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Monday, September 4, 2006
Talented roster puts heat on Mora
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Jim Mora took the Falcons to the NFC championship game in his first season and hasn’t yet finished with a losing record. That right there would seem to stamp him as one of the three best coaches in the history of this mostly forlorn franchise. But the belief here is that Mora needs to win big this fall or he might not be working for this franchise next year.
The Falcons are among the league’s 10 most talented teams. To the six Pro Bowl veterans already under contract, Rich McKay added John Abraham, Lawyer Milloy, Ashley Lelie, Chris Crocker, Jimmy Williams, Jerious Norwood and Grady Jackson. That’s the sort of bountiful offseason that comes along once in a generation. We can quibble about the youth of the starting wideouts and an offensive line that still doesn’t seem first-rate, but the cold truth is that this roster has as few personnel holes as any in the salary-capped NFL.
If you’re the coach, that’s a good thing. It becomes a bad thing only if you don’t win 10 games. “We have a sense of urgency to do better now,” Arthur Blank said before training camp convened. “We’re ready to make that move.”
The chief reason Blank hired Mora — over, say, Lovie Smith, who was the NFL’s coach of the year in 2005 — was that Mora knew exactly what he wanted to do and whom he wanted to hire as coordinators. Two years on, it’s possible to wonder if Greg Knapp and Ed Donatell are the right fits for a franchise that (a.) employs Michael Vick and (b.) is based in the hard-running NFC South. Is Knapp’s West Coast offense a proper allocation of Vick’s singular skills? Is a light-but-mobile defense apt to stop DeShaun Foster and Cadillac Williams and Mike Alstott and Deuce McAllister and Reggie Bush?
The Falcons have moved to get bigger on defense — nobody comes much bigger than the two-ton Jackson — but the matter of Vick and the WCO remains no more settled than the day Knapp was hired. (A purely geometric concern voiced by a former NFL defensive coach: The short drops required by this system don’t work as well with a smallish quarterback, Joe Montana apparently notwithstanding.) Given that Vick is without precedent, there might not be an ideal coach for him. But is Knapp even close to the optimum?
Blank was clearly frustrated with the disintegration of his beloved team last fall, and he has moved heaven and Earth to prevent a similar collapse this time. Speaking of McKay and Mora in the AJC’s preview section, Blank said: “I’ve given them the resources.” Translation: “Better win now.”
Of the two, Blank seems more comfortable with McKay than Mora, and for good reason. McKay keeps finding talent at a dizzying rate; it’s time now for Mora to make this assemblage win. He did it two seasons ago, but his inability to arrest last season’s slide made you wonder if 2004 was beginner’s luck. And certainly his tantrums and his word games — we witnessed another in the starter-less final exhibition last week — don’t fit the image Blank wants his franchise to project.
But here’s the thing: Win 10 games and the tantrums and the semantics, if not fully forgotten, will be forgiven. Bill Belichick is the antithesis of a charmer, but he’s the NFL’s best coach because he gets the maximum from his players. Mora has enough talent to be in the playoffs come January; anything less would be taken as an indication he isn’t up to the job.
Yes, Blank just extended Mora’s contract through 2009, but this owner has the means to buy out a contract extended through 2099 if he chooses. It didn’t take long for Blank to sour on Dan Reeves — one broken leg and one lost season — and Mora, for all his cleverness, hasn’t done half the things his predecessor did in the NFL. If he wants his tenure here to last into 2007 and beyond, he’d better win 10 games in 2006. Otherwise the boss could throw a tantrum of his own.
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