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 > September > 22
Monday, September 22, 2008
Falcons show encouraging signs of promise
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s possible the Falcons won’t win again until November, but even if they don’t we can see the wisdom in their method. Thomas Dimitroff set out to rebuild a dilapidated roster with an emphasis on the whole, as opposed to a few glittering parts, and the nicest thing anybody can say about Dimitroff’s Falcons through three games is this:
They look like a real football team.
Maybe that sounds like faint praise. It shouldn’t. The Sporting News picked the Falcons to win one game; Sports Illustrated tabbed them to win two. Even if this promising start has been built on victories over lousy opponents, it’s worth noting that the Falcons, once thought to be lousy themselves, have twice beaten bad teams the way a decent team should.
Dimitroff was asked Monday if he’d yet raised a we’re-already-twice-as-good-as-the-Sporting-News-predicted toast. “I don’t feel like celebrating,” he said, laughing. “But I am encouraged by the direction of this team and by Mike Smith’s coaching and the way these players have responded. That feels good.”
The Kansas City game had to be especially delicious. The Falcons beat the Chiefs, who drafted Glenn Dorsey, whom many Atlantans preferred to Matt Ryan, by 24 points. If you’re Dimitroff, what’s it like watching players you’ve acquired — Ryan, Michael Turner, Sam Baker, Curtis Lofton — make such a massive splash?
“I don’t know if I feel vindicated,” Dimitroff said. “It’s more a validation for all the time we spent analyzing and watching film. We made very calculated moves, and we feel like we’re moving in the right direction. Our decisions on whom to draft have been positive.”
A case study: Once the Falcons decided to draft a quarterback with their first pick, they knew they had to find a left tackle, too. That led to the decision to trade up and take Baker. And Baker’s success in preseason essentially made a tough choice — whether to start Ryan in Week 1 — easy.
The only way the Falcons wouldn’t have gone with Ryan was if they thought their lampooned line couldn’t protect him. But anyone who deigned to watch the exhibition games closely saw the line was holding its own. And Baker, deemed a reach by some, has been concussed at Tampa Bay but not yet overmatched.
And the move to draft Ryan was also a function of Dimitroff’s first key free-agent signing. Turner leads the league in rushing, and the best way to nurse a young quarterback is to let him hand off more than he drops back. Put all this together — good young quarterback, improved O-line, splendid big back — and you have the makings of an offense.
Said Dimitroff: “I’m proud of our acquisitions. Not only were they possessive of the requisite skills, but they fit into our system.”
That’s no small thing. The focal point of the Falcons’ offense under Jim Mora was never clear — Greg Knapp’s dinky passes? Alex Gibbs’ cut-blocks? Michael Vick’s improvisation? — but it’s crystalline now. This team wants to run first and ask questions later. This team, while still a work in the early stages of progress, is being constructed not by whim but by blueprint.
Dimitroff: “It was a question of timing: We had to see how this whole bunch of new players and new coaches came together. And I’ve been encouraged.”
He should be. We all should be. Even if this team winds up 5-11 after starting 2-1, there’s real hope here. “We’re better than the prognosticators thought we’d be,” Dimitroff said, and that constitutes one small step for a franchise. Can the giant leap be far off?
Permalink | Comments (136) | Post your comment | Categories: Falcons/NFL
Munson as much UGA as Dooley, Herschel
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The news comes as a blow, but it’s a softened blow. Truth to tell, we hadn’t had the old Munson for some time now. Failing health had reduced him to home games only, and not having Munson on the road had conditioned us to doing what once seemed unthinkable — listening to the Dogs without listening to Larry.
Standing in the lobby of the Phoenix Airport Marriott, this correspondent watched Saturday as the broadcast team assembled to drive to Sun Devil Stadium. There were Loran Smith and Neil Williamson and Scott Howard, and Eric Zeier came along soon enough, and off they went. And only after they’d departed did this observer remember the famous man who wasn’t there.
This isn’t to say we’ll forget Munson. He is, it’s safe to say, unforgettable. He came along in an era where radio was the one reliable link to a team. Remember his call of Rex Robinson’s field goal at Kentucky in 1978? Sure you do, because you couldn’t watch the game on live TV. Remember him describing Herschel flatten Bill Bates? That one wasn’t televised, either.
Munson painted the picture — indeed, that’s how the famous voice would introduce a game, by growling, “Get the picture …” — at a time when real pictures weren’t readily available. He taught Bulldog Nation how to see and what to think and, oh yes, how to worry. He fretted over everything, and in so doing he’d manage to make a victory over Vandy seem an upset on the order of Lastinger outrunning the Texas defense.
Suggesting Munson wasn’t the greatest technical play-by-play man is akin to saying Dali wasn’t very skilled at drawing a straight line. Technique wasn’t the point. Performance was, performance and passion. Munson didn’t so much recount the action as interpret it.
A confession: The first time this listener heard Munson call a game, he thought he’d spliced into some pirate radio broadcast of a man having a nervous breakdown. But once you learned to listen to Larry — and it did take some learning — a whole aural world would open up, a world in which the opponent was “always looking like she wants to score” and the opponent always had “so much speed!” and yet Georgia invariably prevailed.
There will never be another Munson, but we all knew that already. He belonged to yesteryear, to that fraternity of wordsmiths that included Cawood Ledford and John Ward and Al Ciraldo, to a time before ESPN and ESPN2, to that time when firing up the transistor on an autumn Saturday was as much a ritual as Sunday churchgoing. If video has indeed killed all the radio stars, we can at least delight in how long it took the great Munson to succumb.
We had him for more than 40 years, and we have a trunk of memories — and tapes, and CDs, and DVDs — to remember him by. There’s no greater moment in Bulldog lore than Lindsay Scott’s catch-and-run in Jacksonville, but we don’t just recall him catching and him running; we think of it in tandem with “Run, Lindsay, run!” and “I think I broke my chair.”
Larry Munson never played a down, but he lived every snap, every yard, and he was in his crusty way as big a part of Georgia football as Dooley and Sinkwich and Herschel and the UGAs. He was the sum of all fears and the fount of all jubilation. He was The Voice, and that voice has called its last game. Munson’s beloved Bulldogs will go on to win more championships, but never again will sugar fall on them from the sky.
Permalink | Comments (125) | Post your comment | Categories: UGA/SEC
Bradley’s Buzz: Stafford No. 1, GT’s MJ No. 2?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Who goes first - a Jacket or a Bulldog?
The NFL draft is only seven months away, and the local debate can commence. If you check mock drafts around the Internet - and let’s face it, they’re pretty irresistible - you’ll find a consensus that either Matthew Stafford, the Georgia quarterback, or Michael Johnson, the Georgia Tech defensive end, will be among the top picks. You’ll find no consensus as to which will be taken first.
The site DraftEmpire.com has Stafford going No. 1 overall and Johnson No. 2. It also has Geno Atkins, the Georgia defensive tackle, being taken with draft’s seventh pick and Knowshon Moreno, the Georgia tailback, with the 12th. According to WalterFootball.com, Johnson will go No. 2 overall and Stafford No. 4.
Stafford is No. 2 overall in NFLDraftDog.com’s mock, behind Alabama offensive tackle Andre Smith. This would seem to make Saturday’s game in Athens a big night not just for the Bulldogs and the Tide but for all NFL scouts. NFLDraftDog has Johnson going 13th.
Not to be confused with DraftDog, NFLDraftGeek has Johnson as its No. 6 pick and Stafford as its No. 9. DraftGeek, you should know, has Florida quarterback Tim Tebow as the No. 3 choice, and already there’s a debate raging over the Heisman winner’s pro potential. Toward that end, The NFL Draft Site has Stafford and Tebow going 1-2, with Johnson only No. 19, which seems way too low.
Here’s one last mock: The New NFL Draft lists Stafford, Johnson and Tebow as Nos. 4, 5 and 6. And here’s the obligatory Bradley disclaimer: I have no idea of the perspicacity, or the lack thereof, of any of these listings. But I’ve linked to these because they’ve been updated lately and because, unlike Mel Kiper Jr.’s draft stuff on ESPN.com, they’re free.
Nice(r) Doggies
You’ll recall that the nation’s press was unkind to Georgia after its victory in Columbia. Pete Thamel of The New York Times, who sat next to me in the press box at Sun Devil Stadium on Saturday, was much more complimentary after the Bulldogs’ defeat of Arizona State. He describes Georgia as “the best team in a very good league.” Which it is.
Stewart Mandel of SI.com writes about A.J. Green — good choice of topics — and looks ahead to Green playing against fellow freshman Julio Jones this weekend. Of Jones, Green is quoted as saying, “He’s cool.” Which he undoubtedly is.
And Derek Samson, writing for Sporting News Today, mentions Green but also takes a shot at Urban Meyer for playing Tebow so long in the rout of Tennessee. Which always makes for good reading.
Mad Dog on a short leash?
You’ll recall that Greg Maddux accepted a trade from San Diego to the Dodgers because he wanted to be part of a playoff push. Well, Bill Shaikin of The Los Angeles Times reports that Maddux might not make it to October. The Dodgers, Shaikin writes, could leave him off their playoff roster.
I yield to no one in my esteem for Maddux. But I have to say I’ve grown tired of aging pitchers who seem to hang around for no real reason. (David Wells would be Exhibit A.) Maddux is 7-13 this season, having yielded 202 hits in 188 innings. He’s not the Mad Dog of old. He’s not even a decent big-league pitcher anymore. And yes, it’s sad to see.
One goalie, two views
It’s hard to know what to make of Kari Lehtonen, who was supposed to become the Thrashers’ franchise goaltender and still might. Or might not. The difference in opinion is nicely illustrated by Darren Eliot in SI.com, who writes that Lehtonen was “impressively resolute” at the end of last season and “can be counted on to provide consistent goaltending,” and Scott Burnside of ESPN.com, who opines that Lehtonen could be displaced by Ondrej Pavelec.
It must be noted that Eliot is a Thrashers’ TV commentator and their director of hockey programs. But he’s a very good writer (and a good broadcaster, too), so I wouldn’t dismiss anything he says out of hand.
Permalink | Comments (47) | Post your comment | Categories: Bradley's Buzz
