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Home > Terence Moore > Archives > 2008 > November
November 2008
Turner has the last laugh
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
San Diego — Before the pupil spent Sunday afternoon rushing more like a candidate for Canton than his mentor, they met at midfield for the coin toss inside Qualcomm Stadium.
This was tough, especially for Michael Turner, the pupil. They hadn’t seen each other since their San Diego Chargers played in New England last season for the AFC championship. Turner was closing his fourth year back then in the NFL as LaDainian Tomlinson’s backup.
Now, since Turner bolted to become a $34.5 million free agent for the Falcons, the pupil and his mentor embraced, just a kiss shy of resembling Magic and Isiah from a different era.
“It was weird, because we were standing there in different uniforms,” said Turner, referring to Tomlinson, who ranks 14th on the NFL’s all-time rushing list. “When I saw him and the rest of those guys, I started to think about the fun times we had in the locker room and stuff.”
So much for nostalgia. Before the coin flip hit the ground, Turner suffered a dose of self-imposed amnesia. He helped the Falcons rise to 8-4 with more brilliance from his ever-churning legs. He finished with more than 100 yards rushing for the sixth time this season (compared to twice for Tomlinson). To be exact, Turner carried 31 times for 120 yards during the Falcons’ 22-16 victory to keep the 4-8 Chargers in purgatory along with his mentor.
All Mike Smith knows is that Turner has followed the script. When Smith was hired earlier this year as Falcons coach, he said he wanted folks who could prosper in a physical, disciplined system that emphasized a strong running game. Exhibit A: Turner, a model of composure, even during an emotional situation.
Said Smith, “He is such a task master. I mean, he really is. I know he probably was excited about playing and seeing his old friends, but I didn’t feel there was anything different this week in his preparation. When we were doing our due diligence, we felt that he would bring that stability to our running back realm and to our team.”
The results? Turner is evolving into the Falcons’ LT. Well, make that the old LT before hints of a decline this season. There was the third quarter, when the Chargers faced third-and-one from their 29, and the new Tomlinson ran forever.
For zero yards. “He’s still a good back, and he’s going to be a Hall of Famer, but it was getting frustrating to him,” said Falcons defensive tackle Grady Jackson, who smacked Tomlinson into a no-gainer on that play. Courtesy of Jackson and his teammates, Tomlinson rushed for 24 yards, the second-lowest total during his eight seasons in the league. At least for this game, Turner couldn’t care less.
As for Tomlinson, describing his feelings while studying his pupil in an opponent’s uniform: “It was strange at first, but when he started getting the ball and running up and down the field, it was apparent that he had moved on.”
Still, Turner had that fumble in the fourth quarter that the Chargers later converted into a field goal. Worse, despite the Falcons enjoying first-and-goal from the Chargers’ 2-yard line near the end of the first half, Turner carried three times, but he got the Falcons no closer than maybe a foot from the goal line. He eventually was smacked and then heckled by his former teammates on fourth-and-one.
“[Cornerback] Quentin Jammer was in my face saying, ‘Oh, you just got knocked out,’ and stuff like that,” said Turner, laughing, because he was laughing last.
• More coverage: Michael Turner page
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Emotional Tech will beat Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia has more football talent than Georgia Tech, but not enough to rank slightly beyond a touchdown favorite for Saturday’s game in Athens. Consider, too, that the great equalizer in rivalry games is emotion. Tech has more of that regarding the Bulldogs than Georgia has of that regarding the Yellow Jackets.
So Tech will win. That’s because emotion will be as potent for the Jackets as all of those triple-option plays.
This isn’t to say Georgia will spend the afternoon yawning at the sight of Buzz shaking his tail between the hedges. Said Georgia wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi, a Charlotte native, who was indoctrinated into the rivalry after his six catches helped the Bulldogs whip Tech as a freshman in 2005: “It’s a very special game, and it’s different than the others, because they share the same state as you.”
Added Georgia fullback Brannan Southerland, who grew up in the Atlanta area, “It’s not an SEC game, but it’s huge. If you lose, you’ll never hear the end of it at church and stuff like that.”
Here’s the deal, though: Losing to Georgia often produces the lowest of lows for Tech players. Beating Tech rarely produces the highest of highs for Georgia players. While the Bulldogs have Florida, Tennessee, Auburn and Tech to dislike, the Jackets just have Georgia.
Tech is obsessed with Georgia. You hear it in the Jackets’ fight song (“Up with the white and gold, down with the red and black …”). You see it on the video board at Tech home game when players end their taped messages to the crowd by saying, “To hell with Georgia.” You also can tell as much, because senior defensive end Michael Johnson frowned while recalling every detail from Tech’s losses to Georgia during each of his past three seasons.
“I mean, you’ve got to hear about it all year from people who didn’t even go to Georgia,” said Johnson, with the deepest of sighs. “I’ll ask them, ‘So did you go there?’ And they’ll say, ‘Nah. I’m a fan.’ And I’ll say, ‘Uh-huh, well, OK.’ They’re probably just (sigh), I won’t even go into it.”
Johnson clenched his teeth, before adding with another sigh, “How badly do I want to beat Georgia? As bad as ever.”
He isn’t alone. Tech senior defensive tackle Darryl Richard said, “Everybody has a misconception about Georgia Tech, which is that we shouldn’t be able to compete with people. So we want to set the record straight. We have athletes here, just as other teams do. But for some reason, since we have people who are serious about getting their education, as well as playing football, we’re supposed to be inferior.”
You know, inferior to You Know Who, which Richard isn’t buying. “We hear right now that we can’t compete with a team like Georgia, and we’re taking that to heart every day,” said Richard, of his 8-3 bunch compared to 9-2 Georgia. “It’s time to go to work. That’s our mentality. I think that since we have guys that are serious about doing that, we can definitely compete against that team from Athens.”
There also is this: The Jackets’ rising triple-option offense will face a Georgia defense that reeked during its first and only exposure to an option offense earlier this month at Kentucky. Tech first-year coach Paul Johnson is a whiz in rivalry games (his Navy teams were 6-0 against Army). Plus, the Jackets are due to beat Georgia after dropping seven straight.
Oh, and Johnson won’t allow the Jackets to lose. That’s Paul and Michael.
No need to humiliate Vick
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There is punishment, and then there is humiliation. It’s OK to punish Michael Vick for his dogfighting stuff, and that punishment will ease someday with his early release from a federal penitentiary to a halfway house.
But to humiliate the guy?
Enough is enough.
I’m sure the feds will say the following is just protocol. Still, when Vick arrived at the Sussex County Courthouse in Virginia on Tuesday for his hearing on a state dogfighting charge, he was shackled at the wrists and ankles.
No question, Vick is pretty fast, but it’s doubtful he was a threat to flee from his police escort in that situation, especially with all of those cameras from around the world pointed in his direction.
That was a slightly better look than what took place at the end of last year at Vick’s sentencing for federal dogfighting charges in Richmond, Va. Back then, those running the show made Vick resemble a hardcore convict from the 1930s. He was forced to stand before the judge in a uniform with black-and-white stripes. The only thing missing was a ball and chain.
Just let it go, people. Even those involved with animal-rights groups such as PETA say they’re ready to move on. They just want Vick to speak forcefully against dogfighting when he is released, and Vick keeps saying he will comply.
If so, the PETA folks promise they won’t try to humiliate Vick with protests and sneers and whatever else when he seeks to join another NFL team someday.
Good.
Others should follow suit.
Permalink | Comments (103) | Categories: Falcons/NFL
Falcon offensive linemen are turkeys no more
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nobody involved with Atlanta sports got ripped more often in recent years than Falcons offensive linemen, and there was a reason for this: They were awful.
Only six NFL teams allowed more sacks than the Falcons’ silly total of 133 during the previous three seasons.
Now get this when it comes to what essentially is that same group of offensive linemen: They are awesome. They rank as the hidden reason for all that is good for the 7-4 Falcons right now. Matt Ryan’s veteran play as a rookie. The splendid pounding of Michael Turner in his first season as a featured NFL running back. An opportunistic defense that is rested for long stretches courtesy of the offense’s sustained drives. The explosion at wide receiver, particularly that of Roddy White.
After allowing 47 sacks last year, the Falcons offensive line is on pace for barely 19 this season. That means Ryan has time to throw, which gives White and others chances to catch and shine. Plus, only the New York Giants rush for more yards per game than the Falcons.
What’s up with this? “I think it’s the new coaching staff, and just the climate around the facility has been completely different than before,” said guard Justin Blalock, the epitome of it all. He is prospering in his second NFL season after having “bust” as his middle name as a rookie. As for that new coaching staff and climate, Blalock was referring to head coach Mike Smith in general and offensive line coach Paul Boudreau in particular.
While Smith has brought professionalism to the Falcons after a year with overmatched college guy Bobby Petrino and Jim Mora’s buddy approach with players before that, Boudreau has brought two decades of NFL competence. He was inheriting incompetence with the Falcons offensive line, or so it seemed.
Nice-guy tackle Todd Weiner bit his lip, before saying, “Yeah, I mean, it’s hard for me to say we were bad, because we led the league in rushing (for three straight years through 2006). Then all of a sudden we had this negative press.” Weiner thought about Boudreau, before chuckling, “He heard all that stuff that was said about us too. I don’t know how he took it.”
Well, Boudreau heard it, studied it, and then forgot about it. He held an open competition. He also implemented more than a few X’s and O’s.
“What I tried to do on my first day on the job was to say, ‘Hey, listen,’ ” said Boudreau, whose lines have helped the likes of Barry Sanders, Curtis Martin, Thurman Thomas and Fred Taylor. “I told them, ‘Some of you guys are set in your ways. Hey, Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world, and he has a coach. So I might not be here to change everything about you, but if it’s working, I’m going to leave you alone. If it’s not working, we’re going to change it. And if you start to stray off and go back to bad habits, we’re going to get it corrected.’
“With their hand placement, with their foot work, with their stances, they’ve really jumped on board.”
So much so that they’ve bonded on and off the field. Rookie tackle Sam Baker has this deal on Friday mornings, when he provides breakfasts for the group during its weekly chitchat before coaches arrive. Veteran center Todd McClure just fried a turkey for everybody at his home.
The biggest thing: Falcons offensive linemen aren’t turkeys by Thanksgiving for the first time in years.
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Thrashers have no identity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So who are the real Thrashers? To keep your head from exploding while trying to figure it out, nobody knows.
They skated in purgatory through Halloween to become Great Pumpkins at 2-7-2. Then, out of nowhere, their demons were exorcised. They tied a franchise record for consecutive victories at five. After that, they had spirited efforts against NHL toughies Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but they lost both times before Saturday night’s game at Philips Arena against the Columbus Blue Jackets, a so-so bunch.
The Thrashers still lost 2-0. They’ve dropped three straight, and this was the worst. You can’t score if you don’t shoot, and the Thrashers had a ridiculous 15 shots on goal to the Blue Jackets’ 31.
All of that means, what?
Center Erik Christensen thought and thought at his locker, before saying, “I think we’re sort of chasing an identity.”
Translated: The Thrashers have no identity. Not good, because all significant teams have an identity. When Martin Brodeur is healthy in goal, the New Jersey Devils project themselves as a steel wall on defense. The Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals are whatever their stars (Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin, respectively) want them to be on offense at that moment.
Oh, and the Detroit Red Wings are just the NHL’s Big Red Machine.
The Thrashers? Well, they do wear those red sweaters for games against Southeast Division foes. It’s a start, I guess. Added Christensen, in his first full season with the Thrashers after two with the tradition-rich Penguins, “Pittsburgh is a team that comes into any building expecting to win. They know what they’re all about. They know themselves. They know what they’re capable of. As a result, they execute game in and game out. That’s what we’re trying to develop here.”
It’s an ugly work in progress. The only playoff appearance for the nine-year-old Thrashers came in 2007, and they were swept out of the first round by the New York Rangers. Now you have the ups and downs of the current Thrashers, who began the evening allowing more power-play goals than anybody. In essence, they have so many little problems that they have evolved into a big one — inconsistency.
More often than not, the Thrashers hustle, so that isn’t an issue. Said defenseman Ron Hainsey, “There were really only two games where there was a poor effort — Philadelphia and the New Jersey. There were four games where we had a tie game in the last five minutes, but we weren’t able to get any of those games to overtime. That’s really the big story for us, as far as where we’re at now, as opposed to being in a playoff spot.”
No, the big story for the 7-10-2 Thrashers is that, if they’re trying as hard as they can on most nights (which they are) and they’re still losing more often than not (which they are), they are talent-challenged.
Thus John Anderson’s response to our question on that identity thing (or lack thereof) involving his Thrashers. “We’re dealt a hand here a little bit,” said Anderson, the first-year Thrashers coach, delivering his way of saying his team is “talent-challenged.” Before coming to Atlanta, he had an impressive 11-year run with the offensively potent Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League. Added Anderson, “We can’t just say, ‘OK, this is what I want us to be.’ You look [at the Thrashers’ roster], and that’s not what it is. You have to adjust a little bit, and that’s what we’re doing.”
For better or worse.
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Pupil Woodson gets best of mentor this night
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They talked Thursday night after the Charlotte Bobcats flew to town. They talked again Friday morning. They continued with various conversations when they arrived at Philips Arena.
Just guessing, but they probably are sharing more than a few words and chuckles right now about how the Hawks needed to scramble down the stretch for an 88-83 victory Friday night against the usually toothless Bobcats.
You get the picture. There rarely is a moment before, during or after an NBA season when Mike Woodson and Larry Brown aren’t chatting about this when they aren’t chatting about that.
“We talk almost all the time,” said Brown, now with the Bobcats on his eternal coaching tour that has included nine NBA teams, two in the ABA and two in the college ranks.
Woodson is in his fifth season as the Hawks’ head coach after three years as an assistant for Brown with the Philadelphia 76ers and the Detroit Pistons. In many ways, Woodson is a Brown clone, which is a good thing.
That’s because the real Brown is enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He also has an NBA championship and an NCAA title on his résumé. Plus, the real Brown is obsessed with the term, “Playing the right way,” which Woodson has adopted and stressed with his Hawks teams dominated by youth and inexperience.
This isn’t to say that Woodson’s players always heed his words. You can tell as much by the interruption of their renaissance season with uneven play after a 6-0 start. There was Friday night, for instance, when until the end the Hawks looked too much like the bunch that had lost four of their previous five games.
Consider: The Hawks trailed 63-62 entering the fourth quarter, but then they spurted to an eighth victory with a few big things and a couple of little things. Among the big things were five 3-pointers, including three from Mike Bibby.
As for the little things, they began and ended with defense. The Hawks led 85-81 at the 1:05 mark, and when Raymond Felton attempted to bring the Bobcats closer with an 18-foot shot, he couldn’t escape the massive hand of Al Horford in his face.
Moments later, Joe Johnson deflected a pass for a steal to push the Hawks closer to a second consecutive victory and signs that the renaissance still lives.
No one is more pleased with the Hawks’ mostly playing the right way than the author of those words. After all, Brown consulted Woodson often when his pupil was getting blasted during his opening years with the Hawks despite improving the team in victories every year.
There also was that matter of Woodson’s Hawks taking the eventual world champion Celtics to seven games in the playoffs’ first round.
“Oh, yeah. I was following how Mike was being criticized closely, but I guess it comes with the territory when your team struggles, no matter how patient people are,” said Brown, who definitely knows. He spent his only season in New York last season failing to keep a dysfunctional group of Knicks from 59 losses.
Not only that, Brown’s Bobcats just suffered their eighth loss in 11 games. But back to Woodson’s Hawks, with Brown adding, “I always thought they were going in the right direction. I saw the young kids getting better. You know, last year, the run against Boston was special, and it made everybody realize that things are starting to look up for them.”
The mentor forced a laugh, then said of his pupil, “You oughta go to him to talk about us, because they’re doing a [heckuva] lot better than we are.”
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No such thing as workable playoff system
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
See what I’ve been trying to tell you forever? When it comes to the big boys of college football, there is no such thing as a workable playoff system with a limited amount of games and with only a slight chance for controversy.
Well, unless you believe Bobby Bowden really is Santa Claus.
For every President-elect Barack Obama, who has mentioned twice in recent days about his preference for an eight-game playoff system, you have a slew of those such as Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, who said he wants something such as a 64-team playoff system.
Why stop there? Why not include all 119 Division I-A teams?
Don’t think somebody doesn’t have those thoughts, especially since college basketball coaches such as Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim wants March Madness to grow from 65 teams to nearly everybody for a mad scramble to the end.
Obama got this latest round of playoff-talk silliness rolling in recent interviews with ESPN and 60 Minutes. Then you had Leach taking a break from running his No. 2 ranked team in the Bowl Championship Series to give his counter.
It’s all knee jerk. For one, the BCS is spending another year moving toward an exciting finish. Plus, you already have an unofficial playoff system in the works, with SEC and Big 12 heavyweights battling each other every week for a possible trip to the championship game.
For another, those who want a playoff system are ignoring the exponentially higher toll - both mentally and physically - that such a system would have on student-athletes operating at the highest level of college football. And, if you throw in an always expanding playoff system, which would happen (see above), you would have even more of a significant toll.
No offense to our pending chief executive, but he needs to stick to the economy and foreign policy.
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Don’t blame Tech’s butter fingers on option
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The numbers are horrible for Georgia Tech’s football team, but don’t jump to conclusions. As for those numbers, nobody in the ACC has lost more fumbles than the 17 for the Yellow Jackets. Worse, when it comes to those in Division I-A, they rank 118th in that category.
That’s out of 119.
Not good.
This is good: Despite that sloppiness, the Jackets will enter Bobby Dodd Stadium on Thursday night against surging Miami at 7-3 overall and 4-3 in the conference. They also have a heartbeat (although a faint one) in search of reaching the ACC title game. Plus, contrary to what you’re thinking, many of those fumbles had little to do with the Jackets going from six years in Chan Gailey’s pro-style approach to the eternal running, frequent pitching and constant decision-making involved with Paul Johnson’s triple-option.
So don’t blame the triple-option for much of anything bad at Tech, especially since the Jackets are the nation’s eighth-best rushing team at 251 yards per game.
“I would have to go back and look, but I would venture to think that, probably in the 10 games we’ve played, I would doubt that we’ve had more than 10 fumbles that had anything to do with the offense,” said Johnson, of his mostly young team that was a triple-option mess earlier this year during his first spring in town. No more, suggested Johnson, adding, “It’s not like we’ve had a bunch of pitches batted down in games, or the mesh fumbles.”
In case you’re wondering, “mesh” is a triple-option term. It refers to the quarterback having the choice of sticking the ball in the belly of his B-back and keeping the ball there or yanking it out for a quarterback run. Added Johnson, “We’ve fumbled for other reasons. Stuff that should be easily correctable.”
Thus the reason for optimism regarding the Jackets’ fumble fingers these days. Not only isn’t the triple-option the primary culprit here, but the things that really have contributed to most of Tech’s turnovers are “easily correctable.” They range from muffed punts to bungled snaps between quarterback and center to players fumbling while running downfield.
Tech’s 28-7 fiasco at North Carolina on Nov. 8 was the epitome of it all. There were two dropped punts, and there was another one of those mangled quarterback-center exchanges. “Of course, one time, [quarterback Jaybo Shaw] got tackled from behind, which you could relate to the option, because it was an option play,” Johnson said, before easing into a little laugh. “So we had one fumble because of the offense, but people still will say, ‘Ah, if we didn’t have that offense, we wouldn’t have all of those fumbles.’ “
The Jackets do have those fumbles (31 overall), and Johnson isn’t pleased, whether they are triple-option related or not. “We’ve got to do a better job coaching ball security, and I think sometime when you have a young team, and you’re patched-worked up front [offensive line] some, this seems to happen,” Johnson said. “The worst thing you can do is dwell on it all the time.”
So Johnson stresses more positives than negatives. For instance: Miami is ranked 10th nationally in total defense, with much help from its overwhelming speed. “We’ve probably had more success against defenses that really are athletic and fast,” said Johnson, referring to the likes of Clemson and Florida State this season. “That’s because it’s a different game for those types of defenses. They have to kind of slow down and play assignments. If you’re efficient at running this offense, you really slow them down some.”
Well, if you don’t fumble.
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Woodson vindicated, but won’t say ‘told you so’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rarely in the history of the earth has a coach or manager taken as many sucker punches as Mike Woodson.
Throughout his four seasons with the Hawks before this one, media types kept jabbing him. Some of his players did the same. Even the guy who hired him suggested to his bosses last season that they should throw him out of the Hawks’ ring sooner than later.
He’s still standing. He’s still the same regarding X’s and O’s, the handling of various locker-room personalities and operating as a person in general. Mostly, he’s still significantly better than his detractors thought, which is to say he’s pretty good.
That the Hawks entered Saturday night’s game at Philips Arena against the New Jersey Nets among the NBA elite was surprising only to those who haven’t been paying attention. Despite all of those issues that Woodson had to ignore or overcome (I’ll explain in a moment), his Hawks nearly kept Boston from its world championship last season by battling the Celtics dribble for dribble in a seven-game series.
Now, even with an ugly 119-107 loss in this one, Woodson’s maturing team has spent the early season flashing signs of remaining a significant force down the stretch of the Eastern Conference. As a result, Woodson has every reason to scream the truth from the top of his lungs: I’ve been vindicated, and my Hawks will only keep improving at an even quicker pace, and it’s time for my critics to shove some dirty sweat socks down their throats.
“Nah, I would never do that,” said Woodson, shaking his head. “I’m too professional to do that. Telling them ‘I told you so’ would be winning an NBA title. That’s telling them so. We’re not in that category yet.”
Take the Hawks’ past three games, for example. They were all losses, and they were all winnable — if you’re at least within a fastbreak of that “category.”
Let’s start with Wednesday night in Boston. Until Paul Pierce’s improbable game-winning shot near the end, the Hawks had the Celtics beaten, but here’s the bottom line: The Hawks failed to resemble a truly elite team by closing the deal.
Then you had their trip to New Jersey, where they were pushed around by a couple of rookies with much help from a lack of energy. The Hawks were at the close of a four-game road trip. It’s just that truly elite teams discover that second, third and fourth wind during such times.
That led to Saturday night, when those among the sellout crowd of 18,729 were as lethargic as the Hawks. The loudest cheer was for hip-hop artist Ne-Yo, famous for a song called, “Make Me Better.” And, no, it wasn’t about what each of the Hawks players has whispered in Woodson’s ear since he came to town. Then again, it could have been, because he has helped them improve as a whole.
Despite court battles among team owners, a key player dying before the start of a season, management failing to acquire a true point guard until earlier this year or a bench until recently, Woodson kept to his plan that helped the Hawks improve in victories at the end of each season from 13 to 26 to 30 to 37.
And that plan? “Defend, rebound and run,” said Hawks splendid guard Joe Johnson, who trusted Woodson from the start. “That’s the only thing he keeps stressing to us, and until we consistently do it, he’s going to keep stressing it to us.”
Exhibit A: The improving Hawks. And hear that sound? It’s the silence from Woodson bashers.
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Harmony brings success for Falcons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Flowery Branch — John Abraham has played a while. Nine NFL seasons, to be exact. So it is rather significant that the brilliant defensive end for the Falcons sat at his locker on Wednesday, thought about the last time he experienced this much togetherness among teammates and thought some more.
He kept thinking.
So when was it?
Abraham kept thinking, before glancing up to say, “It’s been a while,” he said, reflecting on a career that included six years with the New York Jets. Then he added, “Actually, probably never. I’ve been on some hard teams, and to have this kind of chemistry, as far as in the locker room and on the field, along with everybody communicating with each other — this probably is the best team when it comes to that situation.”
Sounds like Thomas Dimitroff knows what he’s doing. He’s in his first season as an NFL general manager. Even so, he envisioned building a team without knuckleheads long before he spent six years in the scouting department of the New England Patriots, supposedly the league’s team of teams.
“What we did [after taking over the Falcons] is evaluate the players, and then we discussed the other stuff, whether there were character issues and what not, whether there were personality traits on and off the field that we felt wouldn’t fit into our system,” said Dimitroff, 42, involved with pro scouting since 1990. “We spent a lot of time talking about that as a group. There are a lot of good football players that we didn’t feel, kicking this off, would necessarily fit into a rebuilding program.”
The results? The NFL rookies at general manager, head coach and quarterback for the Falcons are helping them shock reality in the rugged NFC South. They’ve won four of their past five games for a 6-3 record, and they’ve done so with harmony.
Since the Falcons’ 2007 season of disharmony (4-12 finish, No. 7 and his dogs, Bobby Petrino), the Falcons’ roster has changed 60 percent. The purging involved some familiar names. Alge Crumpler. DeAngelo Hall. Warrick Dunn. Kynan Forney. Joey Harrington.
Said offensive tackle Todd Weiner, in his sixth season with the Falcons: “It’s clear that the administration and the front office purposely went after guys that were going to jell together. Some players may not have gotten some name recognition in the past that they acquired in the offseason, but they looked for a certain attitude in a guy. The idea was that when good things happened, they were going to stick together, and when bad things happened, they still were going to stick together.”
Consider: After the Falcons dismantled a bad Detroit team in their season opener, they were clobbered at Tampa Bay. Unlike the past, when Abraham hinted that such a drastic turnaround would have produced “whining and bickering” across the Falcons’ locker room, they recovered to flatten a bad Kansas City team.
Then the Falcons were clobbered again at Carolina the next week, but that’s when they responded with a victory at Green Bay the next week to start their current surge to sit a game behind first-place Carolina.
You have rookies Matt Ryan at quarterback and Curtis Lofton at middle linebacker among those leading the way for the Falcons. You also have mighty contributions from free agents such as running back Michael Turner, safety Erik Coleman, kicker Jason Elam and tight end Ben Hartsock, all signed by Dimitroff since the end of last season.
As a result, you have the Falcons trying to become another team of teams.
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Give the Jackets a break
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I know. I know. Every team in sports can use excuses for why it is bad instead of good or good instead of great.
So forget excuses.
Well, usually.
Take Georgia Tech’s football team, for example. Give them a break. We’re not talking about a gigantic one, but a significant one.
No question, the Yellow Jackets continued their dance with inconsistency on Saturday with a meltdown at North Carolina. It stripped Tech of a legitimate shot at reaching the ACC championship game, but you know what? The Jackets still are 7-3 overall and 4-3 in the conference.
That’s not bad when you consider the Jackets were picked as also-rans in preseason polls. Not only that, they are an overwhelming exception to that perfectly wonderful no-excuse rule for at least 16 reasons. That’s how many freshmen or sophomores were among Tech’s 22 starters against North Carolina.
No ACC team starts as many underclassmen as the Jackets, and it is likely that few teams in the nation at the Division I-A level have such a distinction.
Tech also has Paul Johnson as its first-year head coach. He implemented a new offense (triple option), a new defense (less Jon Tenuta-style blitzing) and a new philosophy (fiery on the sidelines instead of the calm of Chan Gailey, his predecessor).
Even so, with games left against conference-foe Miami and those folks between the hedges, the Jackets already have as many victories now as they did after five of the last six seasons.
Yeah, they deserve a break.
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Aaron shed tears of joy over Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hank Aaron eased into one of his famous laughs at the thought. “He’s the 44th president, and that was my uniform number, by the way,” said baseball’s legitimate home run king, before delivering more laughs nearly a week after he cried in the living room of his southwest Atlanta home over the election of Barack Obama.
Moment by moment, Aaron spent Tuesday night dabbing his 74-year-old eyes. He sat with his wife, Billye, in front of two television sets, because they wished to see as much of history as possible.
“I’m still collecting newspapers, different articles, all of those things over this, and I’m still on cloud nine,” said Aaron, referring to the United States selecting its first African-American president. Four days before, Aaron was an emotional wreck in his hometown of Mobile, where they moved his childhood home to a spot near the ballpark that carries his name.
That was nice, but the Obama thing produced Aaron’s ongoing joy. “I’ve been telling people that we may not have gotten our 40 acres and a mule, but we got 50 states,” Aaron said. “It was a happy scene for me — and for a lot of black people, given what we’ve been through in this country, and then to have this history.”
This was amazing history, the kind that Aaron couldn’t envision while growing up on the other side of the segregated tracks in the Deep South. The kind that wasn’t a possibility when he couldn’t share some hotels or even clubhouses with his white teammates. The kind that seemed ridiculous when he battled Babe Ruth’s ghost and racist fans along the way to making 715 and then 755 the new numbers for all-time greatness regarding home runs. The kind that Aaron’s hero, Jackie Robinson, couldn’t imagine, especially since the man who broke baseball’s color barrier died soon after imploring the sport in October 1972 to hire its first black third base coach — not to mention its first black manager.
Now a black man is heading to the White House, and Aaron sighed while recalling so many things. Take Sept. 23, 1957. That’s when Aaron became more popular than beer and cheese in Wisconsin. His walk-off homer at Milwaukee County Stadium gave the National League pennant to the Braves. He was carried off the field by his white teammates.
That same day, an angry white mob in Little Rock forced nine black students to flee Central High School during desegregation attempts.
“No, no. Going back in time, I never thought this was even close to being a possibility regarding the election of a black president in this country,” said Aaron, who knows something about presidents. Except for Dwight Eisenhower, he has encountered all nine of them since he began his journey to Cooperstown in the early 1950s. He hasn’t met Obama, but they attended the same function earlier this year in Atlanta, where Obama spotted Aaron in the crowd and pointed his way.
Even then, Aaron didn’t believe he was viewing a future president.
“None of this has sunk in, and it’s going to become even more unbelievable on that day in January when he stands on that platform and is sworn in,” Aaron said. “I mean, that’s going to really be another emotional day to see him as a black man, with his black wife and two little black girls beside him.”
Aaron paused, searching for words, before adding, “It’s just.” There was another long pause, before he said, “Well, it’s just indescribable, really.”
Georgia did just enough to win
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lexington, Ky. — Elite teams win no matter what. So, despite looking ridiculous in a slew of ways on Saturday at Commonwealth Stadium, Georgia alternated between surging and slumping throughout the chilly afternoon before somehow leaving town with a 42-38 victory over Kentucky.
Mark Richt had it about right after his Bulldogs rose to 8-2 overall and 5-2 in the conference after last week’s 49-10 ugliness at the hands of Florida. Said the giddy coach with memories of clutch Georgia plays on offense and defense down the dramatic stretch, “It’s a team game, and everybody did enough [to win]. These kinds of victories aren’t so bad.”
No, they aren’t, especially in the SEC, where survival often is more important than style. It’s just that, here’s something else about elite teams: They generally don’t flash all of these issues along their way to winning no matter what.
For Georgia, you had a blocked punt, a misplayed punt return by Prince Miller and an 18-yard punt by Brian Mimbs. You had Kentucky with a 96-yard kickoff return. You had two fumbles by wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi. You had a defense continuing its three-week run as a clueless bunch until the game’s final moments. You also had the Bulldogs showing a lack of focus, with half of their mind in bluegrass country and the other half on those Gators storming to that blowout.
Most Georgia players denied the latter, but only to a point. “I mean, the Florida loss was discouraging to us. That said, in this league you have to leave the games in the past,” said Demarcus Dobbs, among Georgia’s few slivers of light on defense in the midst of much darkness.
Let’s return to around the final minute, when Kentucky’s offense was stopped for one of the few times all game on fourth-and-two from the Georgia 26. The Wildcats got new life — with help. Georgia’s Jarius Wynn was called for a face-mask penalty that gave Kentucky first-and-10 from the Georgia 13 and hopes of overcoming its conquerable deficit.
Not good for Georgia. Remember: After relinquishing a total of 87 points in the previous two weeks against LSU and Florida, the Bulldogs operated against Kentucky as if they’d never seen an option offense before. That’s because they haven’t, at least not this year. “I really can’t remember when we ever played a quarterback who always thought of running first,” said Georgia sophomore linebacker Rennie Curran, referring to Kentucky’s Randall Cobb. Courtesy of his swift legs and Georgia’s porous defense, he became Randall Cunningham throughout this one, and Cobb was making only his second collegiate start.
Even so, Cobb rushed for 82 yards and three touchdowns. He also completed 12 of 20 passes for 105 yards. And there he was at Georgia’s 13 at the end, and he was dropping back for a screen pass.
Elite teams don’t flinch in such situations, even with mostly an invisible defense up to that point. Said Georgia junior cornerback Asher Allen, “No, it was never panic. The same motto was echoing throughout the entire team. It was like, ‘Let’s go. Come on, because we can do this.’ I was having flashbacks to my freshman year when we weren’t able to envision the defense making a stop in that situation.”
The defense did, with Dobbs ignoring casts on both arms to intercept Cobb’s pass with 46 seconds left.
This came nearly a minute after Matthew Stafford shrugged off an uneven day that featured overthrown receivers to find A.J. Green in the corner of the end zone with an 11-yard pass.
Just like an elite team.
Then again, Georgia is just a pretty good team.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Categories: UGA/SEC
Lofty goals good for Jackets
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No question, Chan Gailey is more of an NFL coach. For verification, there were his six years at Georgia Tech through the 2007 season that often ended with yawns and bowl games you never heard of.
Here’s something else: There were those goals for Gailey’s Yellow Jackets.
They did have goals, didn’t they?
Guess they didn’t.
“It was pretty much, you know, just go out there and win as many games as you can, which was the mind-set of the program,” said Tech defensive tackle Darryl Richard, describing the type of coach who sounds as if he prefers to work with a bunch of grown men who are into self-motivation. Sort of like what you find in the pro game.
As for the college game, rosters are filled with youngsters who need to be lead and want to be inspired. They need goals. Sort of like what the Jackets have under their first-year coach Paul Johnson, who nevertheless did the wise thing by giving the assignment to somebody else — his seniors.
So, early in summer camp, about a half dozen of those Tech seniors gathered in a room to discuss what would entail a wonderful season. “I didn’t really suggest anything. In fact, I just listened, because we all kind of think alike,” said defensive end Michael Johnson of a meeting that lasted maybe eight minutes.
Soon afterward, the seniors presented their goals to Johnson, who nodded. Then, the next day, the rest of the Jackets heard the report. They nodded, and the goals were posted in all of the meetings rooms and around the locker room.
Those goals? In order, beat Georgia, capture the ACC championship, go undefeated at Bobby Dodd Stadium, impress when it comes the turnover margin, dominate foes in rushing offense and in rushing defense.
The results? Pretty good. The Jackets did lose at home against Virginia, but they’ve yet to meet Georgia, and they still are within reach of the ACC championship game at 7-2 overall and 4-2 in the Coastal Division. They also lead the ACC in rushing. They are just fifth in turnover margin, but there was Cooper Taylor’s forced fumble in the clutch against Florida State last Saturday that led to a game-saving recovery by Rashaad Reid.
Plus, the Jackets are fifth in run defense, but they have the formidable likes of Richard and Johnson anchoring one of the game’s best defensive lines.
“It makes it much easier when you’re actually working toward something that you can see, where you can actually focus your efforts,” Richard said. “There really wasn’t too much confusion from the start of what we’re trying to accomplish here this season. I think that’s what you’re seeing.”
Those watching as intently as anybody are Tech’s underclassmen. Take redshirt freshman Roddy Jones, for instance. He spent his redshirt season as a running back watching the goal-less Jackets reach mediocrity again with a 7-6 record. They also dropped a sixth consecutive game to Georgia along the way to the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise.
Not coincidentally, Gailey was fired by the end of the season.
“Having been here last year, you really can see the difference in the attitudes of the players under Coach Johnson compared to Coach Gailey, especially when you look at the seniors,” Jones said. “It wasn’t difficult to play [with no goals under Gailey], because obviously everybody wants to win, and everybody wants to play for the ACC championship. But when you really write down goals and put stuff on paper, it makes you want to work that much harder to achieve them.”
Yeah, and the Jackets have a No. 20 BCS ranking to prove it.
Permalink | | Categories: Tech/ACC
Two strikes for DeAngelo Hall
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nobody saw this coming. Then again, we are talking about DeAngelo Hall and Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, both operating from the ozone these days.
To use a sports metaphor, Hall received the second major strike of his NFL career when he was released by the pitiful Raiders. You probably know what happens when you get a third strike.
You’re out.
That’s where Hall is headed in his professional career - out of a job forever - if he doesn’t learn that you can’t keep flapping your tongue as supposedly a shutdown cornerback if you can’t keep from getting torched more often than not.
This is sad, really, because Hall has talent, and he isn’t a bad guy. Not only that, he is a tremendous student of the game, and he works hard.
He just doesn’t get it.
For whatever reason, Hall never understood during his first four years in the league with the Falcons that you have to stay under control during games and keep your mouth shut, at least until you do something. The Falcons finally had enough, and they got rid of him for strike one.
Then Hall got a fresh start when he was dealt by the Falcons to the Raiders before this season. It didn’t matter. He continued his meltdowns on and off the field. There was last Sunday against the Falcons in Oakland, where he played unevenly but nevertheless jawed at his former teammates in the stadium tunnel at halftime.
So, despite the Raiders paying Hall $8 million for the whole season, Davis finally had enough, and he waived Hall after just eight games.
Strike two.
Now Hall can do nothing less than foul off his next couple of pitches in the NFL, just to stay alive.
Permalink | Comments (29) | Post your comment | Categories: Falcons/NFL
Falcons leave Hall speechless
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Oakland — This was an ugly blast from the past on Sunday along the way to the Falcons’ 24-0 shredding of whatever you call the Raiders these days. There in the tunnel at Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, with everybody else minding their own business as they hustled to their locker rooms at halftime, DeAngelo Hall jawed at everybody in his path.
Call it vintage MeAngelo Hall, the famously mouthy cornerback spending his first season with the Raiders after four years with the Falcons. Despite a few shoves and reprimands from his new teammates along the way in the tunnel, Hall kept swinging his head around to deliver sizzling words to his old teammates.
What was THAT all about?
“I was with [the Oakland players] in there trying to pull him away from arguing, man, because I told him, ‘You’re better than that, be a good person and don’t get caught up in mouth talk,’ ” said Falcons defensive tackle Grady Jackson, recalling Hall’s silliness, with the Falcons roaring toward 453 total yards to the Raiders’ 77.
Hall bolted unseen after the game without comment, but Jackson added from the visitors’ locker room, “I told him at halftime in the tunnel to be a good sportsman and just to keep on playing, man.”
You know, like Hall’s old teammates this season. They are a surprising 5-3, because of a lot of things. To name a few, there is Matt Ryan, the brilliant rookie, who had a passer rating of 138.4 in this one. There is Michael Turner, the brilliant free agent, with his fourth game of rushing for more than 100 yards (139 against the Raiders). There is a clutch defense that features John Abraham, the brilliant veteran, who had three more sacks on Sunday to stay among the NFL leaders with 10.
There also is a Falcons bunch overall that often does what Hall hasn’t during much of his career: Stay focused.
The Detroit Lions are bad, and the Falcons pounded them. The Kansas City Chiefs are bad, and the Falcons pounded them. The Raiders are worse than the Lions and Chiefs, and the Falcons responded accordingly. They were ruthless on offense and defense. In fact, they led 7-0 soon after the game’s opening drive when Michael Jenkins blew past Hall to complete a 37-yard play in the end zone. Jenkins scored again in the second quarter after he was wide open for a 27-yard pass from Ryan for a 21-0 lead at the time.
“Every week in this league, you have to come ready to play,” said Jenkins, who is responding efficiently as the Falcons’ other receiver, with Roddy White as the Falcons’ rising star. “We saw some of the earlier games today, where Kansas City was beating Tampa Bay and Cincinnati was doing well. So you can’t go by a team’s record. Our coaching staff does a great job of letting us know that and of helping us keep that focus every week.”
Such an emphasis didn’t shield the Falcons from blowout losses at Tampa Bay and Carolina. Still, those happened earlier in the year for this youth-dominated team. Afterward, the Falcons beat the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears, both among the NFL’s better teams. They also stayed competitive at always tough Philadelphia, and then they ignored the taunts from Oakland’s Black Hole crazies in the stands to flatten the Raiders.
Said Turner, “We looked at this as a business trip. We just wanted to get the job done and go back home.”
They did. Ask Hall.
If you can find him.
Permalink | | Categories: Falcons/NFL
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