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Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Infield pair consistently rises
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Sometimes it’s the smallest cog that makes the wheels of a giant machine go round. Sometimes the same can be said of the human pieces of an athletic team. The Albie Pearsons of baseball, the Spud Webbs of basketball and the Warrick Dunns of football can be lost in the roiling scene.
But let it not be so with the Braves. Andruw Jones can already hear the drums beating his 50-home run melody, though think back, if you will, to when there was talk among restless fans of trading him while he was going 0-for-30 or so in early season. Perish the memory. Chipper Jones plays his role as Leader of the Team, as a veteran should. John Smoltz has successfully made the re-conversion from bullpen to starter, and the roll call goes on.
And, of course, who among us has not have been caught up in the clamor for Jeff Francoeur, Ryan Langerhans, Kelly Johnson, and the special kid who has aged in a hurry, Brian McCann, the catcher. (Frankly, why the trade for Todd Hollandsworth I’ll never understand, but I’m probably not supposed to.)
You may have those Herculean dudes who hit it out of the park. How long does a home run take, five, six seconds? Give me that action around the middle bag.
I’d say if you take the pulse of these Braves, you begin around second base. Day after day, it’s Rafael Furcal or Marcus Giles, Giles or Furcal filling in the blanks when, perhaps, all may seem lost. They fit like a hand in a glove. Put the two of them together, they probably wouldn’t add up to one good-sized NFL tackle.
How many times in late innings, the Braves needing a jolt to get back into the game, have you not seen Furcal lay down and beat out a bunt that incites a rally? Or Giles catch a sweet pitch and deliver a two-base hit, his specialty, or hit one into the seats, turning a game around?
They are the two smallest players on the team. They show little respect for their bodies. Giles has the sawed-off stature of a sturdy stump. He punishes himself. You recall last year when he lost one-third of the season butting heads with Andruw Jones diving for a pop-up.
Furcal and the fans had to make peace at the start. He had fences to mend. He had to live down a taste for alcohol, with two DUIs hanging overhead. Furcal got out to a sputtering start and after a month was hitting only .228 and has had to take time off to give a battered shoulder some rest. Ye gods, how many times has he virtually disappeared from the field, deep in the hole to cut down runners at first?
Because they come in small packages, they aren’t afraid to swing for the fences. Between them, they have hit 21 home runs before Tuesday’s game. Oh, I know, Andruw has more than doubled that number, but he’s supposed to. Between them, they have driven in 107 runs before Tuesday’s game â€â€? remember we’re talking about the two leadoff hitters â€â€? and Andruw has more than doubled that, but he’s supposed to.
How many times have you seen Giles barrel into second base, breaking up double plays? Or look a charging runner in the eye and finish off one.
Of course, when you speak of Giles now you must replay the vision of his dash from second to home on an infield out, again against Pedro Martinez and the clueless Mets. He took off in a sprint, rounded third like a dervish and never even had to slide while the addled Mets stood around scratching.
There may be another combination around the league with more impressive numbers, but I’ll pledge this â€â€? they don’t mean as much to their team as this pair. It doesn’t take much space to give Furcal and Giles, Giles and Furcal their just due, and so I have. Here’s to power, but just don’t forget them when you begin to consider who’s Most Valuable. The league is Andruw’s territory. We’re talking team here.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Revamped Thrashers still need Kovalchuk
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
This is how we know things have changed: You watch the first day of practice and the biggest debate isn’t over who centers the power play in Atlanta and who gets boxed and sent to the Chicago Wolves. Because it used to be there wasn’t much difference between the two.
We know things have changed for the Thrashers when Peter Bondra â€â€? a former 50-goal scorer looking for one last playoff run before retirement â€â€? doesn’t guffaw and double his salary demands when the little team from Atlanta shows interest. In fact, as guarantees go, Bondra pretty much halves salary demands to fit into the Thrashers’ budget and rolls the rest of his demands into incentive bonuses.
“As a free agent, you think, ‘Wow, they’re really building something there,’” Bondra said Tuesday. “It wasn’t about salary for me. I wanted to play for a winning team.”
That being significant because the Thrashers have never finished with a winning record.
So almost everything about the Thrashers has changed for the better. Everything except this: Their best player was in Russia Tuesday. If you’re prepping for the neighborhood Russian Super League Fantasy League Draft, Ilya Kovalchuk toils for Khimik Voskresensk.
Kovalchuk is unsigned. General manager Don Waddell, trying to dance around numbers at one point Tuesday, said: “We’re several times several times several millions” apart. (It’s the new math.)
Agent Jay Grossman said of his client possibly being signed before the Oct. 5 start of the season: “Right now, it doesn’t look good at all.” (It’s the old rhetoric.)
In most ways, this is like any other contract negotiation. In at least one way for the Thrashers, it’s very different. Kovalchuk and Dany Heatley were the faces of this franchise for three seasons. They were expected to be the faces for a long time. Now Heatley is gone and Kovalchuk is missing.
The Thrashers will tell you, in so many words, “We’re good without Kovalchuk. We’re better with him.”
But to minimize Kovalchuk’s absence is nonsensical. He is this franchise’s franchise player. That doesn’t mean Bobby Holik, Marian Hossa and Bondra aren’t fabulous additions. But over the next five years, chances are no player will score more goals than Kovalchuk. Certainly, no Thrasher will.
You can’t lose him because you can’t replace him.
There is a salary cap in the NHL, but the flip side is it’s more crucial now than ever for teams to lock up the one or two star restricted free agents on their rosters. Even Waddell, who is sitting on the other side in negotiations, said of Kovalchuk: “I won’t knock the player. I love the player. I know that he wants to be the top player in the NHL, and I’m excited by that.”
But if a deal doesn’t get done by Oct. 5, it probably won’t get done this season. Kovalchuk will play in Russia. Some might view that possibility as: 2 percent reality, 98 percent empty threat. You shouldn’t. As much as the kid likes the Thrashers’ future, wants to play in the NHL and live in the U.S., he appears willing to let his agent guide him.
Newsflash: When it comes to hardball tactics, Grossman is at least Waddell’s equivalent. He held out a starting goalie (Nikolai Khabibulin) for nearly two full seasons, eventually forcing a trade from Phoenix to Tampa Bay. Khabibulin led the Lightning to the Stanley Cup in 2003-04. Subsequent contract demands led Tampa to let him go. Now he’s in Chicago.
Kovalchuk has leverage that Khabibulin didn’t have in 1999. The goalie played part of one season in the IHL during his holdout and made $50,000. Now, unlike six years ago, Russian teams will sign elite players to seven-figure deals.
Waddell still believes this will get done. Maybe. The Thrashers’ last five-year offer was worth about $28 million. Grossman’s last request was closer to $35 million. The two sides can meet in the middle at $31.5, enabling Kovalchuk to still average $7 million in the last two years of the contract (his first two years of would-be free agency).
But the question is not who blinks first. It’s whether Kovalchuk blinks at all.
Otherwise, improvements not withstanding, the Thrashers could resemble a shiny new tower without a roof.
Permalink | Comments (30) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Thrashers / NHL
New Vick’s improved, more confident
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Two days before the Falcons’ season opener, Michael Vick provided his teammates with some unintentional comic relief. As he stepped to the line to run a play in practice, the quarterback mistakenly lined up behind left guard Matt Lehr for the snap. Linemen all look the same from that angle.
Players laughed, coaches laughed, Vick laughed. But with those laughs came a confidence that things would evolve differently Monday against Philadelphia than they did in January. The belief was the quarterback didn’t have to be perfect. He just had to be better, and he would be.
Vick wasn’t perfect Monday night. He was just better.
He was sacked four times. He had three turnovers (one interception and two fumbles). But he also made his teammates smile, and it had nothing to do with standing behind the left guard.
In the first quarter, Vick connected with Michael Jenkins for 58 yards to set up one touchdown, and he ran 7 yards — capped by a 2-yard victory leap — for another. The 14-0 lead held up. The Falcons won 14-10 over the Eagles to jump-start the 2005 season and at least ease some of the pain following their NFC title game loss in Philadelphia.
“This is the NFL — some games back and forth,â€? Vick said. “The best team will handle those situations and come through in the clutch.
“It goes to show how far we’ve come since 2004.�
That makes Vick 24-12-1 as a starter, flaws and all.
Funny thing about flaws. They don’t look as bad when you’re winning twice as many games as you’re losing.
We saw both sides of Vick early. On the Falcons’ first possession, he kept a drive alive by dancing away from Eagles and scrambling 8 yards on a third-and-6 for a first down. But three plays later, on first down from the Eagles’ 30, he underthrew tight end Alge Crumpler, and the pass was picked off by Brian Dawkins. On the next possession, the Falcons faced a third-and-22. This time, Vick had Michael Jenkins open over the middle for a possible first down — but he overthrew him.
But if there has been one constant about Vick in his career, it’s that a string of bad plays can be followed by the ESPN moment without warning. So it was Monday: Two bad drives were followed by two touchdowns.
With the game still scoreless, Vick opened the Falcons’ third possession by connecting with Jenkins for 18 yards at the Eagles’ 40. Four plays later, he ran away from the pass rush to buy time, then hit Crumpler for 18 yards to move the ball to the 7.
On the next play, Vick took the snap, rolled right, raised his hand at the 10 as if to clear air traffic, ran to the 2, then became airborne and didn’t come down until the Falcons had a 7-0 lead.
Next possession. Vick runs play-action with T.J. Duckett, then lofts a pass 58 yards down field for Jenkins, who has given this team a receiving threat. Duckett rammed into the end zone on the next play from the 1 for a 14-0 lead.
Last summer, the Falcons were so paranoid coming off Vick’s “Broken Leg Season� that he took only 29 snaps in exhibition games. It probably retarded his development. His quarterback rating: 14.6. Giving weight to exhibition statistics generally is ill-advised, but it was difficult to ignore the contrast of this summer compared to the last one. Vick played in all five exhibition games. He completed 17 of 29 for 191 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. The efficiency rating: 87.0.
“The best thing that Mike did this training camp is he got better every day,â€? general manager Rich McKay said. “He’s more comfortable, and that’s because he’s had a lot more time with this offense. Last year, you guys were asking every day, ‘How much is he going to play? Will get hurt?’ And so were we. We were kind of consumed by it. It’s like we thought something could fall out of the sky and hit him. But this camp, it never really came up. He got a lot of work. He’s better prepared.â€?
Permalink | Comments (51) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
These aren’t the Falcons of old
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
They could’ve won bigger but didn’t. They could’ve lost at the end but didn’t. They held together under duress the way a winning team must, the way — dare we say it? — a champion does. They beat the reigning NFC titlist because they were stronger at the end and more poised throughout. They took the step they needed to take, and today we look at the Falcons a bit differently than we did at 9 p.m. Monday. We look at them as a team capable of facing a great team and winning a statement game.
No, it was no classic. Statement games often aren’t. Statement games sometimes come down to brute force, as opposed to pretty offensive curlicues. And that’s the thing about football: Brute force can carry you a long way. On this night, brute force prevailed when all else failed.
Billed as the biggest regular-season home game in franchise history, both sides came unstuck a half-hour before it actually began. Jeremiah Trotter, the Eagles’ Pro Bowl linebacker, got into a grabbing/shoving match with Kevin Mathis, the Falcons’ nickel back, and this bit of silliness drew the earliest penalty flag (and subsequent use of instant replay) in NFL history.
The dual ejections amounted to a huge net victory for the Falcons, who figured to run a lot anyway and ran even more with the unexpected absence of Philly’s best run-stuffer. The Falcons hit the ground running, no pun intended, rushing for 200 yards and seizing a two-touchdown lead. They were the aggressors early, and what happened early was key in a game that fell to pieces the longer these two vaunted offenses contrived to work.
It was 14-7 after a first half that lasted so long it seemed a game unto itself. The Falcons didn’t score again — actually, T.J. Duckett broached the goal line but the touchdown was nullified by Todd McClure’s holding penalty — and seemed to have set themselves up to lose at the end. Inside the final nine minutes, the offense went three-and-out, then four-and-out. Duckett couldn’t gain a yard on third-and-1 from the Atlanta 49. The resulting punt was the percentage choice, if not the popular one inside the Dome, and the NFC champs took the ball at their 24 with 3:54 left, the game theirs to win.
And the NFC champs couldn’t. They couldn’t even cross midfield. DeAngelo Hall locked up Terrell Owens, considered one of the game’s two greatest receivers, and Rod Coleman pretty much controlled everything and everyone else. Coleman batted down Donovan McNabb’s pass on the final Philly series, and then on the Eagles’ last snap he crashed up the middle and forced the Pro Bowl pick to throw too soon, and that was that. A game billed as a collision of sleek offensive types — Vick and McNabb and Owens â€â€? had been decided by an unyielding defense and a big ol’ defensive tackle.
“I thought the defense played pretty daggone good,� said Hall, who was daggone good himself. “[The defense] just picked up the slack.�
And now things change for the franchise that has worked 39 seasons without posting consecutive winning records. They won on Monday night, something at which the Falcons have been historically awful, and they faced down a team that has itself faced down the rest of the NFC. This isn’t to say the Falcons are now the class of the conference, but they stand even taller today than they did in preseason.
It was just one game, but it was more than one game. It was a night of nerves and imprecision, but ultimately it was the night the Falcons gave the regal Eagles every chance to win and snatched back every one. The flawed Falcons of old wouldn’t have won this game, which only underscores the greater point: These aren’t the Falcons of old. These Falcons are better than they’ve ever been.
Permalink | Comments (34) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
