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Monday, August 21, 2006
Falcons need a decent exhibition
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Flowery Branch — These are exhibitions. The safety who is supposed to be over here, but for some reason is floating over there, playing cover-2 near his next job in the Wendy’s drive-thru, he’ll be gone soon. I know. I get that.
But when a football team is coming off a season in which it looked embarrassingly shreddable against the run, when it wasn’t looking exceedingly credible against the pass, don’t you want to see more?
Exhibition-game statistics can be as accurate a gauge as campaign promises. I know. I get that. There’s no game-planning. Starters don’t play much. When they play at all. When they care at all. It’s not about wins and losses. It’s about player evaluation and coercing season-ticket holders into buying pressboard furniture at the cost of mahogany.
But 61 points in two games? Last in scoring defense? Next to last in total defense? Twenty-eighth in opponents’ yards-per-carry? Shouldn’t we expect something just a little bit better?
“I see good things — I guess you don’t,” Jim Mora said Monday. “I don’t want to say I’m happy, we’re there, we’re the best in the world. But we have a very good scheme, and our players are growing in it. We have a lot of work to do, but we’re getting the work done. We’ll be fine.”
Not-so-meaningless game No. 3 is coming up. If the Falcons are going to be “fine,” it’s time to at least buy an “f,” not grade out like one.
This has been an interesting summer for Mora. A 2-6 finish last season put him back in the prove-yourself category. There has been a noticeable difference in this training camp from the last. Things are a little tougher, a little louder.
And Mora — he has been more pointed in his criticism. Just off this past week’s shellacking in Green Bay, the Falcons coach made a passing reference to rookie cornerback Jimmy Williams’ “god-awful performance” (though he said it in the nicest possible way); said of rookie running back Jerious Norwood, “Frankly, he didn’t show up;” echoed that “nobody has stepped up” at nose tackle; and reaffirmed, “We don’t have a No. 3 receiver” (which must be wonderful news to No. 3 receiver Jerome Pathon).
The frankness has been refreshing, if not unnerving.
“I’ve probably been a little bit more [open about things],” Mora said. “I haven’t been told to be. It’s just part of my learning curve. I’ve learned what I can say and what I can’t say. I don’t really like to call guys out, and it’s really nothing I haven’t told the guys directly. But, like the nose tackle position — it’s an issue. Maybe I’m just being more realistic and not as protective. But I’m just telling the truth.”
So when Mora says, “I think we’ll be fine on defense,” I’m assuming he really believes that. But if Tennessee drills several holes in the Falcons Saturday in Nashville, the last thing anybody should say is: It doesn’t matter.
Third exhibitions may not count for much when we get to Week 1, but it’s as close as we get to a season preview. The starters will play at least a half — and just because coaches don’t scheme doesn’t mean players can’t function.
The Falcons defense is spotted with newbies: John Abraham, Lawyer Milloy, Chris Crocker, Williams. Ed Hartwell is relatively new, having missed most of last season. Any time there are that many new faces, you can’t just assume timing and chemistry are around the corner.
Mora doesn’t believe the defense is as far off as others do. He points to some big plays — including Abraham’s sack/forced fumble against New England and Crocker’s early-game leveling of a Packer — and the generally solid play of the starters. But he acknowledges the expectations go up this week.
“I want to see more consistent play,” he said. “We had a good first series against Green Bay. I want to see another series like that, except I want to see three or four in a row. But the one way we’re going to find out where we are is to have the right guys in there.”
Which tells you if things don’t go well, the right guys may be the wrong guys.
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