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Sunday, October 1, 2006
Falcons offense leaves a lot to be desired
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
It took until the fourth week of the season, but the Falcons finally made it through a game Sunday without having a field goal attempt blocked.
Maybe these aren’t the usual baby steps an NFL team makes on the way to a Super Bowl. But given that they’re 3-1 despite possessing arguably the league’s most bewildering offense, who can know where this leads?
“We realize the main thing is always to try to figure out how to win the game,” Warrick Dunn said. “But … “
Yeah. But.
The Falcons beat a bad team Sunday. That is what they were supposed to do. Six days after playing the role of piñata for New Orleans’ homecoming game, the Falcons came home and dumped the Arizona Cardinals 32-10 at the Georgia Dome.
In times such as these for Atlanta’s offense, it’s good to have opponents like Arizona, at least until you can get Duke on the schedule. The Cardinals didn’t break 100 yards in offense until the third quarter. They fumbled three times. They turned it over four times. Somewhere in there, I think they also accidentally used the gunpowder instead of Bisquick to make the pancakes. (Poof.)
Now, there are two ways to look at almost everything. It would be easy to merely deduce that Sunday was a phenomenal day for the Falcons defense, although I suspect facing the scorched remains of Kurt Warner might’ve helped.
And, yes, it was a great day to be a Falcons placekicker. Morten Andersen made five field goals.
Even more amazing, Michael Koenen made one.
But there is only one way to view the Falcons offense right now: with your back turned.
Asked Sunday if his team’s red-zone offense has regressed recently, coach Jim Mora didn’t even try to throw a sheet over the mess.
“I don’t know that we had room to regress,” he said. “That’ll kill Greg [Knapp] to hear that.”
If not, the replays are certain to paralyze Knapp. It should be quite a viewing party during the bye week. Game tapes. Popcorn. Hemlock.
The Falcons offense had six red-zone possessions against the Cardinals. Those drives resulted in five field goals and a Michael Vick interception that Arizona’s Adrian Wilson returned a furlong for a touchdown.
Red zone: meet dead zone. For the season, the Falcons have converted only three of 17 red-zone possessions into touchdowns. Actually, the offense has produced only one touchdown in the last 10 quarters — that being rookie Jerious Norwood’s franchise-record 78-yard scoring run in the fourth quarter. (And on that subject: Where was Norwood the first three quarters?)
It’s one thing to not get better. It’s another to be getting worse. The Falcons finished with 405 yards in offense, but their first three possessions best summed up the state of things. They started on the Cardinals’ 23 and 49 and their own 33. They kicked three field goals. They netted 74 yards — 52 coming on two Vick runs.
“It was frustrating,” Mora said. “I felt it at halftime.” Also the four quarters around it.
At this point, you remind yourself that the Falcons are 3-1. They have a bye week to rest bodies, maybe light a candle and take a cleansing breath.
But something needs to be fixed, because whatever plays are being called in the dirt aren’t working — and it’s not the fault of the dirt or the stick being used to draw them.
“I know the way teams are probably looking at us now,” Dunn said. “They’re probably thinking, ‘Well, they have an explosive offense. But if we can just get them down into the red zone, we can stop them.’ I know that’s what I’d be thinking.”
The Falcons can run Vick on a bootleg only so many times. Even the old standby, Vick-to-Alge Crumpler, isn’t working. The tight end didn’t have a catch until 19 seconds remained in the half (that going for zero yards).
Passes have been overthrown, underthrown or dropped (Crumpler dropped at least two more Sunday). Blocks have been missed.
A lot of words could describe the Falcons offense now. “Flowing” isn’t one of them.
But they have three wins and a week off. Also, lest you forget: “About two weeks ago, we couldn’t put a field goal through the uprights,” Mora said.
For now, that will have to suffice as smack talk.
Permalink | Comments (128) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Identity crisis for Dogs’ offense
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Oxford, Miss. — They’d played nobody, and twice in a row they’ve gotten away with playing like a bunch of nobodies. The Georgia Bulldogs came agonizingly close to losing to a really bad team last week, and they did it again here Saturday night. What happens when they actually face somebody good?
Here it is barely October, and already Georgia is looking like the least impressive 5-0 team in the land if not in the history of football. A week after nearly losing to winless Colorado at home, the Bulldogs came here and spent a half allowing Ole Miss — which had lost consecutive games to basketball schools Missouri, Kentucky and Wake Forest by an aggregate 68 points — to seem the stronger side.
And them, after rousing themselves and mustering 14 points — the same number they’d scored against Colorado — the Bulldogs needed a late Paul Oliver interception to stave off the Rebels. Yeah, Georgia won, but they’re going to have to start playing to their talent level or they’re going to wind up 8-4.
Here it is October, and Georgia has found answers to almost none of its questions. The Bulldogs haven’t settled on a quarterback — of the four in preseason competition, three have started games — and haven’t found a tailback or a receiver or an offensive line. They do have a defense that remains this program’s saving grace, but 14 points won’t beat Auburn or Florida or Georgia Tech, and 14 points probably won’t beat Tennessee.
This might have been the least rousing victory of the Mark Richt era. That the Rebels led only 3-0 at halftime had more to do with their mistakes than any Georgia brilliance. Indeed, the Bulldogs contrived to have two punts blocked in the same half, but they regained possession after the first block due to an Ole Miss holding penalty that changed field position by a staggering 90 yards. And twice the Rebels’ Brent Schaeffer took his team out of field-goal range by getting sacked.
Having slipped so many punches, you’d have figured Georgia would get down to the business of beating a bad team. Astonishingly, the Bulldogs managed just 66 yards and four first downs in the first half. Joe Cox, who saved the day against Colorado and who started Saturday night, presided over three of the first downs. Matthew Stafford, who three weeks ago was being touted as the No. 1 pick in some future NFL draft, couldn’t generate a single one.
And now we’re seeing why Richt’s preseason decision on his quarterbacks was such a hairbreadth thing. The ones who are gifted (Stafford, Cox) really aren’t ready, and the one closest to being ready (the since-injured Joe Tereshinski III) isn’t all that gifted.
To his credit, Stafford worked the entire second half and steered Georgia to both its touchdowns. But the first surge was accomplished without benefit of a completion — Stafford had a key scramble, and Kregg Lumpkin, who should be an every-down back, did almost all the rest — and the second featured only one (Demiko Goodman down the sideline). Yeah, the freshman throws a nice ball, but not many of those balls are getting caught.
Five games in, Georgia hasn’t yet authored a performance that suggests it belongs in the Top 10. That the Bulldogs made it through September unbeaten says less about them than about the level of opposition. And that’s about to change.
Tennessee comes to Sanford Stadium next week, and the Vols have already played two teams (California, Florida) of stature. The nice thing about playing nobodies is that you fluff up your record and your ranking, but a record built on the bodies of nobodies can be fool’s gold.
The Bulldogs approach the season’s midpoint without knowing how good they are. Or how good they aren’t.
Permalink | Comments (117) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
