaking to the AJC’s Chip Towers on Wednesday: “We have fun together. We don’t go out there thinking, ‘Ah, man — I’ve got to try to win this game.’ We know we have a ton of tools. It’s not just us two. There are guys all around us that can help us out.”
They get along famously off the field, and they augment one another on it. One’s from Texas and one’s from the Springsteen side of scenic New Jersey, and together they’re the most perfectly matched set of Bulldogs since Flatfoot Frank Sinkwich and Charley Trippi, two non-Georgians who in 1942 brought the Red & Black its first consensus national title.
Those hallowed names, you should know, aren’t apt to register with these latter-day touchdown twins. As Stafford told Towers: “As far as the history of Georgia football, I don’t know it and Knowshon doesn’t, either. We just sit there and nod our heads and smile.”
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Bradley’s Football Free-For-All: Send YOUR Dogs, Tech, Falcons picks!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Let’s try something. I’d like to see if my football predictions are, as has been suggested, totally detached from the consensus. I’d like it if you kind folks would provide, via the convenient mechanism of Web posting, the number of regular-season games you believe each of these teams — Georgia, Georgia Tech and the Falcons — will win.
I’m not trying to make anybody look silly. (Honest.) I’m just curious as to what everyone thinks.
Being a good sport, I’ll go first. (You don’t need to be this detailed in your forecasts, but I hate making predictions without specifics.)
Georgia will win 11 games, losing at Auburn.
Tech will win seven, losing at Boston College, at Virginia Tech, at Clemson, at North Carolina and at Georgia. (Yes, this means I think the Jackets will beat both Florida State and Miami here.)
The Falcons will win five, beating Detroit, Kansas City, Carolina and St. Louis here and beating Oakland there.
That would make 23 regular-season wins in all. I suspect I’m somewhat more optimistic than most of you, but I don’t know that for sure. That’s why I’m asking.
So please post your picks, and I’ll compare yours to mine. And I’ll also check back at season’s end and see who came the closest, in terms of total victories, to reality.
And who knows? Maybe this little exercise will turn into another Final Four Fiasco.
How does the Fall Free-For-All sound?
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Turner restores power to Falcons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Flowery Branch — The big man is thinking of a big number. “I know it’s going to be somewhere around 300 carries,” Michael Turner said. “The average back [gets] that.”
Actually, no. Only six NFL backs carried more than 300 times last season, and you’d know their names. Lots more folks should know Michael Turner’s name after this season. If these Falcons are to have any chance, the big man must shoulder a big load.
Turner spent four seasons with San Diego as LaDainian Tomlinson’s understudy, carrying the ball 228 times total but gaining a reputation as the league’s best No. 2 back. He signed with the Falcons because he’s ready to be a No. 1.
“I know I’m getting my touches, guaranteed,” he said, speaking of his new environs. “It wasn’t guaranteed in San Diego.”
Turner’s nickname is “The Burner,” but at 244 pounds he’s more of a blunt instrument. For all the attention that will be paid to quarterback Matt Ryan, Turner was the offseason’s key short-term acquisition. The Falcons haven’t had a power back of his eminence since Jamal Anderson, and in Mike Mularkey’s low-risk offense, power will be paramount.
To which we say: Hooray. There’s a brutal beauty in watching a big back exert his inexorable influence. “It’s old-school football,” Turner said, and he’s an old-school guy. Ask which backs he enjoyed watching, and he’ll mention Jim Brown and Earl Campbell and Jerome Bettis and Mike Allstott and the late Craig “Ironhead” Heyward — earth-movers all.
Such backs tend to do the most damage in the fourth quarter. Even though Turner isn’t accustomed to playing an entire game — L.T. was the main attraction in S.D. — he sees himself as cut from the same hunk of scrap iron. “I’m a rhythm-type back. … You don’t want to be one of those guys who burn out at the end of games. You want to get stronger.”
Said Falcons coach Mike Smith: “You want to have a guy who can take the punishment and dish some out. You want a back who can lower his shoulder and get the hidden yards — 2 yards in the second quarter can become 4 yards in the fourth quarter.”
For the Falcons, Turner stands to be that guy. Jerious Norwood will be the change of pace, but the big man will be the pace itself. He has primed himself for this moment. From Tomlinson, Turner said he learned “how to prepare, how to condition, how to take care of your body. The mental aspect of the game — that’s the part that gives you the edge.”
As a free agent, Turner could have gone a lot of places. He landed here because he liked Mularkey’s unadorned scheme and Mularkey himself.
“I felt the attitude and the passion he brought to his system,” he said. “He really believes in it, and when a coach really believes in something, that gets transferred to the players.”
A power offense, duh, is nothing without a power back, but even the mightiest runner cannot create his own holes. Conventional wisdom holds that this offensive line isn’t forceful enough to clear its collective throat. Turner, you should know, believes differently.
“They’re out here working hard,” he said. “They’re fighting for jobs, and everybody’s level goes up when that happens. They might get a bad rap, but I don’t see it at all. They’ve got great potential.”
One final thing about the big man’s big number: Only once in the past 21 seasons has a Falcon — Anderson in 1998 — carried 300 times. Not saying these Falcons will likewise wind up in the Super Bowl, but could there be a more promising parallel?
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Richt ready to just talk football
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Athens — The coach of the first Georgia team ever to be voted preseason No. 1 sat before the assembled media on the first day of practice, and of the first 20 questions directed toward Mark Richt, four had to do with football. The others concerned misbehavior, at which Richt’s Bulldogs might also rank No. 1.
Eight Georgia players have been arrested this calendar year. (One charge was dismissed.) Six have been suspended. On the same weekend the USA Today coaches’ poll anointed the Bulldogs the nation’s top team, one player was arrested, two more were taken to the hospital after being injured in a barroom brawl and a fourth is said by police to have caused $2,100 in property damage at that hospital.
“I know there’s been a big buzz,” Richt said in his opening statement, and he wasn’t speaking of the upcoming season. And then: “I guess we can talk about football if anybody wants — I’d be all for that.”
You’d have thought nothing could overshadow the first on-field appearance of what should be Richt’s team of teams, but a summer’s worth of unsavory headlines have taken the focus off Knowshon and Stafford and redirected it toward police reports and court filings.
“It’s embarrassing,” Richt said. “It’s sad … It certainly has been a distraction. There’s no way you can say it hasn’t been a distraction.”
This hasn’t been the first ugly offseason under Richt. The summer of 2003 brought eight suspensions and the selling of SEC championship rings on eBay. The spring of 2005 saw tackle Darrius Swain jailed and linebacker Josh Johnson booted off the team. Each time Richt vowed to teach his players better, but here it is 2008 and we’re again reminded that teaching can go only so far.
And now Georgia arrives at an unseemly disconnect: Its football team is admired coast-to-coast, but 6.7 percent of Georgia’s star-spangled 105-man squad has been arrested in 2008. Said Richt: “The reputation of this team has been damaged, no question.”
The easy course is to suggest that Georgia, in its zeal to play for the BCS title, has come to value talent over all else and has taken too many risky recruits. Richt: “I don’t think so. I can’t tell you how many guys [of whom] we say, ‘We’re not recruiting that guy; we’re not bringing that guy in.’ … We’ve dropped many young guys off the list based on their character.”
There’s no doubt Richt is sincere in his desire to nurture and, where possible, to rehabilitate. (He gave the infamous Odell Thurman every chance.) “If a guy does step out of line, he does get disciplined,” Richt said. “But if the first time a young man has a situation and you throw him out of the house — it’s hard to help a guy when he’s gone.”
Still, Richt needs to grasp that current events have swung public perception against his brand of gentle prodding. It would be a shame if Georgia’s first national championship since 1980 gets lumped with Florida State’s 1993 triumph (remember the Foot Locker raid?) and Nebraska’s 1995 crown (remember Lawrence Phillips?) as tarnished titles. This is too sound a program, and Richt too good a man, for that to happen.
Richt said he has “already read [his players] the riot act” and is considering rendering downtown Athens off-limits. But will that be enough to halt the run of late-night distress calls to this increasingly frustrated coach?
When such a call comes, Richt said, “You feel sick that one of the guys … you love and you care for has gotten himself in trouble. You hate the fact that these guys represent this program, and this program represents this university, and this university represents this state and anybody who claims to be a Bulldog.”
Someone asked Richt if, deep down, he’s simply too nice a guy. “I don’t think you can be too nice a guy,” he said. On this point, alas, the nice guy might be wrong.
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Skip Caray did it his way
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Skip Caray was to Atlanta professional sports what Larry Munson is to the Georgia Bulldogs — the voice and the conscience, the history and the hilarity. Skip told us what was happening, yes, but Skip also told us what Skip made of what was happening, and over the course of four decades Skip’s prism became ours.
He came here with the Hawks, and he became part of our extended family — a crusty uncle, if you will — through his work with the Braves. The SuperStation beamed his imperfect voice from sea to shining sea, and though there were always others alongside — the Professor and Ernie at the beginning, Don and Joe later on — Skip was the one we thought we knew best. He was the funny one, the snarky one. He was Harry Caray’s son and Chip Caray’s dad, but somehow he was always just Skip.
As Munson is to worry, Skip was to grousing. He wasn’t from the neo-announcer’s school of happy talk. Skip hated the Wave and the Infield-Fly Rule and said as much at every opportunity. When he did a call-in show on WSB in the ’80s, he suffered clever callers only grudgingly and the bozos not at all. But because he was Skip, we didn’t much mind.
Indeed, that was the beauty (and the incongruity) of Skip Caray: In an industry predicated on likeability, he really didn’t care if you liked him or not. He said what he thought — near the end of a lopsided game, he famously intoned: “If you promise to patronize our sponsors, you have permission to go walk the dog” — and if he happened to ruffle the tender sensibilities of listeners or management … well, tough.
Naturally, this made us like him all the more. The audience doesn’t mind if you’re a homer — truth to tell, Skip wasn’t much of one — but it hates a house man. Skip was the antithesis of that. He was the irreverent David Letterman when the real Letterman was still doing the weather back in Indianapolis. He was laugh-out-loud funny without ever once laughing at his own joke.
Sometimes the sarcasm got a tad thick. (When paired, he and Sutton seemed to care more about wisecracking than calling the game.) But Skip and Joe worked nicely together, and Skip and Pete were simply the best — Van Wieren would give us the numbers, and Skip would supply the attitude. Whether the year was 1982 or 2008, hearing those two voices made us feel a part of something that transcended beginnings and endings, something that always was and always would be.
But now the signature voice has been forever muted. No more, “Listen to this crowd!” No more, “There’s a drive …” No more choppers to Chipper. No more promos for “the award-winning Bobby Cox Show.” No more fans battling for the souvenir. No more gags. No more puns. Braves baseball will go on, but Braves baseball will never be the same.
Those who knew Skip were aware that his health had declined these past few years. There were nights this spring when you weren’t sure the halting voice would last through the next half-inning, and there were moments when you wondered if it mightn’t be better if Skip just hung it up. And then you answered your own question: No, it wouldn’t have been, because there was just one Skip, one cuddly curmudgeon, and when this one was gone there’d never be another.
The one and only Skip Caray died in his sleep Sunday. Ennobled by his life, we are, all of us, lessened by his passing. Feel free to shed a tear, to say a prayer, to smile over a remembered Skip-ism. But please, whatever you do, don’t start the Wave.
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Johnson will be successful at Tech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Paul Johnson smiled as he spoke, but only once or twice and not for long. Regarding his stylized offense and the incessant questioning thereof, he said, “It’s past the point of being anything other than amusing.”
Johnson has been a head coach for 11 seasons. He has been running the same offense — the Georgia Tech press guide calls it an “option-based spread” — even longer. He has won 73.3 percent of his games using the thing, so what do you expect him to say? That his offense doesn’t and won’t function when every shred of statistical evidence suggests it can and does?
“As soon as we lose a game,” Johnson said Saturday, speaking at Tech’s media day, “[the offense] is going to be [seen as] the reason we lost.”
Then: “If you don’t execute and you put the ball on the ground, it doesn’t work. But you can look back on last year [when Tech played under Chan Gailey, who was fired] and say the pro-style offense doesn’t work, either.”
Yes, Johnson is more than a bit sensitive. You’d be, too. You create an offense and win big with it at two places where winning is more a function of creative coaching than of five-star recruits, and still there are those who insist his system will go broke in the ACC.
Johnson: “What division are we in, the NFC East? At the Naval Academy we played Maryland and Wake Forest and Duke and Rutgers and Notre Dame and Boston College and Pitt — it’s not like those schools are in some different division than we are. Duke has lost a lot of games using a pro-style offense, so does that mean it doesn’t work — or that it just didn’t work at Duke? Virginia Tech won our league using the same offense we run.”
For all the peripheral talk of limitations and liabilities, the proper focus at Tech should be on opportunity. The ACC is in such flux that Wake Forest now seems a sounder program than Miami or Florida State, and that’s an indication of what one splendid coach can do. Johnson is a splendid coach who has access to resources foreign to him at Georgia Southern and Navy. Here he’ll have both big linemen and speed. Here he’ll be able to run his stylized offense at an even higher level.
“People say [the opponents] will have too much speed,” Johnson said. “We ran this offense for six years at the Naval Academy, and I can promise you our kids here are faster than those were.”
For all the success enjoyed by West Virginia and Virginia Tech and other converts to the spread option, nobody knows more about its workings than Johnson. He invented it 24 years ago when working as an offensive coordinator under Erk Russell at Georgia Southern, and those Eagles won two Division I-AA championships. (Upon returning to GSU as head coach in the ’90s, Johnson would win two more.)
“I’ve never had much skepticism,” said Johnson, speaking of his offense. “If I had, I wouldn’t do it.”
It will take a while for Tech fans to grow accustomed to the new look, but that’s part of the system’s beauty. It’s exponentially harder for an opponent to prepare for the exotic. (Ask Georgia about Troy, which gained 145 more yards against the Bulldogs last year than Florida and Tim Tebow had the week before.)
“In my mind, it’s been proved that this offense will work,” said Johnson, and not just in his mind but, over the past quarter-century, on various fields of play. Soon enough, it will work at Tech. It will work because Paul Johnson will make it work.
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