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Wednesday, November 2, 2005
Falcons still an unproven quantity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The Falcons aren’t as good as their record, but they’re better than they’ve played. They’re where they need to be, but they’re not yet what they’ll have to be. They could wind up with home-field advantage come January, but they could also miss the playoffs.
Is this doublespeak? Not really. Here’s Rich McKay, the general manager: “We’re a still-unproven 5-2 team.”
That beats the heck out of being a proven 1-6 team, but knowing what the Falcons are doesn’t tell us where they’re going. They’ve dropped hints, yes. They beat Philadelphia on the season’s first Monday night, but that’s their only victory over a team carrying a winning record. And the more they’ve played, the less they’ve impressed.
They have the 28th-best passing offense and the 23rd-ranked defense in a 32-team league. Those aren’t nearly Super Bowl numbers, and they really don’t compute. The Falcons have a quarterback with a great left arm and a defense that was supposed to be nastier than last season’s.
The Falcons are 5-2 because they still run the ball better than anyone else and because both their quarterback and their defense have made just enough plays to win. And circumstances have had their mitigating effect, as circumstances will. Michael Vick hasn’t been fully himself since the Philly opener, and the defense took a hit when Ed Hartwell was lost.
Still, you wouldn’t expect a defense that saw only four backs have 100-yard days against it last season to have been nicked for three such games already. (Or to have yielded 211 rushing yards to the Saints, who were without Deuce McAllister.) And you wouldn’t expect any competent starting quarterback to have gone into November without a 200-yard game passing, but that’s what Vick, who’s being paid to be a superstar, has done.
The most troubling sign of 2005 could be found in the narrow loss to New England. Matt Schaub threw for 298 yards that day, and his performance suggested that not everything wrong with the passing game can be pinned on Dez White. If Schaub can do it, Vick should be able to do it. While it’s right and proper to praise Vick for making plays other quarterbacks can’t, it’s not unreasonable to expect him to do the things an NFL quarterback should — like complete the occasional downfield pass.
We all proclaimed the schedule front-loaded, which goes to show how schedules can mislead. The tale of the Falcons’ season wasn’t told in the first five weeks, as we’d anticipated, but will be written in the upcoming home-and-homes against Carolina and Tampa Bay, both of which are likewise 5-2. Win three of those four games and the Falcons will be playing for the NFC’s No. 1 seed. Lose three of those four and they might not grab a wild card. To win such games, the Falcons will have to show more than they have to date.
“Internally, we know that,” McKay says. “And I like that… . I don’t think anybody in our building thinks we can play the way we have the last seven games in these next seven games.”
Vick might not be the most precise passer since Ken Anderson, but he should complete more than 52.4 percent of his throws. This defense might not be the second coming of Buddy Ryan’s Bears, but it should be able to stop the run. The nice thing about these Falcons is that, for a change, there’s no lack of wherewithal. The assembled talent simply has to play to its capacity.
“We’re a work in progress,” McKay says. “We’ve teased you with our upside, but we haven’t played to our full potential. And we’re still 5-2.”
They are. But to get to 12-4 or even 10-6, more will be required. More very soon.
Permalink | Comments (49) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
PGA shouldn’t tinker with schedule
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Gentlemen, rev up your engines. The PGA Tour is about to go NASCAR. I think, though I’m not quite sure in just what direction it’s heading, nor, one gathers from his press conference at East Lake Golf Club yesterday, neither is Commissioner Tim Finchem. “Just generally,” he said, “there will be a point system.”
And his State of the Tour commentary was peppered with such phrases as “we’re not in position to announce details,” and “that’s something we’ll be discussing,” and “we’re not through with that process yet.”
That is not to be interpreted as indecision, but that there are decisions to be made, and not dealt with frivolously.
What the commissioner is concerned about is that the PGA Tour does not have its grand climax. No World Series, no Super Bowl, no Final Four event to get the world all balled up in a big dither. That was the idea behind the Tour Championship, but truth to tell, it has become more anti-climax than climax. After years of meandering, it couldn’t have settled in a more suitable home. East Lake. Bobby Jones. Donald Ross course with a Rees Jones touch-up. And behind it, a surge of regional enthusiasm spearheaded by the vigorous Tom Cousins, backed up by Coca-Cola and the Southern Co. But it hasn’t taken off in full flight, as Finchem and golf in general had anticipated. It ran head-on into the football season, and football gobbles up television time and audiences. The purse is nice, $6.5-million for a field of 30, but not enough to attract even the full 30 this year. Phil Mickelson decided not to come here, where in 2000, he set what is still the 72-hole record for the event. Finchem was disappointed. So was Mickelson’s press chief, T.R. Reinman, who simply said, “He said he just didn’t feel like playing any more golf right now.”
This year, the NASCAR world decided to put in a sort of second season, with points to be contested. The jury is still out on that. But that’s what Finchem has in mind for the tour, a tour within the tour. If the commissioner himself wasn’t in position to explain it yet, I’m surely not able to. But what it seems to boil down to is that a series of tournaments leading up to the Tour Championship will cap off the season in September. But not so fast there. The season still wouldn’t be over yet. There would be some tournaments following, and in essence, they would be playing the end of one season and the beginning of the next at the same time. If you’re expecting more, I’m sorry. That’s about as far as I can go, but basically, Finchem is grasping for something to keep the tour from falling off the board in the fall.
Tournament golf has taken a lot of remodeling in recent years. I’m not positive that this series of World Championship events has all the continents in a tizzy of enthusiasm. It isn’t easy to get the American side zeroed in on tournaments played at Valderrama, Victoria Clube de Golf, Mount Juliet Conrad, and such venues that read like mystery titles. The World Cup, for instance, has lost its identity.
What amounts to a successful tournament in the USA is one with Tiger Woods in the field. A student of the game suggested the other day, “Why don’t they just have a Tiger Tour, just those tournaments in which he plays?” Just a few feet from me a group of people, presumably in town for the Tour Championship, are gabbing away. You know what they’re talking about? Football. Don’t they realize this is golf season?
It has been my impression that the PGA Tour already had the best point system in the world — earnings. That pretty much covers everything, it seems. You finish in the top 125, you’re in business for next year. But it’s the fall depression that has the commissioner bothered, realizing, I’m sure, that he is dealing in a world of self-oriented contractors. So Independent Contractor Mickelson stays home.
So this is it, as Finchem sees it: “It needs to be a system that encourages players to play more.”
If money isn’t enough, God knows what is.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf, Other
Better late than never for NFL to back N.O.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
It took a while, but Paul Tagliabue is doing what he should have done two months ago regarding the New Orleans (as opposed to the San Antonio or Los Angeles) Saints. That is, the NFL commissioner actually is helping rather than hurting them.
Remember? Back then, after the Saints were scattered by Hurricane Katrina, Tagliabue decided to have the Saints play a “home” game against the New York Giants on the road. It contributed to the Saints’ current slide into purgatory. If you didn’t know better, you’d have thought Tagliabue really was preparing to send the Saints elsewhere.
It also didn’t bode well for New Orleans that ruthless Saints owner Tom Benson kept hinting by his silence that he might take the team to San Antonio, where he has a home, or to Los Angeles, where the NFL makes no secret that it wants a new team someday.
Just the talk of moving the franchise hurts all of those associated with the Saints (players, executives, fans), especially given the emotional turmoil associated with the hurricane.
Now listen to Tagliabue, who said on Monday, “The Saints are Louisiana’s team and have been since the late ’60s when my predecessor, Pete Rozelle, welcomed them to the league as New Orleans’ team and Lousiana’s team. Our focus continues to be on having the Saints in Louisiana.”
Case closed. If Benson doesn’t like it, he always can sell to the highest bidder and do his famous “Boogie” out of town.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
