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Saturday, April 29, 2006
Type A corner alters Falcons’ D
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Flowery Branch — If you take the stairs up to the second floor of offices at Falcons headquarters, you will find a picture of Ray Nitschke hanging on the general manager’s wall.
The same picture is hanging in the head coach’s office.
And the defensive coordinator’s office.
And the college scouting director’s office.
Didn’t check the cafeteria. But I’m assuming Rich McKay has been grazing at the Ray Nitschke Salad Bar this offseason.
“Arthur [Blank] sent all of us pictures of Nitschke in February,” McKay said Saturday. “We had a meeting after the season, and we felt that one problem we had was teams got more physical with us than we did with them. So this year our focus had to be the defensive side of the ball and bringing some players who had the physical attitude.”
The Falcons didn’t draft another Nitschke on Saturday. To the contrary, they took a smack-talking, head-slapping cornerback from Virginia Tech, Jimmy Williams, who reportedly already has put in an order for a $250,000, customized gold Lamborghini, according to a Hampton Roads newspaper. (Nitschke’s Lamborghini was green.)
But what they have done this offseason is reaffirm what a mess they were last year. They played 16 games, few of them particularly well. When they had passion, it was smothered by mistakes. When they were in position to make a play, they were soft and run over.
They didn’t remind anybody of Nitschke or the old Green Bay Packers, unless we’re talking about today — dead or in their 70s.
So McKay and his staff set out to fix the defense. He traded up 10 spots in the second round to take Williams, who with DeAngelo Hall gives the Falcons two strong and athletic bookend Hokies. (Jason Webster at the very least drops down the depth chart.) This follows the acquisitions of defensive end John Abraham and safeties Lawyer Milloy and Chris Crocker (and the excommunication of safety Bryan Scott).
The Falcons’ defense needed more than a few Botox injections. It needed a personality transplant.
Look around the NFC South. Carolina added wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson to start opposite Steve Smith, and drafted talented rusher DeAngelo Williams out of Memphis. The makeover of the New Orleans Saints includes Reggie Bush and Drew Brees. Tampa Bay strengthened its offensive line, drafting guard Davin Joseph.
The schedule this season also includes games vs. Dallas (Terrell Owens), Arizona (Edgerrin James and Matt Leinart), Detroit (whose offense is not being run by Mike Martz) and Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh (which drafted Ohio State receiver Santonio Holmes).
Shouldn’t there be some sort of consolation for having the league’s 26th-ranked defense against the run?
McKay says, “We got lucky.” He didn’t believe Williams would last as long as he did.
“We needed that big, physical corner, especially when you look in the division and see what you’re gonna have in New Orleans, and with what you already have in Carolina and Tampa. We have to be tough. We have to make it so that other teams don’t want to play against us.”
Williams was upset he wasn’t drafted earlier. He said he even started praying when he didn’t go in the first 12 picks, and left his hotel room in Hampton, Va., when he was still on the board after 22 selections.
But the fact that he dropped wasn’t a huge surprise. Some teams reportedly were turned off at some weight gain and his attitude at the combine (he didn’t participate in most drills). He also was ejected from the Gator Bowl game last year. Coach Frank Beamer also banned him from interviews the entire 2004 season for saying he was going to shut down USC’s Mike Williams.
But none of that fazed McKay — if anything, the draft-day decline kick-started Williams.
“I want to show the other 31 teams and the other eight defensive backs who went before me [they were wrong],” he said. “That’s motivation for me to prove why I was a unanimous All-American.”
That’s a motivated Falcon.
Game film from last year should motivate the rest.
Permalink | Comments (176) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Braves must grow up fast
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
There are no signs of anarchy, and none of those working in the home clubhouse at Turner Field on Saturday night were rushing to hide all of the sharp objects. Still, with the New York Mets just another victory shy of pushing the sinking Braves deeper into oblivion, Kyle Davies is among those a few decades younger than Julio Franco with something to prove.
Well, two things, really: Can Davies spend today doing anything close to his pitching gem of nine innings last week at Shea Stadium against the Mets, and will he show that the cuteness that was last year’s Baby Braves isn’t totally gone despite the ugliness that has become their evolution into the slumping toddlers?
After all, the dogwoods only recently stopped blooming, and the Braves already are seven games out.
“We’ve talked about having a little more fun out there, because it seems like whenever you get into a little rut like this, guys may be pressing a bit and trying to do too much,” said Davies, the Stockbridge native who was one of the five Braves rookies last season from the Atlanta area. “We just have to have fun, play loose out there and just relax. Those were the things that we did so great last year.”
This isn’t “last year” for the Braves in general and those younger Braves in particular. In general, the Braves can’t win, whether you’re talking about those toddlers or the old geezers.
The Mets’ 1-0 victory Saturday came as a result of the Braves’ ongoing inability to respond in the clutch at the plate. In contrast, the Mets are threatening to blow away the rest of the National League East with everything they’ve shown so far during their past two games: timely hitting, opportune pitching, wonderful defense and the ability to kick the fright out of their previous bogeyman from Atlanta.
Not that the Braves are panicking or anything. That doesn’t happen in a Bobby Cox clubhouse — not even with its overwhelming youth right now.
“The confidence that Bobby displays to everybody, it almost makes you feel like, ‘Everything’s fine. We’re going to get out of this.’ We’re going to hit the ball, and we’re going to score runs, and we’re going to pitch the ball well,” said outfielder Ryan Langerhans, another one of those toddlers whose bat has made the gradual transition from fire to ice. “You look around the clubhouse, and we have a great club, and it’s just a matter of time before all of that stuff starts clicking together.”
Thus the question: Will that stuff start clicking together? I mean, you can do all sorts of shockingly wonderful things in baseball, especially when you have more than a little talent and nobody expects much from you. See those Baby Braves, for instance, the 18 rookies who zipped out of nowhere last season to help a roster filled with battered and bruised veterans extend the franchise’s record streak to 14 consecutive division titles.
Now that the diapers are off, those Baby Braves aren’t sneaking up on folks anymore. You can tell as much since you need a microscope to see Jeff Francoeur’s batting average. If you didn’t know better, you’d think that Francoeur and the slew of his teammates barely over Georgia’s legal drinking age are starting to feel the major league pressure of everything. The need to continue the Braves’ streak of excellence. Pitchers adjusting to their swings, and hitters adjusting to their pitches. An April slump that is flirting with May.
The streaking Mets.
Speaking of which, courtesy of the Mets taking the first two games of this series, the Braves have lost six of seven, and they have their first five-game losing streak since Francoeur was starting his senior year at Parkview High School. That was August 2001, which means the tension was sort of high for Francoeur when he became the only member of last year’s Baby Braves in the starting lineup for this one.
“You know, it’s a nervous feeling, but it’s not fear. It’s exciting. There’s a difference. When you play in big games like last year during the playoffs, I was nervous and had butterflies, but it was good butterflies,” said Francoeur, relaxing in the home dugout before the game. As for during the game, he flied out twice, grounded out and struck out to seal the Mets’ victory.
Uh-oh.
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
Baseball life on the farm
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Rome — Not a person in the ballpark realized, or cared, that their team is owned by a corporation named Time Warner. And that a deal hangs fire that might transfer their local Braves to another corporation named Liberty Media, an exchange in which the Rome Braves figure little more than a drop in the ocean.
This is minor league baseball, Class A, a cog in a wheel. Rome plays in the South Atlantic League, which sprawls from Lakewood, N.J., to Columbus, Ga., detouring through Ohio and West Virginia on the way. It’s actually two leagues within a league, 16 teams playing in two divisions. This team plays the part of baby sitter, mother hen watching out over a brood. Some will make it to the Big Daddy Braves in Atlanta. Three seasons ago Jeff Francoeur, Brian McCann and Kyle Davies were Rome Braves. Most of the others are still trying to claw their way up the ladder.
State Mutual is a cozy little dell, built to major league specifications, a miniature of Turner Field, they tell you. Great place to relax a few hours. All the luxuries of the major leagues with only minor league hassle. Suites and catering and an elevator and unpretentious people. Barrel racing, a beach club and a home run hill, and I saw a man wearing a John Rocker jersey, 49.
It’s roomy, too, from home plate to the fences. Francoeur hit as many home runs in half a season with the Braves as he did all season here. The team is out of the United Nations, players from seven other countries, Australia to Canada. One of them is said to be the fastest player in the Braves organization. Five-foot-six Ovandy Suero has been clocked at 3.8 seconds from home to first. He got caught in a rundown this day, and after the ball had changed hands six times he still hadn’t been tagged. He stole 54 bases in 60 games at Danville last season, but you can’t steal your way to the big leagues.
The Braves were playing the Columbus Catfish. It was overcast and it drizzled a bit, but not enough to dampen spirits. Now, the reason for all this was the first pitch. It’s ceremonial stuff in baseball, somebody throwing out the first ball before a game. It’s an invitation for some politician or old-time player to come out and show his stuff. This time it was an old-time sportswriter, and my only aim was not to fall as short as Tommy Lasorda, nor be as wild as Dick Cheney. Lasorda was a pitcher, and his pitch didn’t travel more than 10 feet. Must have slipped. (Spitter, you think?)
I’d never done this before, and it’s not as easy as you think. Sixty feet six inches is a far piece standing out there with a baseball in hand and a catcher dimly in the distance. His name was Junior Guerra, from Venezuela, and he brilliantly fielded my breaking splitter about a foot in front of the plate.
After all, this was the first time I’d ever done such a thing, and I think my future is elsewhere.
All the important people signed the ball, especially the manager, Randy Ingle, who has the Braves out front by a mile in the Southern Division. This is Randy’s 15th season with the Braves, and he’s here because the guy before him, Rocket Wheeler, has a home near Myrtle Beach and preferred to stay close. Randy, being an obliging type, obliged him.
Now, the manager of the Catfish brings up another story. Travis Barbary came up through the Dodgers system, steeped in baseball, as he was. His grandfather was a minor league catcher named Red Barbary, subject of a chapter in the book, “Strange But True Baseball Stories.” Red had a way of needling his pitchers with stories of how he was once a star pitcher. So on the final day of the season he was given the ball and told to go pitch. He did. The game ran 22 innings, he went all the way and drove in the winning run, and in the process ruined his arm, and with it a promising career with the Washington Senators. He did get to bat one time in the big leagues. Travis carries on in the Barbary tradition.
So it was back to Frank Barron’s box, where the subject of the vagaries of thrown baseballs absorbed our throng. Does the curveball really curve, or is it an optical illusion? I defended the optical illusion theory. The R-Braves continued their drive to the pennant and I resumed my drive home. It had been a grand day.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
