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October 2006
Nelson long overdue Ryder Cup captaincy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
St. Augustine, Fla. — For the past few days, you have been feasting on a bibliography of Larry Nelson lore, and his unlikely ascent from soldier to the Hall of Fame of golf. That means he now occupies a pew on the same level with Jack Nicklaus, Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan and about 220 other players and a supporting cast of agents, entrepreneurs, biographers and keepers of the faith.
Under the glare of lights and on the plush grass stage of the World Golf Hall of Fame, the actual moment came to pass Monday night. Larry was accompanied by Vijay Singh, Marilyn Smith and the late Henry Picard and Mark McCormick, three who played and one who took Arnold Palmer in hand and eventually converted that relationship into a world-class corporation. That’s all well and good, and Larry took his place among those dazzlers with typical grace.
That’s one side of the illustrious evening. The other is: Larry Nelson is halfway there.
Most of us had expected that by this time he would have been able to include on his dossier one other achievement: Ryder Cup captain. Not so. Two or three times, when it appeared he was the natural choice, it slipped away like a fish that slips off the hook. On at least one occasion, I’m told, he was asked to step aside for one year, then he’d get the call. It didn’t happen. Then I heard that another player who was in line volunteered to make room for him. I can’t vouch for all this, but I put my faith in my sources.
Instead, along came Lanny Wadkins, Ben Crenshaw, Curtis Strange, Hal Sutton, and this year in Ireland, Tom Lehman. Only one of those returned a winner, Crenshaw, not to point to the crashing scene at Brookline as a crowning moment. By this time, it’s probable that outside pressure has driven the PGA of America to the defensive, stubbornly refusing to be influenced by outsiders.
Of course, Nelson didn’t come up the traditional way. He came out of military service and from the desk of a draftsman, 21 years old before he struck a golf ball. True, he is mild-mannered and wears his faith on his sleeve, surely not to be condemned for that. When the Europeans won the Cup at Oakland Hills with the righteously mild-mannered Bernhard Langer as captain, there were some of us who thought that this might capture the PGA of America’s attention. He was a European version of Nelson, who had been close to Langer in forming a worship group on the European Tour. Never made a ripple.
That was the year, by the way, that Hal Sutton paired Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, a disastrous move. Showed up in a black desperado’s hat one day, but nothing jarred the Europeans and their quiet leader. It was a rout.
OK, maybe this is an inappropriate time to sully Nelson’s brightest moment. But, face it, he will be 61 years old by the time the next Ryder Cup is contested and the sand is running low in his hourglass. Look, if a sergeant can lead a group of soldiers in Vietnam, I’d presume that he should be able to lead a bunch of well-paid players in a golf skirmish. In Ryder Cup combat, Nelson took no prisoners. He was a perfect 5-0-0 in the 1979 matches at Greenbrier, still a record, racked up another four points in 1981. Strange thing, in 1983, the year he won the U.S. Open, he wasn’t picked for the team.
Even before the American team took leave of another debacle at the K-Club, the rumor made print that Paul Azinger would be the next American captain. This is all talk and no real substance, just a rankled old cuss wondering what a man has to do to lead his country into sporting battle. None of this came up at the Hall of Fame, but through it all, as he stood before a warm and enthusiastic audience, admiring all the hair on emcee George Lopez’s head, he again restated his Christian faith.
Hopefully, this is not something that would turn the heads of those in power.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
Gailey’s support still depends on beating UGA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The coach who was stuck on seven wins is poised to post at least nine and maybe 12 victories in what seems his breakthrough season. But Chan Gailey didn’t enter 2006 needing only to win games; he also needed to win over a skeptical constituency. Has he managed the latter?
“I think some of those who support him are becoming louder,” said Jason Hill of Conyers, a 1994 grad. “If you look at other Georgia Tech coaches, his record is comparable to [George] O’Leary’s and [Bobby] Ross’.”
Ross was 31-26-1 as Tech’s coach. O’Leary was 36-22 through his first five seasons. Gailey is 34-24, placing him shoulder-to-shoulder with the Institute’s two most successful post-Dodd coaches. But Ross, who brought the 1990 UPI national championship to Tech, was respected in a way that Gailey still isn’t, and O’Leary, who restored the Jackets to prominence after the dark Bill Lewis days, was, to borrow Tech alum Sid Williams’ 1998 characterization, actually beloved.
Williams used that description — “the beloved coach” — to introduce O’Leary to the Atlanta Touchdown Club two days after Tech beat Georgia for the first time in eight seasons. Any discussion of Gailey must take into account the yardstick by which every Tech coach is judged. Ross beat Georgia twice in five seasons. O’Leary did it three times in seven. The incumbent is 0-for-4.
Would a loss in Athens on Nov. 25 override all the advances Tech and Gailey have made? “You’re going to hear people say that,” Hill said. “As much as Tech fans hate to admit it, they care about what happens in that game. … So much of what Tech feels about itself comes down to that one game.”
Indeed, Gailey’s first loss to Georgia — 51-7 in 2002 — served to convince at least a portion of his fan base that he wasn’t up to the task. Never mind that he has felled at least one ranked team in each of his five seasons; when your fight song includes the phrase, “To hell with Georgia,” it behooves a coach to beat you-know-who.
Failures in that particular game were a chief reason why some Tech folks, the former letterman Taz Anderson chief among them, protested last year when outgoing athletics director Dave Braine gave Gailey a new contract and then said he didn’t believe the Jackets could win nine or 10 games on a consistent basis. Braine’s semi-endorsement: “Chan Gailey will continue to be successful, though maybe not as successful as some people would like.”
Anderson likened the extension and Braine’s sobering outlook to acceptance of “mediocrity.” He still fires off angry e-mails to new AD Dan Radakovich after losses, but this week Anderson preferred not to comment publicly on Gailey, saying only, “I will say that you need a psychiatrist to understand this team.”
Asked about Anderson’s critical messages, Radakovich said: “I love Taz … [but] I can’t say that’s anywhere close to being a majority comment.” Asked if this season has effected a broad-based change in attitude, Radakovich said: “I think a segment of the Tech population is looking on Coach Gailey and his players and his staff in a better light — and they certainly deserve that.”
But what if Tech wins the Coastal Division and even the ACC championship in Jacksonville and maybe even the Orange Bowl … and loses again to Georgia? Would one non-conference defeat taint a shining season? Said Radakovich: “Not in my mind. We’re here to win championships. Coach Gailey has said our No. 1 goal is to win championships. That said, that [Georgia] game means a lot to people. It will be very much on the radar screen.”
Does Gailey need to beat Georgia? Said Anderson: “Yes, he should beat Georgia. We ought to beat Georgia [this year].”
If you’re coaching the team based on North Avenue, there’s really only one road to acceptance. As heartening as a division or a conference title would be, nothing would turn chilly Chan Gailey into the people’s choice faster than a victory between those hated hedges.
Permalink | Comments (253) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Vick’s better, Tara’s bitter, Hawks squawk
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
The Tuesday Countdown…
10: I haven’t received a “play-Matt-Schaub-and-move-Michael Vick-to-wide-receiver” e-mail in two weeks. Hello? Are you people still out there? Or is it back to complaining that the Confederacy got jobbed in the War of Northern Aggression?
9: Yes - the protection is better. Yes - the receivers have been better. But doesn’t it also seem like the approach by coaches has changed? Vick’s first comment after the game: “I’m just getting more opportunities to throw the ball. There is a certain comfort level and a groove that you get [into] when you can throw the ball around the field.”
8: The Hawks open the season Wednesday. Embrace this moment, people. They’re still in the playoff race.
7: Tara Reid is the latest Hollywood “star” to claim her life has been scarred because of botched plastic surgery. Funny, I thought it was just having no talent, sleeping until noon and deciding to pour Vodka on her cornflakes.
6: Seriously, I’m dating myself here. But back in the day, when a celebrity’s career was pretty much toast, they just did the game-show circuit before fading to black. Now it’s heart-wrenching stories (sarcasm) on the cover of BLAB Magazine about excessive liposuction and picking mutant breasts off the top shelf. Please. Just go away.
5: Meanwhile, back to real life emotional trauma: the Hawks.
4: Going against Philadelphia will give the team a close-up look at Allen Iverson, a player who wanted to come here, would have improved the team and excited the fan base. But the Hawks’ ownership was divided on Iverson and Billy Knight just wasn’t feelin’ it. So, without Iverson, is anybody feelin’ more than a 30-win season?
3: Tonight is Halloween: Can anybody on the Hawks dress up as a center?
2: Feelin’ lucky, punk? The gambling website Bodog.com lists the Hawks as 250-1 odds to win the NBA title, making them the longshots on the board. Over/under: 28 1/2 wins.
1: Part of the New York Knicks’ settlement agreement with Larry Brown is that he not publicly discuss the matter publicly. Sure. And you thought the Hawks were long odds.
Permalink | Comments (45) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Hawks 2 ‘fantastic’ players away
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
So what must the Hawks do to make the NBA playoffs for the first time during this millennium?
Glad you asked. The answer lies somewhere between this historically baffling franchise needing seven of the Eastern Conference’s other 14 teams to fold (eight make the playoffs) to hoping Harry The Hawk joins the cow in jumping over the moon (you know, a miracle).
Let’s start with the Hawks’ current predicament, and then we’ll move to how they can become relevant again before the next millennium. Courtesy of finally getting a decent point guard and more experience for what was the league’s youngest team, these Hawks actually are better than last season’s bunch, who doubled the franchise’s win total from the year before to 26.
It’s just that nearly everybody else in the conference also is better.
The playoff locks from the East are Detroit, Cleveland, New Jersey and Miami, with Chicago, Milwaukee, Indiana and Orlando the leaders for the remaining spots. Then you have Boston, Toronto and New York, all superior to the Hawks, all capable of winning the 42 games or so that could keep your average NBA team away from an early vacation in late spring.
This is a 30-something Hawks team when it comes to victories. To evolve into more than that, the Hawks are two significant players away. Such a transition from nothing to something is easier than you think. Once, the New Jersey Nets were the Hawks, but they surged from 26 victories to the Eastern Conference finals after they added Kenyon Martin and Jason Kidd. With Antawn Jamison and Gilbert Arenas, the Washington Wizards went from 25 victories one season to capturing their first playoff series in 23 years. All that the Phoenix Suns did was manage the third-largest turnaround in NBA history with a healthy Amare Stoudemire and a spectacular newcomer, Steve Nash, taking them from 29 victories to a league-high 62.
Consider, too, that more than a few significant players will be available after this season through free agency and the college draft. For instance: The Hawks’ first-round pick that they dealt to Phoenix in their Joe Johnson deal is lottery protected, which means they’ll have a nice chance to get Greg Oden, Ohio State’s splendid center in waiting, or Kevin Durant, a likely one-year wonder for the University of Texas.
As for free agents, the Hawks can choose from among Kirk Hinrich, Darko Milicic and Chauncey Billups, which brings us to this: Speedy Claxton, the point guard the Hawks acquired this summer, is fine, but Mike Bibby, another pending free agent this summer, is fantastic.
Fantastic gets you closer to becoming the Nets of Kidd and Martin, the Wizards of Jamison and Arenas or the Suns of Nash and Stoudemire. To get fantastic, you must spend fantastic money, and Hawks officials will finish another season with fantastic money (around $7 million to $10 million under the salary cap).
In the past, Hawks officials didn’t use their fantastic money, presumably because they hadn’t found the right player, or because they were deciding between stocks or bonds. Whatever the case, such inaction (or shall we say stinginess?) has to stop for the Hawks to reach the next level.
It also doesn’t help the Hawks that Steve Belkin is suing the other seven owners for control of the franchise. Who knows what will happen after the courts finish doing their thing? This is for sure: For the Hawks to reach the postseason for the first time since that Steve Smith-Mookie Blaylock-Dikembe Mutombo group of the late 1990s, they must add walls and a roof to their mostly solid foundation of Josh Smith, Marvin Williams and Johnson. Thus the need for the Hawks to use their fantastic money for those two significant players, which must include either a fantastic point guard or a fantastic big man.
Actually, the Hawks need both. Anything less and they’ll remain the 15th team in their 15-team conference for several more millenniums.
Permalink | Comments (32) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Terence Moore
No longer matter of potential for Vick
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Cincinnati — Two weeks after a loss he described as the toughest of his life, Michael Vick exited Paul Brown Stadium at a professional apex. A week after throwing the ball expertly against the reigning Super Bowl champs, he threw it even better against a team that believes itself to be of Super Bowl caliber. And those skeptics who wondered if/when this gifted player would ever mature into a full-fledged NFL quarterback. … well, here’s the answer.
He’s doing it now. He’s doing it before our eyes.
He’s doing what he has dreamed of doing since he was a kid in Newport News. He’s running to set up the throw and throwing to set up the run and playing quarterback in a dizzying way nobody else has ever played the position. He has believed himself capable of such feats even as the ranks of his doubters swelled, and what you saw Sunday on the banks of the mighty Ohio was a proud man feeling utterly vindicated.
“I feel like I can [play at this exalted level], if I’m given the opportunity to throw the ball,” Vick said. “I’ve felt that all along. I’m excited I’m getting the opportunity to do it.”
Carson Palmer, the first player drafted in 2003, is considered a quarterback in the classic mode — tall, polished, a thrower first and last. On Sunday, the first player drafted in 2001 threw the ball better than Palmer, who admittedly threw it well. Vick passed for more yards and more touchdowns, completed a higher percentage of his throws and had a much higher passer rating (140.6 to Palmer’s 106.9). There were many reasons why the Falcons won this rather large road game but, these being the Falcons, all reasons must start with No. 7.
Nine days ago, Vick had never thrown more than two touchdown passes in an NFL game. He has since done it twice — four against the Steelers, three more against the Bengals. The Falcons try to pretend they didn’t redo their offense after being pounded by the Giants, but occasionally the truth trickles out. “I’m glad we’re changing,” Vick said. “Well, not really changing. But doing some things differently.”
Whatever the characterization, the effect has been stunning. Greg Knapp has stopped calling dinky West Coast plays and is catering to Vick’s conspicuous strengths. These past two weeks the quarterback has gotten outside the pocket and flung the ball vertically. (Forget that horizontal garbage.) At the beginning of Sunday’s fourth quarter Vick engineered maybe his finest drive as a Falcons player, taking his team to the field goal that would ultimately be the difference, converting consecutive third downs that only he could have converted.
Both times he scrambled. Neither time did he panic and try to gain the yards himself. The first time he hit Roddy White — yes, Roddy White — down the sideline for 21 yards on third-and-16. The second time he found White again for a first down at the Cincinnati 14, and that was essentially the ballgame.
“Other teams have to be sweating,” said Patrick Kerney, the defensive end. “He’s picking teams apart with his feet and his arm. This is what other teams have been dreading since he came into the league.”
And just like that, a reeling team has steadied itself and appears primed to take on the world. Just like that, a frustrated quarterback has found a deeper faith in his teammates and his coaches and maybe even himself. Just like that, a truly big season seems within reach for this team and its ascendant leader.
“These are the best two games I’ve had in a long time,” Vick said, “but I won’t be satisfied until I get a ring on my finger. All this is just preparation. I want to get this team where it wants to go.”
He’s fully capable. Not for the first time, Vick has showed the watching world the peril of dismissing him. He’s not the next Kordell Stewart. He’s not the next anybody. He’s the first Michael Vick.
Permalink | Comments (126) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Tech gets win it had to have
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Three completions. That’s all. If you compare that measly number to Reggie Ball’s 16 passing attempts in the first half Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium, Georgia Tech needed a more efficient quarterback, a miracle or something to turn a tie against Miami at intermission into the only thing that was acceptable.
A victory. Any victory. Such was especially true since Tech had a chance to push itself closer to the ACC championship game by shoving Miami deeper behind the leading Jackets in the Coastal Division.
Said Tech coach Chan Gailey, recalling what he appropriately told his players during the week, “This was a game that we needed to have. It wasn’t just one that we wanted. We needed to have it.”
Otherwise, a season that had so much promise for the Jackets was on the verge of resembling those other four under Gailey: Mediocre.
Looks like these Jackets wish to become better than that — maybe even pretty good or beyond — after they surged from what appeared to be an insurmountable early 10-point deficit to a riveting 30-23 victory that featured a couple of huge moments in the second half.
Even from Ball. Mostly, he drilled a 1-yarder to Calvin Johnson in the end zone with barely six minutes left to break a 16-16 tie. Then came monster defensive plays by Adamm Oliver and KaMichael Hall on Miami’s next drive. After Oliver knocked Hurricanes quarterback Kyle Wright into a fumble, Hall recovered, and Tech eventually watched Tashard Choice sprint 24 yards for a lead of two touchdowns.
A quick Miami touchdown after that didn’t matter. Said Johnson, “This was our moment. I feel as if we have a whole different squad this year. Everybody is a lot closer, and I’m not sure if we could have won a game like this last year. There were times last year when we would get down on ourselves, but this team can overcome these types of things.”
Thus the return of a Jackets bunch that leaped out of nowhere to reach a 13th national ranking last week before heading to Death Valley. They got the old gold and white beaten out of them by Clemson. Still, here were the Jackets, with dreams of playing in a Bowl Championship Series game, needing to discover ways in the second half to overcome what Ball wasn’t able to do in the first half.
So much for dreams. At least in the third quarter, when Tech suffered nightmares by reviving dead Miami drives. Roughing the kicker on fourth-and-16. Pass interference on third-and-9. Roughing the passer on first-and-10 in the red zone.
Plus, along the way, Ball did the unfathomable by running himself into an 8-yard sack at his own 1-yard line.
Despite all of that, Miami managed just a short field goal, and with the Jackets trailing 16-13 before a large and supportive crowd, they continued to search for that “something.” Part of that “something” was an extremely active defense that harassed Wright into six sacks. It also helped Tech’s cause that Durant Brooks punts for the Jackets. He boomed a 62-yarder from his own 1-yard line after Ball’s gaffe, and he ended the day averaging nearly 51 yards on his six punts.
The other part of that “something” for Tech came from the strangest source: Ball.
After he zipped a perfect 10-yard pass to James Johnson on one play, he leaped on the run to throw over defenders to find Johnson for another 11 yards. Before long, the previously maligned Travis Bell kicked his third field goal of the game just inside the fourth quarter for a 16-16 tie to set up Tech’s gutcheck at the end.
And it was homecoming. Which means the Jackets (6-2 overall, 4-1 in the ACC) remained kings for the season instead of becoming queens for the day.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Gators get ‘em again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Jacksonville — This was the game you didn’t want to watch.
In the season you didn’t want to acknowledge.
Against the opponent … well, that part you’re used to.
This is when the most optimistic of Georgia fans try to shake off a beer buzz, reach for their book of rationalizations and then realize that nothing fully explains this. The offense should have been better. The defense should have been better. There is bad, and there is that all-encompassing excuse for bad — “rebuilding season.”
But another five turnovers and four sacks for the offense? A defense with no sacks? Five dropped passes. A team that looks so anemic and out of sync for so long Saturday that the coach, Mark Richt, is moved to jump on his sword and say: “We just flat out got stuffed. It starts with me. The plan wasn’t one that was getting people wide open. We didn’t run the ball well. We didn’t protect well. We didn’t throw it well. But it starts with me. I did a poor job.”
The way this season has unfolded, there is enough junk to go around.
Georgia lost to Florida to 21-14 Saturday. Only because of the multi-thumbed efforts of their gracious opponents were the Bulldogs able to mount a late comeback after falling behind 21-0.
So that’s what this season has come down to: moral victories.
Martrez Milner, the tight end, had three of his team’s five dropped passes. But if Georgia’s problems this season were that simple, things could’ve been fixed by now. They’re not. The problems are varied and frequent. Saturday’s game produced a season-low 215 yards in total offense (the second-lowest ever under Richt). Quarterback Matthew Stafford started and finished for the second straight week, but he went 13-for-33 with two interceptions and a fumble.
Milner was asked a simple question: When was the last time the Bulldogs offense flowed like it’s supposed to?
“The only game I can say we were really clicking was … well, probably some time last year,” he said.
Georgia is 6-3, including a pedestrian 3-3 in the SEC. Expectations are so low that when Richt said afterward, “Now the task is to go into next week and get a plan to beat Kentucky,” you pitied him for the daunting task. This season will end in some obscure bowl game, miles from the initials BCS.
Under Richt, the Bulldogs have won two SEC titles. There was a time when you believed they were grabbing hold of the conference. This would be a good time to stop believing that.
A dangerous trend is developing. The Dogs have been getting dented by the schools that count most: Florida, Auburn and Tennessee. They have lost two straight to the Gators (and five of six under Richt). They also have dropped two straight to Auburn — likely going to three straight in two weeks. They also imploded on their home field against Tennessee.
Against Florida, there were going meekly into the night.
They trailed 14-0 at halftime. On the first play from scrimmage in the second half, running back Kregg Lumpkin fumbled, and Florida’s Ray McDonald picked up the ball and ran it 9 yards for the score to make it 21-0.
Quoth Richt: “I was like, ‘I can’t believe what I just saw.’ “
But really? Should anything be surprising by now? Georgia went into this game ranked 84th nationally in total offense. If 84th out of 119 schools doesn’t seem bad enough, consider: Only two of the team’s Division I opponents (excluding I-AA Western Kentucky) went into this weekend with a winning record — South Carolina and Tennessee.
The Dogs had seven possessions in the first half, when Florida took a 14-0 lead. Five ended with punts, three without a first down. On the sixth possession, Stafford badly underthrew Mohamed Massaquoi, and the pass was intercepted.
The Gators tried to give the game back in the second half, with two turnovers and two missed field goals. Stafford and Lumpkin answered with touchdown runs.
But that’s as close as it got. The Dogs’ final possession ended appropriately: a sack, two incompletions and a punt. With at least three games left, you’ll likely see that again. If you care to watch.
Permalink | Comments (117) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
This series belonged to the big man
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
St. Simons Island — They’re celebrating on this little piece of Glynn County ground. One of their own is a World Series hero. He was a high school star at Glynn Academy first, then the Braves signed him and it was assumed that Adam Wainwright was on his way to Atlanta, and all his neighbors would be watching him pitch for the Braves.
Alas, it was not to be. In their desperate search for a right fielder, the Braves packaged him in a trade with St. Louis for J.D. Drew, a serious miscalculation as that turned out. Surely the Braves brass knew they’d be having Drew for only one year with their budget restrictions, and his reputation as a nomad. (Remember, he stood off the Phillies while he played in an independent league one season until he got his deal.) The Braves were only “borrowing” him while, on the other hand, they were giving up a bright young pitcher for a lifetime.
Adding to their consternation, since that time they have been groping about for one of those treasured “closers,” and the groping continued until the trade for Bob Wickman. When the Cardinals lost Jason Isringhausen in late summer, Wainwright stepped into the vacancy, and it was fitting that he should have been the last man on the mound in St. Louis Friday night. He’d been the winning pitcher Thursday and now he had a save to go with that. So Brunswick celebrates.
Wainwright is built for pitching, 6-foot-7, lean and agile. He lives on the island, on Pebble Trace, and not more than two blocks away lives his mother. So it’s joyful neighborhood stuff.
It was odd, the turn the World Series took after the furor over Kenny Rogers and the smudge on his hand. On television, Joe Morgan babbled endlessly, charging Rogers with “cheating.” Broadcasters and the press came up with a political name for it, “Smudgegate.” Yet, the obvious point is, that after Rogers’ hand was cleansed, his last seven innings were just as powerful as the first in which he was accused of the violation. Case dismissed.
In my time, I have been witness to some strange, sometime weird moments in the World Series. I saw Bill Bevens pitch 9 2/3 innings of a no-hit game in 1947, but missed Don Larsen’s perfect game. I saw Denny McLain play the organ late into the night in 1968, but pitch like an organ player against the Cardinals in daytime. I saw Willie Mays on his knees at home plate, pleading with the umpire who’d called him out, Willie’s last Series. I saw the ball go through Bill Buckner’s legs, right on my deadline. I had to rewrite. And I was in the auxiliary press box when Candlestick Park began shaking. I had to walk up 17 floors with all my cargo to get to my hotel room.
Now, I have seen pitchers throw pitches 95 to l00 miles an hour for strikes before, but in this case these three Detroit Tigers pitcher weren’t able to make a simple toss 30-40 feet to a waiting base-tender. And you might say that if those three throws by Joel Zumaya, Fernando Rodney and Justin Verlander hadn’t gone awry, the Series might still be going on. That, I should add, is only fodder for those who viewed Jim Leyland and the Tigers as sentimental favorites.
Maybe the Tigers were stretched beyond their limit. The fact that Leyland and his cast even made the playoffs was the American League story of the year — until September. They began to run low on fuel, but with the needle hovering around the “E” level, they took out the Yankees, then the A’s. After that, they were running on fumes.
For all the pitching the Cardinals got out of Jeff Suppan, Jeff Weaver, Chris Carpenter and their bullpen, you wanted to hoist David Eckstein to your shoulders and parade him around the field. He’s one of those little guys who now and then come through in postseason. Tommy Thevenow, Brian Doyle, Mark Lemke, Dick Green, Phil Garner and the roll call goes on. But for now, for those of us on this little island, we celebrate the feat of one who is 6-foot-7. This is Adam Wainwright time.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
UGA will find credibility; Tech will find a win
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Two teams from Georgia play two teams from Florida Saturday with the leads in two divisions of two conferences on the line. Tangible goals notwithstanding, the Georgia-based teams enter this significant Saturday with another aim, this one even more personal.
They seek credibility.
Georgia headed to Jacksonville off the most deflating homestand of the Mark Richt era. In the course of eight days the Bulldogs dropped from No. 10 in the nation to unranked for the first time since 2001. They yielded 51 points to Tennessee, which is hard to do, and lost to Vanderbilt, which is harder still. (Then they nearly lost to Mississippi State, which is the hardest of all.)
Georgia Tech returned from Clemson a chastened team. The Jackets were pierced for 321 rushing yards and saw their rushing defense fall from No. 9 nationally to No. 32. Tech is still in the Top 25 of both polls, but with a loss Saturday it won’t be.
And yet …
Tech can essentially clinch the Coastal Division of the ACC by beating Miami (which has had, as we know, issues of its own). As embarrassing as the prime-time Clemson loss was, it was nonetheless a lesser game in the grand scheme. Said Chan Gailey: “[Players] understand that this is a division game, and what you’re trying to do is win your division to get to the [conference] championship game.”
Georgia has won the SEC East three times in four years, and mathematically the Bulldogs could do it again. They’d have to beat No. 9 Florida to have a chance, and few believe this flailing team has that capability. Even before the hated Gators had been made a two-touchdown favorite, tailback Danny Ware sounded the alert: “They always think they’re going to run over us, and they’re going to be more cocky than ever when they see the way we’ve been struggling.”
Still, there’s something to be said for a brand-name team that’s given little chance in a rivalry game. Georgia didn’t stay ranked for five calendar years by wilting under duress. It won at Auburn in 2002 after trailing 14-3 at the half. It beat LSU in the Georgia Dome last December despite being a clear underdog. Current events notwithstanding, this remains a proud program peopled by proud players.
“We’re not playing for the fans or the accolades,” said safety Tra Battle. “We’re not playing for the polls. We’re playing for ourselves, and we always believe in ourselves.”
Tech had begun to believe in a way it hadn’t under Gailey. It chased Notre Dame to the wire and overwhelmed Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and suddenly the program that has been stuck on seven wins seemed capable of winning 10 or 11 this time. The Clemson loss put a halt, perhaps only temporary, in the grand march to the ACC title.
“Last Saturday was kind of shocking, how [the Tigers] could be so successful,” said linebacker Philip Wheeler. “We were in wonder. … They wanted it a little more.”
At issue now is whether one forlorn evening in Death Valley represents the new norm or a raging aberration. Wheeler again: “We can’t get our confidence down. We’re a good football team that had a bad night.”
The expectation here is that both Georgia-based teams will play their best games in a month. That should be enough for Tech to handle Miami, which hasn’t beaten anybody of consequence and has disgraced itself en route. Playing in Atlanta, the Jackets will win the game that should enable them to play in Jacksonville come Dec. 2.
Georgia plays in Jacksonville Saturdayday with the hope — not to say the absolute expectation — of playing in Atlanta on Dec. 2. It’s hard to imagine the Bulldogs being overwhelmed by Florida, which really hasn’t blown anybody out, and it’s tempting to pick one of those boats-against-the-current upsets that can happen in college football.
“Fans may boo us, but we’re never going to boo ourselves,” Battle said, “No matter what, we’re going to leave it all on the field.”
Look for Georgia to give its fans cause to cheer — for three quarters. Look for superior Gator forces to prevail in the end, but not before the Bulldogs remind us that, even in their weakened state, they’re Bulldogs still.
Two Georgia teams will play today in search of lost luster. Both will find a measure of it. Tech will find a bit more.
Permalink | Comments (52) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Jackets will win; Dogs will stay close
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Two years ago, just after emerging from the Netherworld trade deadline holding hands with Mephistopheles, Donna Shalala admitted that a new Miami student was “not perfect.” But she insisted this young man showed “academic talent.” And, he was “one of us — a son of Miami.” Shalala failed to mention she actually was from Cleveland, not Miami. But she felt a “special obligation” to nurture him. You know. Like Rosemary.
The scholarly lad in question was Willie Williams. He had been arrested 11 times and rejected by 72 universities, 14 prisons and three chain gangs. Williams’ “academic talent” apparently didn’t flourish at The U. So he now blossoms at West L.A. Community College.
Miami will be almost back to full strength Saturday when it visits Georgia Tech. This follows another fine decision by Shalala to suspend 12 players only one game (against Duke) following gang warfare with Florida International. This will be the first action for safety Brandon Meriweather since he stomped on a player. Otherwise, his record is relatively free of maimings.
We’re all making too much of this, says Faust. I mean, Shalala.
Her team just looks like thugs. It’s like that fake butter they serve at nice restaurants. These are the Miami I Can’t Believe They’re Not Thugs!
The Hurricanes also may have back star receiver Ryan Moore. He’s had various suspensions, most recently for grabbing a woman by her neck, pushing her down, kicking her car door and threatening her friend.
Oh, these kids today.
I Can’t Believe They’re Not Thugs!
The Jackets got their heads slapped by Clemson. But it was a legal assault. This would be a good time to relocate Calvin Johnson and the defense. Miami is 5-2 but the wins came over Florida A&M, Houston, North Carolina, FIU and Duke (a near loss). Typical bullies.
The line is 5 1/2. The I Can’t Believe They’re Not Thugs are underdogs.
My, somebody certainly got the short end of a deal. Is that brimstone I smell?
Up here, Jackets win. And cover.
Higher Education (Humor me)
Chihuahuas and Gators: Legend has it that Romans were concerned about the excessive partying associated with the Gladiator Games and demanded Marcus Aurelius refer to them only as, “The World’s Ugliest Outdoor Smackdown,” when he chiseled for the Roman Journal-Constitution. Seems appropriate. Matthew Stafford had a chance to be the only Georgia quarterback to never lose to Florida. Alas, he decided not to transfer this week. Gators win. But take the Ugas and 14.
Tennessee at South Carolina: The Vowels’ fat fleabag — Smokey, not the coach — bit an Alabama player last week. Phil Fulmer may want to hide behind him this week. He’s 3-8 against Steve Spurrier, including last year’s fold in Knoxville. And I get points, too? Gimme 5 — and an upset.
Auburn at Mississippi: Ed Orgeron suspended five players this week for violation of team rules. They must have tackled somebody. Tigers cover 19.
Kentucky at Mississippi State: Rich Brooks called this a “pivotal game” for his program. Some things don’t need a punch line. Doggies cover 1 1/2.
FSU at Maryland: This should depress Bobby Bowden: He’s being outcoached by Tommy. Half-Noles win but take Maryland and 4 1/2.
Higher Income (Usually)
Falcons at Cincinnati Dept. of Corrections: John Abraham is out for the Falcons. Knuckles, Tommy The Lip and Odell Thurman are in the hole for Cincinnati. But the Bengals have motivation. Win another game and coach Marvin Lewis has promised them an extra 10 minutes in the yard and a pack of cigs. Cincy covers 4 1/2.
Bucs at Giants: Tiki Barber strangely announced in Week 6 he was retiring after this season. Is this somebody you want carrying the ball with the season on the line? Giants win but take the Bucs and nine.
Steelers at Mr. Cranky Pants: Great scene last week in the Oakland locker room: Al Davis, while leaning on his walker, berated a San Francisco columnist and borderline threatened him. As if Davis actually posed a threat. Kinda like the Raiders. Steelers cover nine.
Cowboys at Panthers: Tony Romo now holds the keys to Bill Parcells’ turnaround hopes. Other than seeing Parcells fall face-first in a bowl of Cool Whip, this can’t possibly get funnier. Carolina covers 5 1/2.
Profit margins
Been rough lately. Just look at me as a fine Bordeaux that needs to breathe for a few weeks.
Last week: 4-4 straight up, 5-3 against the line
Bottom line: 49-22 straight up, 38-32-1
W.P. Book Club: Buy any three selections and win a copy of Rush Limbaugh’s new book, “Incoherent Ramblings of a Porkpie.” After charging Michael J. Fox was faking his Parkinson’s during a political commercial, you’ll love chapter two. “I knew Helen Keller. She could hear, see and speak just fine. But she had bad hair and needed the sympathy vote.”
Permalink | Comments (91) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
It’s up to Tech coaches to get Calvin the ball
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Stop me if I’m wrong. Tim Brown was pretty good. The same goes for Raghib “Rocket” Ismail. My point is that defensive coordinators invented ways to stifle their prowess in college, but it didn’t matter. With help from Notre Dame coaches, those all-everything receivers did the old Al Davis by taking what they wanted instead of what opponents gave them.
This message is for Georgia Tech coaches who keep dropkicking logic by claiming they just can’t get the ball to the great Calvin Johnson on occasion. Former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz chuckled over his cellphone, before saying with his famous lisp, “We felt the opposing team could not intercept a snap from center, nor could they bat it down. So if we could get the snap, and if we had a Tim Brown or a Rocket Ismail, we were going to find a way to get the ball to that sucker. Whether it be with screens, reverses, handoffs.”
Added Holtz, who now is a college football analyst for ESPN, “The great ones for us had to touch the ball at least 15 times per game. That’s your obligation as a coach to see that that happens. We never tolerated saying, ‘Well, they covered him.’ No, no, no. We’ve got to get him the ball, because you’ve always got to get the ball into the hands of your playmaker.”
So this is ridiculous: Four times. That’s how often the ball was thrown last Saturday at Clemson in the vicinity of Johnson, owner of the most explosive game in college football this side of Troy Smith. Worse, Johnson had zero catches for the first time during his three years at Tech. Not surprisingly, his previously lively team was buried in Death Valley.
It isn’t as if this Johnson silliness hasn’t happened before. Remember the Notre Dame fiasco? After the quicker, taller and faster Johnson obliterated the Irish’s smallish secondary in the first half of the season opener, he vanished from the game plan, and the Jackets lost a game they should have won. Then, as now, excuses reigned, from citing double teams on Johnson to offering nothing at all. Tech coach Chan Gailey even banned offensive coordinator Patrick Nix and Johnson from speaking after the Clemson game.
Then again, what can you say when you know you blew it?
“I’m not criticizing the people at Georgia Tech. All I’m talking about is what we have done with our great receivers in the past,” said Holtz, who nevertheless admitted he was as baffled by Johnson’s game at Clemson as much as everybody else, especially since Johnson was open on several occasions. And, no, the Reggie Ball excuse doesn’t fly, either. Ball has a four-year history of erratic throws, and he also played against Clemson on a gimpy leg. Holtz laughed, saying, “Tony Rice was our quarterback when we had the Rocket, and Tony couldn’t hit the ground sometime. Still, we knew that [The Rocket] had to get his touches.”
Heard of the middle screen? Well, Holtz invented the thing to help The Rocket with those touches. Then there was Brown, a Heisman Trophy winner, smothered as much by defenders as any receiver ever. “There were times where you’d say, ‘OK, we’re going to have maximum protection, and we’re just going to tell him to go get it and just get open.’ That’s also what Notre Dame did last week against UCLA.”
In particular, Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis called a play for Jeff Samardzija, the Irish’s latest Brown and Rocket, in the final seconds with no timeouts left and Notre Dame at the UCLA 45. Samardzija was covered by a slew of defenders, but he still caught the ball, and he still weaved 30 yards for the game-winner.
Are you listening, Chan Gailey and Patrick Nix?
Permalink | Comments (64) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Let’s give La Russa his props
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Tony La Russa is two victories from a World Series title with the second-worst team ever to play in a World Series. I mention this because it has become fashionable to deride La Russa as the most overrated manager in the big leagues, just as it was once fashionable to label him a genius.
The La Russa backlash started in earnest after his mighty Oakland A’s were swept by Cincinnati in the 1990 Series; this coming two seasons after an underwhelming bunch of Dodgers had beaten the A’s in five. And when La Russa’s Cardinals kept losing in October — wasting a 3-1 lead against Atlanta in the 1996 NLCS, losing to wild cards New York and San Francisco in 2000 and 2002, failing to win a game in the 2004 Series against Boston — the new consensus held that his teams failed because the clever manager overmanaged.
So what’s the new new consensus? La Russa has taken a team that nearly blew a 7-game lead in the season’s final fortnight, a team that finished a rather motley 83-79, and has beaten two demonstrably better opponents and is giving Detroit a better go than anyone dreamed it would. Does this mean La Russa has remembered what he was believed to have forgotten? Does it mean he has ceased overmanaging? Does it mean anything at all?
I think it means La Russa, who was never as good as George F. Will made him out to be in “Men At Work,” was never as bad as recent postseason results suggested. I think it means the manager in postseason baseball is nearly as helpless as anyone else to explain why one team wins and seven others don’t. I think it means postseason baseball has become the great imponderable in professional sports — a crapshoot, to invoke the buzzword.
Mostly I think it means that a manager who keeps taking his team into October — like La Russa, like Bobby Cox, like Joe Torre — is apt to do as Bill Cowher just did with the Pittsburgh Steelers: Win it all with a team much less than his best. See, the true test of a manager/coach isn’t in lifting the big trophy; it’s in repeatedly putting a team in position to have a chance at that trophy.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Buzz missing for Georgia-Florida
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Athens — It turns out there is an upside to losing to Vanderbilt. There is an upside to finding Colorado’s pulse and spreading hope in Starkville.
There is an upside to an illogical quarterback rotation going from Joe to Matthew to the other Joe back to the first Joe and back to Matthew. (Greene-Shockley was so much simpler.)
Because when it seems so obvious that Georgia can’t beat Florida this week, nobody sits back and laments that Georgia can’t beat Florida any week. Feel better now?
Question: Has there ever been such a lack of buzz for a game in Jacksonville?
The biggest story line this week hasn’t been about the fact that the Gators have won 14 of 16 since 1990, when Steve Spurrier took over and Athens fell like Pompeii. Rather, this week has been highlighted by the ill-fated attempt of two school presidents to remove any association this game might possibly have with drinking and debauchery, as evidenced by the fact that everybody in Jacksonville looks like an olive swimming in a martini glass.
Had expectations been met this season, Georgia would be 8-0 going into this game with a chance to lock down another SEC title-game appearance. But the Bulldogs are 6-2, with one less division loss than Kentucky.
Nobody is talking about Florida or rankings or the BCS. They’re thinking, “Oh, yea, Chick-fil-A.” Fear the nugget.
Coach Mark Richt started a news conference this week with: “It is nice to be here the week after a victory.” Rich Brooks may sue for copyright.
When a football team has played at least five bad games consecutively, logic dictates it’s not underachieving. It’s merely ‘chieving. But even between all of the woe-is-us ramblings this week, Richt said this team should be better. You decide if that’s a good thing.
“I definitely know we’re not playing up to our potential,” he said. “But potential just means you haven’t done anything yet.
“It’s been more of a consistency thing than anything else. At times you can take any one of our receivers and say, ‘Wow, look at that play.’ Or a safety makes a tackle, or a linebacker. But it hasn’t been there on a consistent basis to be a legitimate contender in this league. Statistically we’re not out of the race by any means. But this week is pivotal.”
Well, not really. For Georgia to become relevant again in the SEC East, Florida and Tennessee would have to collapse. That isn’t likely.
But think of how this is setting up: After all of those years of Spurrier spilling grape juice on the nice clean rug, imagine the irony if the Bulldogs dump on Florida’s season. Michael Adams might even host a cocktail party.
Said Richt, “We’ve gone into every game since I’ve been here believing we can win, and I don’t think that’s gonna change.”
In truth, Georgia’s best hope rests with quarterback Matthew Stafford. He has both the arm and the needed ignorance. His talent this season has been punctured by freshman mistakes and by Richt’s weekly changes at the position. Had Stafford been starting from the outset this season, his development probably would be further along by now. That said, he obviously has the ability and performed in a pressure situation at South Carolina early this season.
Stafford also has the lack of history on his side. It’s good to be a dumb freshman sometimes. To Stafford, Florida might as well be South Carolina. The other day, he was asked when he first became aware that Florida had won 14 of the past 16 meetings with Georgia.
“Just now,” he said.
So you never heard anything about Florida’s dominance in this rivalry?
“Not really.”
Can that help?
“Sure it can. We talk about that stuff all the time. It doesn’t matter what happened last year.”
Or this year? Don’t tell that to oddsmakers. Florida is on the fat side of a 14-point spread. That would explain the lack of buildup, and maybe the reason to drink.
Permalink | Comments (128) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
Stern force-feeds NBA players
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
When it comes to how an NBA basketball should feel, whose opinion should you value more – David Stern, the sneaker-sized commissioner who never played in the league, or Shaquille O’Neal and the majority of his peers who dribbled their way to stardom?
This is a tough one, but …
I’ll take the players.
In case you haven’t heard, the NBA has decided to switch the material of its game balls for the first time in 35 years and for only the second time in 60 years. Why? Well, each of the old leather balls was different, and Stern likes to say that the new balls will be exactly alike due to their microfiber composition.
To which O’Neal and his peers respond with a collective, “So what?”
Then there is Stern boasting about how the new balls will give players a better grip and feel. The players say the new ball actually is more slippery than the old ball, especially when you begin to sweat.
It doesn’t matter what the players say or think, though. Stern said the NBA will use the new balls this season regardless.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Misery vs. Gators drives fans to drink
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
St. Simons Island — Well, here we sit, poised along the border like Sooners waiting to crash into Oklahoma. This is where Georgians congregate, the staging ground for Bulldogs football fans ready to pounce on Jacksonville for the Florida game. Welcome. This is Glynn County’s New Year’s eve. Feed the local economy. Buy your booze here, if you’re going to be a player in “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.” There, I’ve said it and that’s out of the way.
It’s one way for Bulldogs to get their minds off the unsavory turn this series has taken since the era of Dooley. Only twice in the past 16 years has Georgia been able to beat Florida on the football field. Even when this historic match took a breather on the two campuses, nothing changed. Florida didn’t just win, the Gators won by 35 points in Athens and 40 in Gainesville, all of this while the weary old Gator Bowl was being replaced by Alltel Stadium. Even when the immensely despised — by Georgians — Steve Spurrier took leave, the Bulldogs couldn’t break the habit.
Notice how clever the two presidents have been? Michael Adams started it, when he made a public appeal to the media institutions to drop the “Cocktail Party” line. And Bernie Machen of Florida joined in. He didn’t want Adams to take the lead in purity. After all, what did he have to lose? The Gators were killing the Bulldogs on the field and that probably was driving Georgia’s patrons to take the lead in boozing.
Fourteen out of the past 16 times losers. That astonishes me each time I look at those numbers.
Frankly, Georgians don’t give a damn who leads in hangovers, they want to feel how Gator meat tastes again. Startled me when I began reading of the sudden surge of displeasure with Mark Richt, now solidly in place with a long-term contract. How could he be a worse coach than he was when Georgia won two conference championships? Who’s the quarterback? Why all the dropped passes? Where are all those running backs? Lose to Tennessee, you can live with that, but Vanderbilt? On Homecoming Day? That’s a hanging offense. Now, lose to this guy Urban Myer who used to play shortstop in the Braves farm system and this case goes to a grand jury.
You see how that can direct a college president’s attention from losing to cleansing the public conduct of his patrons. If you can’t win, at least don’t make a spectacle of yourself. If you drink, don’t drive. If you drive, don’t drink and use your cell phone at the same time. If you do drink, try tea — not Long Island iced tea either.
College presidents are not popular people, as a rule. You remember Adams and his spat with Vince Dooley. Now, this. Adams must have flinched when he saw the headline about students who said “half the fun of college is learning to drink.” Now “how to drink,” but just “drink.” And is there a degree for that? Magna Cum Boozehound?
Well, all’s quiet down here at the moment, but the high tide of Bulldogs is about to roll in. Saturday morning the wagons hit the border and Jacksonville will be under a flood of humanity, a lot of it boozed to the ears. Then comes the next crisis: Traffic. After all these years of practice, Jacksonville still can’t get it right. One year it was so bad that Lewis Grizzard simply got out of his rental car and left it in the middle of the street. And if you want to irritate Jacksonville’s royal family, just bring it up. Get drunker’n a billy goat, but don’t bash on its traffic. You’d have thought they’d have gotten over that since they tried to squeeze in the Super Bowl like a foot in a shoe two sizes too small.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Furman Bisher, UGA / SEC
Braves should reclaim Glavine
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
THE TUESDAY COUNTDOWN
10: Financial ramifications aside, the Braves could do worse than bring back Tom Glavine for one season. The potential starting rotation next season is full of questions. Glavine wouldn’t be a question - and signing him would weaken the biggest competition in the division.
9: That doesn’t mean letting Glavine sign with the New York Mets three years ago was the wrong move. It wasn’t. The Mets offered more money than Glavine was worth, especially given his two playoff starts the previous season. But this is a one-and-done situation now. He adds stability to this team and lessens it with that one.
8: News: After New York dismembered Dallas on Monday night, Bill Parcells said, “I’m ashamed to put a team out there that played like that.” It almost made you feel sorry for him. OK. I’m kidding.
7: If any Hall of Fame coach ever deserved to end his career immersed in a pool of slime and woe, it’s Parcells. His, “I’m done. OK, beg me to come back,” act grew old years ago. He hasn’t won a playoff game since 1998. And he committed sports’ unpardonable sin: Negotiating with one team (New York Jets) while coaching another in the Super Bowl (New England). Sir, we have a nice table waiting for you in Hades. ’ 6: Separated at birth: Heather Mills and Cruella de Ville. (If we’re ranking former Beatles wives, let’s just say Yoko Ono is BCS eligible by comparison. Now she’s claiming Paul McCartney beat his late wife, Linda, which is something even Linda never claimed. I mean, come on. It’s Paul!)
5: Thrashers general manager Don Waddell could be criticized for a lot of things, but getting Marian Hossa for Dany Heatley after Heatley’s trade demand isn’t one of them. Hossa leads the NHL in goals (10) and points (15) for the 7-1-1 Thrashers and is arguably the best two-way player in the league.
4: And you wonder why they laugh at us: America prepares for riveting television when Madonna talks to Oprah about a boy she abducted, I mean adopted, from Malawi. I’m moving to Switzerland.
3: Michael Vick is featured in the November “GQ.” The issue lists 16 of the “Coolest Sports Heroes of All Time.” Joe Namath and Magic Johnson also made the list. Matt Schaub did not.
2: Jim Mora insists on playing Jason Webster at cornerback despite evidence that he’s, like, not very good. Maybe it’s because rookie Jimmy Williams is even worse.
1: Sure hope I can find somebody to drink with in Jacksonville.
Permalink | Comments (29) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Falcons lack an identity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Flowery Branch — The Associated Press, an outlet not known for hyperbole, suggested in its account that the hairbreadth victory over Pittsburgh could be “a defining game” for the Falcons. The hope here is that it was, not because this correspondent has turned into a raging homer but because, in light of Sunday’s epic, he’s strapped to define just what the Falcons are.
Through five games they’d constructed the NFL’s best rushing attack and its worst passing offense. Against the reigning champs they threw it so expertly that CBS’ Phil Simms was opining that this was how the Falcons will play from now on. The trouble with such a pronouncement is the Falcons tend to change the way they play abruptly.
For four games they defended so fiercely that they yielded only one touchdown. Over the past two games they’ve been torched for eight touchdowns and 897 yards. Yes, the prized defensive line has been hurting, and yes, the competition has gotten tougher, but isn’t that a fairly egregious plunge? Is this sudden weakness real, or is it a two-week blip?
And that’s the easier question. At this point absolutely nobody knows what to make of this offense. As Jim Mora said Monday: “You strive for 100 percent balance, and we were [pre-Pittsburgh] as far out of balance as possible. We’re trying to get a little closer.”
Earlier he’d said: “We’re going to stick with the run [as a point of emphasis] and pound it.” And there’s nothing wrong with that. Good running teams tend to be good teams, period. Good running teams should find passing easier simply because defenses must cheat toward the line. That truism made the last-in-the-league passing ranking even harder to fathom. Could nobody on this roster get open? Had Michael Vick, who passed for nearly 3,000 yards in his first season as a starter, forgotten how to spin a spiral?
Turns out he hadn’t. Turns out Michael Jenkins and Ashley Lelie can do nice some things downfield. (Roddy White, by way of contrast, might need to be confined to the sideline.) But when a team throws it so poorly for five games and then torches a defense like Pittsburgh’s, the disinterested party’s first reaction isn’t to go all goggle-eyed but to wonder, “Where was that all along?”
Mora couldn’t really say. Admitting it was a cliché, he said: “Sometimes a defense dictates what you do. Sometimes it’s there and sometimes it’s not.” That much is undeniable. Still, it’s nonetheless true that the best teams — New England, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis — have a signature. They play pretty much the same way every time out. The Falcons, who openly aspire to such brand-name status, haven’t yet branded their product.
The Pittsburgh game proved there’s no reason the Falcons can’t stand in physically against a big-time opponent and do all the things a big-time NFL team needs to do. What’s as yet unknowable is whether they’ll continue to do such things as a matter of course, as opposed to waiting for Vick to get so frustrated he uses HBO as his suggestion box.
With or without John Abraham — who’s fast becoming the football equivalent of Nick Esasky, who played nine games for the Braves before being forever lost to vertigo — this is a team of playoff-level assets. Two months from now, seeing the Falcons beat somebody good shouldn’t constitute a surprise. They won’t win every game, but they should win most, and never should they look as feeble as they did nine days ago against the Giants.
In the NFL, anybody can play well on a given Sunday. The trick is to play well most every Sunday. The trick is to play so well so often that the way you play becomes as indelible as your logo. For that to happen, the Falcons must first define their terms — and themselves.
Permalink | Comments (28) | Categories: Mark Bradley
Chaotic game in a chaotic season
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Somehow, the Falcons had to do what they just did. That is, they discovered ways on Sunday at the Georgia Dome in their suddenly unstable world to survive the Pittsburgh Steelers in nearly the wackiest NFL game ever played.
There was nothing in between for the Falcons. Win, and all things are possible along the way to 4-2 in the cozy NFC South. Lose, especially after last week’s horrors against the New York Giants, and the starting quarterback is closer to being named Schaub instead of Vick, the offensive coordinator is another questionable “X” or “O” from getting shoved out of Flowery Branch, and the rest of the coaching staff is searching for the nearest Kinko’s, just in case they have to freshen their résumés.
So back and forth they went on the scoreboard to reach overtime. While the Steelers battled themselves (four fumbles, three of them lost, all leading to Falcons points), the Falcons battled their formidable opponent (you know, also known as the defending world champions) in addition to a slew of screamers waving Terrible Towels to turn this into the closest thing to a road game for a home team.
During the final seconds of regulation, you had Michael Koenen making a game-winning kick of 56 yards. Then you had it negated through a mysterious Steelers timeout. Then you saw Koenen’s next try fall short of the crossbar. Then you had the Steelers called for a penalty to give the Falcons another try from 52 yards. Then you watched Falcons coach Jim Mora do the absolutely bizarre by yanking Koenen, his noted long kicker, and inserting Morten Andersen, his ancient veteran, who isn’t a long kicker, by the way.
Then Andersen missed. Then the game went into overtime, but the Falcons didn’t lose for so many reasons. That Michael Vick guy played out of his mind by running and throwing (yes, throwing) his team toward Andersen’s eventual game-winning kick. Alge Crumpler resurrected his clutch ways as a pass catcher after their inexplicable burial after last season. Greg Knapp, that embattled offensive coordinator, did some wonderful things, ranging from employing runner Warrick Dunn as a flanker to actually throwing a screen to actually using Ashley Lelie. The special teams also went from good to great, with coach Joe DeCamillis using just about everything in his considerable books of tricks, and then he invented a few more.
The Falcons players and coaches operated as if their NFL lives were on the line. That’s because they were.
“It felt like, last week, based on everything that was said, that we lost more than one game,” said Falcons guru Rich McKay, referring to his team blowing an 11-point lead for that 27-14 loss to the Giants. He stood a quarterback sneak away from Mora’s door, adding, “It was big for our players to be able to regroup and have a good week of practice and then to deliver on Sunday. And don’t kid yourself: We couldn’t have felt good about, ‘Oh, we got to the end, and we lost in overtime.’ “
Uh, no. Not with the Falcons’ underwhelming victory against Arizona before their meltdown against the Giants. You also had the Falcons beating Carolina when the Panthers lacked the great Steve Smith, and the Falcons handled Tampa Bay when the Buccaneers were doing an imitation of their 0-14 ancestors.
It also didn’t help the Falcons’ cause with rumors last week of defensive coordinator Ed Donatell and Knapp exchanging verbal blows after the Giants game. Those rumors were denied by Mora. Still, those rumors — combined with Vick questioning the Falcons’ silly obsession with a college-option offense and his mostly nonexistent wide receivers on an HBO show — were enough to place the Falcons about a Steelers loss away from imploding. Not only that, a trip for the Falcons to raucous Cincinnati was on the horizon.
Consider, too, that the Steelers roared to the easiest of 17-7 leads after Ben Roethlisberger chewed through the Falcons’ secondary into the second quarter. Instead, with help from the bumbling Steelers and the absence of Roethlisberger and his efficient arm after defensive end Chauncey Davis knocked the quarterback out of the game in the third quarter, the Falcons wouldn’t quit.
They hadn’t a choice.
Permalink | Comments (84) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Jackets’ aspirations run aground
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Clemson, S.C. — Oh, how the mind had wandered for Georgia Tech. There was a five-game winning streak behind it and suddenly a menu of cheap appetizers ahead — the imploding team from Miami next week, the fizzled bunch in Athens, the Three Stooges of Carolina (UNC, Duke, N.C. State).
So, um, how’s that BCS matchup against Ohio State looking?
Toto? Toto?
Nice dream, while it lasted. But the Yellow Jackets were pulled back in time Saturday night — back to, well, before this season. Quarterback Reggie Ball was pressured often by the Clemson defense and obliged the Tigers with happy feet, rushed and/or inaccurate throws and little production. The defense was shredded for 321 yards rushing.
Wide receiver Calvin Johnson? Not sure but we think he was abducted.
Clemson won, 31-7.
The Jackets? They’ll always have Blacksburg.
Tech (3-1 in the ACC) is still in control in terms of trying to get to the ACC title game. But after Saturday’s performance, the remaining five games on the schedule look different than they did three hours earlier.
What does it say when the offense can’t get the ball into the hands of one of the college game’s best players?
Johnson had eight catches for 127 yards and three touchdowns two years ago here as a freshman. He had 35 catches and eight touchdowns in the first six games this season, despite being the center of attention.
He did not have a catch Saturday.
I can’t prove it. But I think Greg Knapp was somewhere in the building.
If the Yellow Jackets didn’t handle their suddenly lofty status well Saturday, it was surpassed only by how poorly they handled things afterward. Coach Chan Gailey said offensive coordinator Patrick Nix would not be available to the media.
And Johnson?
“He’s not coming out,” sports information director Allison George said.
Did he decline to speak?
“He declined and Chan declined for him.”
We can’t be certain. But there’s a pretty good chance it was more the latter than the former. Wide receivers want the ball. The best receivers should get the ball. But Johnson went without a catch for the first time in his career — he had never caught fewer than two in a game — and he touched the ball only once in four quarters: on a botched option running play in the first quarter.
“We lost some sleep over Calvin,” Clemson coach Tommy Bowden said. “We’ll sleep good tonight.”
Ball threw deep down the middle for Johnson, who had found a seam in the zone and drew an interference penalty. But that drive resulted in a missed field goal attempt, and the Jackets gained only one more first down until late in the third quarter.
Ball didn’t handle the pressure well, and he/Tech rarely seemed to look or force the ball in Johnson’s direction. “They made plays and we didn’t,” Ball neatly summarized. He, too, probably had thoughts of declining comment.
Nobody from Clemson was hiding. Many in the crowd of 83,000 flooded the field afterward. The Tigers are 7-1, and this night was built up as perhaps their biggest home game since 2000 (when they lost to Tech after an 8-0 start). They even were moved to take a fashion leap, dressing in all-purple uniforms for the first time since the 1940 Cotton Bowl. Perhaps they felt Tech could be lured into an acid dream. And maybe it worked.
“I would’ve been strung up if we had lost,” Bowden said.
Not a problem. The Tigers weren’t great offensively at the outset, but at least they managed to utilize their best weapon — running back James Davis. His 53-yard run in the second quarter set up the Tigers’ first touchdown, a 2-yard run by Davis. His 89 yards on 11 carries in the first half exceeded what the entire Tech offense managed on 29 plays (79 yards).
From there, the floodgates opened. Davis finished with 216 yards and two scores. His backup, C.J. Spiller, ran for 116, including a 50-yard touchdown run and a 50-yard scoring catch (actually, a dump-off that he turned into a highlight by faking two defenders into Spartanburg).
Tech answered with one touchdown. By the other Johnson (James).
But by then it was too late. The Jackets had woken up.
Permalink | Comments (80) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
Puppies in Dogs’ uniforms
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens — Fifteen days after carrying a No. 10 ranking into what was billed as a national showdown, unrated Georgia was playing in a game so unpalatable that no TV network deigned to carry it live. That tells us much about how far and how fast the Bulldogs have fallen, but this tells us more:
Eight days after losing to the worst program in the SEC East, the reigning conference champion nearly lost to the worst program in the SEC West.
On the off-chance anyone had failed to notice, Mark Richt admitted it flat-out: “We’re not as good as we’ve been.”
We on the periphery keep waiting for some switch to get flipped, some substitution made, and for Georgia to morph into the colossus it had become. Any such morphing, sorry to report, will have to be deferred until next season. At this moment, Georgia is Georgia in name only.
Bulldogs of recent vintage could win on bad days. These puppies did a lot of things right against Mississippi State on Saturday — “We did a good job on offense,” said quarterback Matthew Stafford — and still were in peril of being overtaken at the end by an opponent that had mustered one offensive touchdown in three previous conference games.
Georgia in general (five turnovers, nine penalties) and Stafford in particular (three interceptions) kept alternating nice moments with egregious ones and throwing the visitors lifelines in the process, and all of a sudden the clock was inside 20 seconds and State was staring at a 40-yard field goal to tie.
Being State, it never reached overtime. Being State, it got weirdly bold at the end, quarterback Michael Henig being divested of the ball by Charles Johnson. (This after the visitors had begun the day by punting — punting! — from the Georgia 30.) Was Johnson surprised at State not kicking with 12 seconds to play? “I was,” he said. “But they’d been driving the field so much.”
Think about that. Mississippi State, owner of the 110th-best offense in Division I-A, had been driving the field against a team that, until recently, had been built on defense. We can write off Georgia’s offensive spasms to youth and Richt’s dithering over personnel, but how do we explain away the dropoff in a defense that features nine starting upperclassmen?
“Maybe we’re in position and not making plays,” said Tra Battle, the astute safety.
To their credit, the Bulldogs made the play they had to make in the dying seconds, but few among them took this skinny victory as a signal that happy days were here again. “Afterward [Richt] told us, ‘We saw the good, the bad and the ugly,’ ” said linebacker Tony Taylor, who also said: “I’m sure it was a lot closer game than everyone hoped it would be.”
If it was, that should be the last time we allow these Bulldogs to fool us. Over its last five games Georgia has been outscored by 11 points — and only one of those games was on the road, only one against an opponent bearing a winning record. It isn’t that Georgia is playing down to mediocre competition; it’s that Georgia, its lofty pedigree and its banner recruiting classes aside, has itself become shockingly ordinary.
That will surely change next season, when these younger Bulldogs start to mature, but there probably won’t be much growth these next five weeks. Stafford is the future, yes, but he’s not yet the present. (On Saturday he kept both teams in the game, offering a case study in why coaches are loath to deploy a freshman at quarterback.) And the schedule, which has been ridiculously soft, is about to become untenable.
Georgia is 6-2, but the cold truth is that it’s lucky to have a winning record. The colder truth is that it’s hard to imagine this team winning twice more before it lands in the Music City Bowl. Or in Shreveport.
Permalink | Comments (89) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Steelers assistant rose with Yellow Jackets
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
It was Bill Curry’s first season as a head coach anywhere, but this was special. This was Georgia Tech. His school. Bobby Dodd’s school. And so it was that one of his assistants came to him and told him of a prospect from Augusta. “He tore up his knee and didn’t play much last season,” he told Curry, “but he looks like he’ll be fine, and he wants to come to Georgia Tech. He wants to be an engineer.”
So he came to Georgia Tech for a visit during winter practice and was standing beside Curry at Rose Bowl Field. After a little while Curry turned to Ken Whisenhunt and said, “Well, what do you think?”
“Well, I guarantee you one thing, I can help you,” Whisenhunt, the prospect, said.
Now, as Curry remembers it, “Nothing arrogant, no bragging, just quiet honesty out of the mouth of a 17-year-old.
“When I look back on it, he was telling me something I didn’t learn until later. I was a brand new head coach and I didn’t realize what I didn’t know. Eventually I found out that you’ll learn more about being a head coach working at a filling station than playing in the NFL.”
Whisenhunt came to Georgia Tech without a scholarship, a walk-on. He had a scholarship offer at UT-Chattanooga, but, as he says now, “I needed an education, I needed to prepare for a profession, for football coaching never entered my mind.”
It turned out to be the profession he wasn’t looking for, and Sunday in the Georgia Dome you will witness Ken Whisenhunt, offensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers, at work. This is his third season with Bill Cowher, following victory in the greatest game of the year, the Super Bowl, played in Detroit last winter.
But back to the beginning. What sticks in my mind about Ken Whisenhunt after all these years is one of the most memorable games I ever covered. Georgia was playing Florida in Jacksonville the same day, the BIG game. Everybody wanted to be there. Notre Dame, No. 1 in the country, was coming to town to play Georgia Tech, a slaughter in the making. The No. 1 team in the country at Georgia Tech? Somebody had to stay home, so I did.
In practice, Curry had played Whisenhunt all over the lot. “They didn’t know what to do with me,” Ken says now. He had been a quarterback at Richmond Academy.
“We had two quarterbacks, Mike Kelley and Ted Peeples, but a vacuum after that,” Curry said. “We did give Ken a few snaps during the week, just in case.”
“Just in case” arose in the second quarter. Kelley went down. Peeples was already hurting. Curry had no other choice. He turned to Whisenhunt, the freshman. Without scholarship. Never taken a snap in a college game.
“The ball was on our 4-yard line,” Curry said in recall. “I said to him, ‘Be sure of the snap.’ He looked at me with utter calm. ‘Don’t worry, Coach.’ Facing the No. 1 defense in the country and he says, ‘Don’t worry, Coach.’ That’s the thing I remember most about him, his poise.”
So, in went Whisenhunt, not even listed on the flip cards in the press box. Tech got out of that jam alive. “We had to mix in a pass or two,” Ken said, “so I dropped back and threw one. It was a perfect spiral and I thought, ‘Hey, not bad for openers.’ It was so perfect it landed in the stands.”
As the situation played out, Whisenhunt finally completed a pass for 23 yards that set up a 39-yard field goal for Johnny Smith. On into the fourth quarter Tech guarded its precious 3-0 lead with valor. (“Our kids were valiant,” Curry says. “They played their hearts out. They didn’t know how bad we were.”) Nor did Notre Dame.
Finally, with time running low Dan Devine called on his placekicker, Harry Oliver, and Oliver kicked a wobbler 49 yards that barely crossed the bar and Notre Dame got out with a 3-3 tie. Mind you, this was a Georgia Tech team that had beaten Memphis State, the only game it would win. It had no license to be on the same grass with Notre Dame, but with Whisenhunt’s rifle arm completing 3 of 5 passes for 29 yards, had perforated the Irish’s No. 1 record.
The freshman Whisenhunt never threw another pass that season. As the years went on, he found his natural position as a tight end and ranks 14th in receiving yardage at Tech, was drafted in the 12th round by the Falcons, later traded to Washington, then the Jets. Dan Henning introduced him to the position of H-back with the Falcons, and there got good mileage out of him as a blocker and receiver. Whisenhunt looks back now upon three people who gave him the inspiration to move into coaching, a future he had never ever considered: Curry, his strongest influence; Henning, who drafted him and set him off on an NFL career; and Rod Dowhower, who gave him his first job as an assistant at Vanderbilt.
He had his chance to move into head coaching last winter when the Oakland Raiders came knocking. “I had a talk with Al, Mr. Davis,” he said, representing his gentlemanly upbringing. “I was honored, but it wasn’t the time and the place for me. I like it in Pittsburgh, where things are done the right way.”
Oh, I should point out that after the tie at Grant Field, Notre Dame completed an unbeaten season. So did Georgia, after winning the Florida game (remember “run Lindsay, run”), and they met in the Sugar Bowl for the national championship. The Bulldogs completed the state’s domination of the Irish. It was only a tie for Georgia Tech, but as sweet as any victory could be for Whisenhunt and friends.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
Jackets learn to think big
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Here I was, lunching this week with a friend named Carl, Georgia Tech class of ‘86, and he nearly caused me to gag on my turkey sub. He reflected on a Yellow Jackets’ football team that is streaking in the vicinity of that prolific Joe Hamilton bunch and the national champions of 16 seasons ago. Then he sighed before saying, “All we have to do is split between road games at Clemson and North Carolina State, and we’ll be fine.”
That’s old Tech thinking. That’s what got folks wishing to have Buzz shove his stinger down Dave Braine’s throat after the former athletics director was interpreted (wrongly, I might add) as saying the Jackets only could be mediocre in football.
None of that old Tech thinking applies to this current bunch with five straight victories and a heavy dose of new Tech thinking after its only loss against Notre Dame. “After we win a game and then another, it just hits you, like, we can end up playing in a BCS game,” said Calvin Johnson, the Jackets’ otherworldly receiver, delivering the truth. “Me and my roommate, J.J. [wide receiver James Johnson], we’ll talk about it now and then. With the confidence we’re gaining throughout the season, you can’t help but think about it.”
Just thought you might want to know, especially with the Jackets preparing to match their No. 13 ranking tonight in Death Valley against No. 12 Clemson in search of more than bragging rights for I-85. This also goes further than Tech wishing to pad its lead in the Coastal Division of the ACC. See the Jackets’ season, ranging from the crushing of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg to the Maryland comeback to the lack of a letdown against pitiful Virginia.
This is a Tech team that finally gets it by thinking big. So big that the Jackets realize that you can’t overlook little (such as Duke and North Carolina the rest of the way) to reach big (such as the Orange instead of the Seattle, Silicon Valley, Humanitarian, Champs Sports and Emerald bowls that have featured the Jackets during in the past five years). They were smacked around last December by an inferior Utah team in San Francisco during the Emerald Bowl. Afterward, Tech linebacker Gerris Wilkinson told me with disgust as a departing senior, “We’ve been close at times and far at times, and that’s been the problem ever since I’ve been here at Georgia Tech. We just can’t play consistently an entire season.”
Fortunately, for Tech Nation, many of the 69 returning players who were around for that Utah disaster nearly matched Wilkinson’s anger.
Thus the following: Two weeks after the Emerald Bowl, Chan Gailey called a team meeting, mostly to discuss the start of winter conditioning, and the Tech players couldn’t wait for their head coach to stop talking. That’s because they wanted the coaches to leave, so they could discuss a few things among themselves.
Loudly, too, and the subject was that old Tech thinking.
“I remember distinctly [quarterback Reggie Ball] stepping up and telling all of us that, ‘Really, our focus this season is a BCS bowl, and we’re not going to be happy unless we achieve that goal,’ ” defensive tackle Joe Anoai said earlier this week. “We’ve been rolling since then, because we have a good understanding of the big picture, but we also have a very great understanding of the small things that it takes to get there. We believe we are a great team, and we believe we have the athletes and the program here at Tech to build a national power in Atlanta.”
The key phrase: “We believe,” as opposed to the old Tech thinking of “We aren’t even considering any of that.”
Permalink | Comments (55) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Iron logic: Steelers win Sunday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Two high school students face felony charges in Syracuse this week after sharing a marijuana-laced brownie with a teacher. That represents a significant increase in punishment from what I can remember of sentencing guidelines growing up in L.A., when I believe it got you extra credit.
This makes two straight weeks I’m leading with a marijuana story, on the heels of last week’s Spicoli Burgers in New Mexico. But it’s so much more fun than, say, considering the plight of 300-pound schlemiels who take steroids even though they know they’re going to get drug-tested in training camp.
And speaking of Matt Lehr: Steroids are supposed to make you better, right? Because, like, it’s one thing to get caught, it’s another to have it announced two days after your quarterback was sacked seven times and is left looking like the offspring of a crash-test dummy.
So. The bad news is, the Falcons lost a starting offensive lineman. But the good news is, the Falcons lost a starting offensive lineman.
This week, they face the Pittsburgh Steelers. Michael Vick has a bad hip and shoulder. His chest hurts. His hair hurts. His left arm was amputated Tuesday. But if recent game plans are any indication, that shouldn’t be an issue.
Fortunately, nothing seems to be wrong with Vick’s vocal cords. He was critical of the team’s offense this week and noted what we’ve stated in the past — that he was more productive under Dan Reeves.
“Coach Reeves, he believed in me and gave me a chance to throw the football,” Vick told HBO.
All-righty then. Offensive line: can’t block, doesn’t know how to cheat. Defensive line: banged up. Receivers: duh. Quarterback: not happy, happy. Offensive coordinator: looks in need of a brownie.
The line says Steelers by 1 1/2. Logic says: flogging. Pitt covers. Between Tech at Clemson: The Jackets are ranked 13th by humans but only 22nd by computers. Isn’t that like Geek-on-Geek crime? (Oh, sit down, Poindexter.) Win this week and even HAL-9000 respects them. The Tigers look like Godzilla statistically, but so would you if five of your wins came over Florida Atlantic, North Carolina, Louisiana Tech, Wake Forest and Temple. What happened — couldn’t get the Academy of Culinary Arts on the schedule? Grab the eight — and gimme Tech in an upset.
Lowbred Bowl: Jackie Sherrill is long gone, and all Missy State is left with is a grease spot and an 8-21 record under Sylvester Croom. In Athens, it just feels like 8-21. It took a loss to Vanderbilt for Mark Richt to conclude: “Joe Tereshinski. OK, not so good.” Hello, Matthew Stafford. Again. Fortunately, Shreveport can be a magical place around the holidays. Trembling Chihuahuas win. But no way am I giving 18 1/2.
Miami at Duke: Donna Shalala doesn’t watch the tape of the fight but claims she’s taking this seriously by making players miss the Duke game. Of course, almost everybody will be back for the Georgia Tech game. Take away the dress, you have Bobby Bowden. Leading with my heart: Give me the 17 1/2. Performance enhancing picks Panthers at Cincinnati Dept. of Corrections: A meeting of two hot teams. The Panthers have won four straight. The Bengals haven’t had anybody arrested since breakfast. Carolina wins this straight up but jump on the 3 1/2.
Packers at Dolphins: Brett Favre says the NFL “turned its back” on Koren Robinson because the league dared suspend a player who has had multiple alcohol and drug issues and most recently was arrested for DUI and a high-speed chase. Question: Would he be so compassionate if he had another receiver to throw to? Fins covers 4 1/2.
Skins at Colts: Peyton Manning has 28 TDs and four interceptions in his past 10 games vs. NFC teams. Toss that one out as a pickup line tonight and, trust me, you are so in. Oh yeah, I’ve got your Fantasy League. Indy covers 9.
Cardinals at Raiders: In case you missed it, the Bears are EXACTLY who Dennis Green thought they were. For that matter, so are the Cardinals. Take the Raiders and three — and they lose the goose egg.
Toteboard
Last week: 11-0 straight up, 9-2 against the line (I’m lying. But I’m sensitive and enjoy walks in the soft summer rain.).
Fine! 7-4 straight up, 4-7 against the line.
Bottom line: 45-18 straight up, 33-29-1 against the line.
Annual profits: shrinking.
Permalink | Comments (68) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Life in the fast lane
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a car guy. I’ve never driven a stick. I’ve never changed the oil. The one other time I’d been in an automobile traveling 100 mph was when my mother — yes, my mother — decided to see how fast the family’s new Delta 88 could go on a deserted parkway in western Kentucky.
But there I was Thursday, riding with Tony Stewart, the two of us — one of us willingly, the other not so much — doing 170 around Atlanta Motor Speedway. And here I’m supposed to describe how it felt: Three seconds in, it felt the way you feel in those final moments before you actually throw up.
Five seconds in, I was reaching for the door handle. (There wasn’t one, so I wound up grabbing two metal bars and squeezing.)
Ten seconds in, I was thinking the night I rode with colleague Mike Knobler to the Champs Sports Bowl wasn’t so harrowing after all.
I should mention that this riding-with-Tony thing wasn’t exactly my idea — we have these editors, see — and at no time do I recall saying, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” I just couldn’t think of a good way to say no. So it was with more than my usual trepidation that I reported to AMS, and keen-eyed observers — i.e., everybody else on hand — noted my unease. Being great humanitarians, they went out of their way to heighten it.
“I’ve never ridden with a driver,” said Ed Clark, the president of AMS. “If I go out [meaning, like, die], I want to be driving.”
“I’ve done it once,” said Chuck Dowdle of WSB. “I won’t do it again.”
Duly cheered, I put on the coveralls — “That’s for if you catch on fire,” said AJC deputy managing editor Don Boykin, not at all helpfully — and the white “head sock” and the helmet. And then I was sitting alongside Tony Stewart, who seemed in a good mood. (For this, if nothing else, I was happy. I’ve covered just enough NASCAR to know you don’t want to be around Stewart when he’s cross.)
“I hope you’re good at this,” I said.
“It’s his first time on the track,” said Jeff Salter of the Richard Petty Driving Experience, who was strapping me in.
“They haven’t fired me yet,” Stewart said.
“I’ve ridden with my 16-year-old daughter going down I-75,” I said, making conversation.
“Then this won’t be nearly as scary,” Stewart said.
Tony Stewart is a very good driver and a very bad liar. We took off and made for Turn 1 — made straight for yonder wall, it looked to me — and it felt as if someone was shoving my lungs into the back seat. (There’s no back seat, either.) Everybody waiting to ride had been talking about G-forces, and now I was thinking, “G whiz.” Or words to that effect.
Not to spoil anyone’s breakfast, but a stomach revolt seemed a distinct possibility. (Trying to plan ahead, I’d eaten almost nothing.) We whipped into Turn 2, and I was ready to close my eyes the way I do on those mild rides I agree to try at Disney World. (I don’t even attempt the roller coasters.) But, for reasons still unclear, I kept looking.
The ride got smoother on the back straightaway, the G-forces abating a bit and my innards settling down. By the time we passed the pits, I’d collected myself enough to think, “Two laps to go. I might make it.”
The second lap was better than the first. By now I was alert enough to note how close we were to the wall. (Very.) The third lap, because it was the last, was the best of all. I felt exhilarated when Stewart geared down to end our little excursion, not because I’d been in a car going really fast but because I’d been in a car going really fast and now I was about to get out of it.
I shook Stewart’s hand twice. I slithered through the window. To my utter shock, I didn’t get wobbly-legged. Everybody wanted to know how it felt. I said, “It felt different ways at different times.”
“Can you imagine doing that for 320 laps?” said Marcy Scott, an AMS publicist. I couldn’t. Nothing against my expert chauffeur, but I couldn’t imagine riding another 3.2 seconds in that car. If I could title the experience, I’d steal the one from David Foster Wallace’s famous essay about his time on a cruise ship:
A supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Categories: Mark Bradley
Should Knapp’s days be numbered?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
It hasn’t been the best week — or month, or year — for Greg Knapp. His offense has managed seven touchdowns in five games. His passing offense is statistically the NFL’s worst. (His rushing offense, by way of contrast, is the league’s best, but somehow we never give him credit for that, believing it to be more a function of Alex Gibbs and his cut-blocking.)
The receivers can’t catch. The quarterback, who was a good enough passer under the previous regime, can’t throw. And surely the Falcons’ high-profile owner is beginning to wonder why all this high-falutin’ talent — Pro Bowl quarterback, Pro Bowl running back, Pro Bowl tight end, three wide receivers who were No. 1 picks — is availing his franchise so little.
And if that wasn’t enough, the Arizona Cardinals and the Baltimore Ravens set a dangerous dual precedent this week. (Dangerous if you’re Knapp.) They fired their offensive coordinators not halfway into the season.
Could something similarly sudden happen here? I wouldn’t have thought so a month ago, but I wouldn’t rule it out today. Arthur Blank didn’t buy all this talent to watch it go three-and-out.
Permalink | Comments (184) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Falcons should cut out the cut blocks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Flowery Branch — Except for all of this cut blocking making opponents wish to smash every one of Michael Vick’s corpuscles, and the inability to keep defenders from charging into the backfield within a nanosecond on pass plays, and a puny guy when it comes to the NFL trenches seeking to become a mammoth guy through steroids, the Falcons’ smallish offensive line is doing just fine, thank you.
They blew it. Alex Gibbs, 65, threw a lifeboat to Falcons officials after last season by retiring. Instead, they decided they could swim toward the playoffs with his controversial methods for line play and brought him back as a consultant, the hidden offensive line coach, the team’s grand poohbah or whatever he is for the third consecutive season.
Whatever Gibbs is, and whatever he is doing, isn’t working. The Falcons’ inability to score touchdowns with regularity in the red zone. The 18 sacks of a highly mobile quarterback to rank fifth in the league. The bruises across the body of that highly mobile quarterback from irate defenders, courtesy of that cut blocking. The nonexistent passing game. The defense suffering from injuries and sloppiness on Sunday, partly attributable to staying on the field too long. The loss of running back Warrick Dunn as a prolific receiver since he has to block to help the overmatched blockers in front of him.
If you connect the dots, the graph will lead you to an offensive line that has a 3-2 bunch sinking after losing games in ugly ways. And guess what? Unless those linemen start gorging themselves with Twinkies or something without stopping from now until Sunday, and pledge allegiance away from that cut blocking mess, it’s about to get worse. Pittsburgh (as in Blitzburgh) is coming to town, and we’re talking about the modern Steel Curtain that has a tendency to smack around even conventional (as in larger than large) offensive linemen.
“We’re all mobile up front, even though we’re not 340 pounds, and some of us don’t even weigh as much as 300 pounds,” said Wayne Gandy, chuckling on Wednesday, suggesting that he is the Falcons’ version of a tub of goo at 315 pounds. “I think that athletically, we can get to people. Being an ex-Steeler, the thing you have to do is match their intensity, because they’re gong to come, and it’s not a joke. They’re not hedging or faking. There is going to be a body here, a body there.”
Hopefully, for the Falcons’ sake, that won’t be Vick.
Near the end of the Falcons’ come-from-ahead loss on Sunday at the Georgia Dome against the New York Giants, linebacker Antonio Pierce gleefully accepted a personal foul after his violent shove of Vick out of bounds. He attributed his anger to the Falcons’ cut blocking that is used to compensate for their lack of size. Plus, this just in from Steelers defensive end Aaron Smith, who told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “I don’t agree with [the Falcons’ cut blocking]. They don’t let us hit at the quarterback and chop his knees. So why would they let them chop at our knees?”
Good point. Here’s the bigger point: The Falcons should become like nearly everybody else and play three, four, five starting offensive linemen who weigh approximately as much as the earth. That’s because their counterparts on defense are normally that size.
The Denver Broncos are a fluke. They’ve won Super Bowls with their collection of smurfs who use the same cut-blocking techniques that Gibbs brought from the Rocky Mountains to the Chattahoochee River when he came to the Falcons with Jim Mora before the 2004 season. And, yes, that offensive line has contributed to the Falcons leading the NFL in rushing for the previous two seasons, and they are averaging a league-leading 232 rushing yards per game. It’s just that, with the fleet legs of Warrick Dunn, Jerious Norwood and Vick, the Falcons would do about the same with a conventional offensive line.
You know, without all of that other needless drama.
Permalink | Comments (60) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Miami obviously fears Ga. Tech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
It’s the Yellow Jackets, stupid.
That’s the answer to this question: Why did officials at the University of Miami deliver only token penalties after 13 thugs on their football team fought during a game last week with 18 thugs playing for Florida International University?
Two of the FIU thugs were kicked off their team, and the other 16 were suspended indefinitely. Miami officials suspended one of their thugs indefinitely, and that only was because he was stupid enough to swing his helmet as a weapon during the mess in full view of the cameras. They suspended their other 12 thugs for just one game.
That game? Duke.
Hmmmm.
Who does Miami play after that? Georgia Tech, with the Coastal Division title on the line in the ACC, with the sputtering Hurricanes trying to return to the vicinity of their glory days, with coach Larry Coker trying to save his job.
Said Miami president Donna Shalala of the Hurricanes’ pitiful suspensions, “We will not throw any student under the bus for instant restoration of our image or our reputation.”
Hmmmm.
Permalink | Comments (95) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Last teardrop falls for Arnie
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Well, there he goes, off into the sunset of his glorious career, with a tear in his eye. Coincidentally, Arnie departs tournament golf as Freddie Fender departs life, leaving behind his mournful melody “Before The Next Teardrop Falls.”
For most of his life, “Arnie” was all that was needed to identify Arnold Palmer. He won 62 PGA Tour events and many more tournaments on one continent or another, but his career is more entwined with the Masters than any other, for it was at Augusta National that in 1960 the two rose to glory hand in hand. Significantly, or peculiarly, the course on which he struck his last official shot is named Augusta Pines, located in a Houston municipal appendage named Spring. It was on the fourth tee in the Administaff Small Business event, and after two shots found water, Arnie made his official departure from tournament golf with this benediction:
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and to stand out here and not be able to make something happen is very traumatic. The people want to see a good shot, and when you can’t give them that, that’s when it’s time.” But he played on and finished the round with John Mahaffey and Lee Trevino, with a “WD” by his name.
Frankly, it has been time for a long time, but Arnie loves to play. He loves the galleries, the cozy relationship he has bonded with them since the evolution of “Arnie’s Army” at Augusta; the cheers, the adulation, the occasional pars, which were to become more occasional as his game receded.
Let’s see, the last time he won a tournament was in 1988, the Crestar Classic, on the Senior Tour before it became Champions. The last time he won on the PGA Tour was in 1973, the Bob Hope Classic, but he later won three times outside these borders. The last time he finished in the top 25 was 1996, but he played on, though he manage to collect only pocket change, mainly just for being there. Obviously, money was not hard to come by, for by that time he was in high demand by advertisers — remember Pennzoil and that old tractor? — and in golf-course design, with his partner, Ed Seay.
This was Palmer’s very, very last farewell to competition, for he had gone through this before at the Masters in 2004. Chairman Hootie Johnson had bent the age rule and invited him back for a curtain call, and each green became a stage, and after the round, emotionally frayed, Arnie said, “I’m through. I’ve had it. Cooked. Washed up. Finished, whatever you want to call it.”
In Spring, Texas, of all places, it was all of that. The finale. “I made every move in the bag today, and it wasn’t very successful,” and then, the last teardrop fell.
Arnie was not the first Palmer on tour, and I bring this up because the original passed away almost a month ago to the day. Johnny Palmer came from Badin, N.C., where the biggest thing in town is a huge hydroelectric dam. He was quiet by nature, mainly self-taught, and his dossier is quite impressive for any era. He won the Canadian Open, the Western Open, the Colonial, and in 1949, when he won the World Championship, a George S. May production, his check was for $10,000, largest winning prize on tour at the time. (I should have pointed out that for all those tournaments Arnold won on the PGA Tour, he collected just $1,861,857, not a lot more than the winner of the Players Championship collects.) Johnny was runner-up to Sam Snead in the PGA Championship in 1949, fourth in the Masters the same year, when he also made the Ryder Cup team, and led at Augusta after the first round in 1952. After it was all done, he went back home to Badin and became the local club pro. You don’t see a lot of his kind any more. He was 88 at death.
I might add that the Tour is now down to one Palmer again, Ryan, a 30-year-old from Texas. Under that name, he bears a heavy load.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
Shame on Tyson, “The U.” and the Yankees
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
The Tuesday Countdown…
10: Bad news: Former Cane thug Lamar Thomas was fired for seemingly endorsing the brawl between Miami and FIU players during a broadcast. Good news: He was promoted to athletics director.
9: Seriously, I’m so glad to see that school president Donna Shalala is taking this seriously. So explain to me why FIU has dismissed more players than Miami (2-1) and given far more indefinite suspensions (16-1)?
8: This should be a real bonus for recruiting at “The U.” Turns out that the game at the Orange Bowl was “Salute to Florida High School Football” day, with thousands of players attending for free.
7: By the way, I heard Jeb Bush was really upset with the Miami Herald’s treatment of the Canes.
6: The Mike Tyson “I’m A Freaking Nut Job” World Tour kicks off Friday in Youngstown, Ohio. Tyson says he will fight a series of “exhibitions,” which I guess means he’s added two elephants and a clown to the act we’ve been seeing. Tyson also says he will fight a woman, Ann Wolfe. But please don’t think less of him. I mean, if he can knock out his ex-wife, Robin Givens, he certainly can punch a perfect stranger. What a yutz.
5: Spoke to Dan Reeves the other day. Said it looks to him like Michael Vick doesn’t have a lot of confidence in his receivers. “[Brian] Finneran and Mike are comfortable with each other. Why is that? And there’s a confidence between he and Alge [Crumpler]. It must be because they catch the ball and get open. If there’s not a No. 1 receiver on the team he has confidence in, what makes him want to throw it?”
4: Reeves, who is doing radio commentary for Westwood One, refrained from criticism of the Falcons and their coaches, saying with a laugh, “That’s your job.” He added: “I’ll say this — it’s a lot easier sitting in the press box. I see guys getting open all the time and I think, ‘Why can’t the quarterback see that?’”
3: So, I mean, who didn’t know Georgia Tech would be the shining light of Atlanta football this fall?
2: Cubs general manager Jim Hendry called Lou Piniella “absolutely the perfect choice as we move forward.” Was it the 285 losses in three years in Tampa Bay that confirmed his perfection?
1: The Yankees fail to reach the World Series again but keep Joe Torre. The A’s fail to reach the World Series again and fire Ken Macha. Must be the higher standards mandated by the Oakland media.
Permalink | Comments (32) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Mora should shoulder the blame
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
There is a tendency in times like these to blame the quarterback. While you’re throwing your beer can at the TV, it’s easy to forget this is the same Michael Vick who four years ago won a playoff game in Green Bay, who two years ago led his team to the NFC title game, and who has played in three Pro Bowls in as many full seasons.
There is a tendency to look at the obvious, like receivers who can’t get open, or drop the ball when they do, or suddenly think they must be good because their paychecks say so.
But this is not about players. It’s about direction. That starts and ends with coaching.
Michael Vick is not a bad quarterback, and the Falcons should not have a bad offense. But right now he is, and they are.
In the past three games, the Falcons’ offense has scored three touchdowns. Two of those were fluky aberrations you generally see in Division I-AA — a 90-yard run by Warrick Dunn and a 78-yard run by Jerious Norwood. Those aren’t staples, they’re bonuses.
Over the past three games, covering 34 possessions, the offense has one other touchdown drive. Go back to the second half of the Tampa Bay game and it’s 40 possessions.
The loss to the New York Giants on Sunday was game five of year three.
Things should be better by now.
It’s important to remember that the Giants game came after a bye week, affording the Falcons extra practices to work on their problems. It came after an offseason in which Vick reportedly spent more time in Atlanta, studying tape and getting comfortable with his receivers.
If this is comfortable, what does uncomfortable look like?
Coach Jim Mora will tell you that he and offensive coordinator Greg Knapp coach a productive offense. He won’t tell you that the Falcons rank 32nd in the NFL in passing. They have allowed the sixth-most sacks (18).
The good news is that Vick has thrown only three interceptions. The bad news is that he has thrown only three touchdowns and completed only 59 passes (less than 12 per game).
The Falcons are 3-2 despite having scored only seven offensive touchdowns.
When things don’t go well and Mora is asked questions that suggest as much, he gets defensive. Monday was no exception. When asked about a perceived lack of confidence in the passing game, he said, “Is that from you or from us?”
And then it went like this: “From me, from the outside,” I said.
“Were you at the game?”
“I watched the game.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I would not agree with you. But your opinion’s fine. That’s OK. You’re entitled to that.”
I appreciated the confirmation.
But at this point, I wondered if maybe the two-dimensional view Fox afforded me was inadequate. I mean, maybe six punts, two turnovers and three straight three-and-outs in the second half (net gain: 8 yards) look a lot better in 3-D.
Maybe Roddy White looks better in 3-D. Maybe in 3-D, he breaks a sweat. In 2-D, he stinks. In any dimension, Ashley Lelie should be starting ahead of him.
Mora again: “We’ve dropped some balls. … We need to make tough catches. We need to make easy catches. We need to just make catches.”
We found common ground. After hearing this, I’m certain Mora has been at all five games.
He says he’s confident. That’s good. But if supposedly talented players aren’t performing, there’s something to be said about not being coached up. And if an offense is not in sync and players do not appear to be collectively playing with confidence — at least, to these untrained eyes watching from a couch — then there are failures in the system and play-calling.
Lelie has played in productive offenses in Denver. He said of the current situation with this one: “It’s not good. It has to be a major concern. We can’t just say, ‘Oh, we’ll get better.’ We have to go into practice Wednesday trying to fix things because things won’t magically get better.”
Another offseason didn’t help. A bye week didn’t help.
At some point, you realize that it’s not players being outplayed as much as coaches being outcoached.
WHERE THEY RANK A look at where the Falcons rank in the NFL: Rush offense No. 1 232.0 yards per game Pass offense No. 32 114.0 yards per game Rush defense No. 15 107.2 yards per game Pass defense No. 13 193.4 yards per game
Something seriously wrong with Falcons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
We saw this game last year in Carolina and Chicago. We weren’t supposed to see it again, but here it was: Matched against a brawny opponent of playoff caliber, the Falcons got manhandled. And from that we’re left with one conclusion:
Something’s wrong.
Something’s wrong when a team that makes noises about the Super Bowl can’t manage a first down for 23 minutes in a second half that can only be described as revelatory. Something’s wrong when Michael Vick, who used to be able to throw the ball to great effect, can accomplish nothing via the forward pass. Something’s wrong when an NFL team of first-rank talent is reduced to being the equivalent of Oklahoma in the ’70s.
The Falcons don’t employ the wishbone offense, but they might as well. They’re fine so long as they can run the ball and get ahead, but the minute they fall behind they’re in panic mode. (The Giants, by way of contrast, trailed by 11 points Sunday but won by 13 because they struck a balance.) The Falcons panic because they know their passing attack is an attack in name only. They panic because Vick, who under Dan Reeves seemed the ultimate comeback quarterback, is now no threat to bring a team from behind.
Something’s wrong when Vick, a pro since 2001, looks more confused than he did as a younger man. There might not be an ideal offense for this quarterback and his unique skill set, but clearly this one isn’t it. “This loss hurts more than any loss I’ve had,” Vick said, and at first that seemed a harsh pronouncement for any October game. But the Falcons had invested much in this test of legitimacy, and on Sunday they were unmasked.
They can’t throw the ball. They have a Pro Bowl quarterback and a Pro Bowl tight end and three wideouts who were first-round picks, and they can’t throw it the way an NFL team must. There was a time when the Falcons’ entire offense was Jamal Anderson pounding the middle and Chris Chandler throwing deep off play-action, and that was enough to get them to a Super Bowl. But the Falcons under Jim Mora/Greg Knapp lead the league in rushing — and still they get little off play-action. Either Vick overthrows somebody or somebody drops the ball or Vick gets sacked and fumbles (he took seven of the former and had four of the latter Sunday).
Something’s wrong when a team that spent big money to bolster its run defense yields 259 rushing yards. (Of the prized front four, three were hurting by game’s end.) Think of it this way: The Falcons netted 90 yards on one snap, and still they were outrushed by New York. “There were times we did,” said Mora, asked if his team had gotten pushed around. “I don’t like to admit that.”
No coach likes to admit what was blatant Sunday: that the beefed-up Falcons couldn’t stand up to the beefier Giants. “They definitely put it to us the second half,” said safety Lawyer Milloy, acquired for his ferocity. “It doesn’t feel good, but we know what happened. Any team in the NFL wants to be the aggressor, and we weren’t today.”
Something’s wrong when the broad-shouldered promise of September falls to pieces in one afternoon 16 days shy of Halloween. The Falcons took this game so hard because it undercut every notion they’ve formed about themselves: That they’re tough, that they’re resourceful, that they’re as good as anybody in the league. “Instead of progressing,” Vick said, “we regressed.”
Eleven games remain, and if a coaching staff knows its business that’s sufficient time to figure things out. But what happened Sunday makes us wonder, not for the first time, if these coaches are indeed the ones for these players. Something’s wrong when a team this gifted seems to have run out of ideas so soon.
Permalink | Comments (400) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Dogs, coaches not very good right now
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Athens — If it wasn’t apparent during Georgia’s bumbling at home against pitiful Colorado, or after an underwhelming trip to Oxford, Miss., or that Big Choke against the Big Orange from Rocky Top, it is now after the sobering reality on Saturday inside Sanford Stadium: The Bulldogs just aren’t that good. They aren’t that bad, either, which puts them somewhere between mediocre or slightly above.
That’s being kind. Take away a couple of mindless throws by Vanderbilt quarterback Chris Nickson that led to momentum-changing interceptions, and Georgia loses big on Saturday for the second consecutive game between the hedges. Instead, Vanderbilt kicked the Bulldogs to a 24-22 loss in the final seconds after blowing an eight-point lead in the fourth quarter, and what remained of the 92,746 spectators was too angry to bark or boo.
Some homecoming.
There was Sandy Greer, Class of ‘61, looking as if somebody had just poisoned Uga VI’s dog food. It was worse: Georgia had just lost to Vanderbilt, historically the canines of the SEC. “I wouldn’t say this was embarrassing, but I will say that it was disappointing,” said Greer, his blank expression matching that on the thousands standing or sitting motionless and speechless everywhere. “I just feel like our program has lost its enthusiasm this year. It’s not just this game. It also was last week [when Georgia was crushed at home by Tennessee after a 24-7 lead]. It has been a lack of enthusiasm on both sides of the ball, and I attribute that to the coaching staff.”
You have to. For starters, Georgia was outrageously listless throughout the afternoon, and whether a team has talent or not, its coaches are responsible for finding ways to make sure the intensity is there. It definitely wasn’t there for the Bulldogs against Vanderbilt. Not with four offside penalties in the first half, including two in a row. Georgia’s lethargy in general contributed to a slew of dropped passes and an 0-for-4 stretch in the red zone when it came to touchdowns.
Here’s another reason to place a bull’s-eye on the Georgia coaches: The reeling Bulldogs aren’t without talent, even though they are a shaky 5-2 overall and 2-2 in the conference. They are so loaded at quarterback and running back that Mark Richt has yet to select a definitive starter at each position. Such a team shouldn’t lose to Vanderbilt. A guy named Ray Goff also lost to Vanderbilt, and he also did so on homecoming as Georgia’s head coach. That was exactly 12 years ago, which happens to be the last time the Bulldogs lost to Vanderbilt anywhere. Despite Goff’s wonderful pedigree at Georgia that even included quarterbacking one of Vince Dooley’s team to a conference title, that Vanderbilt game got him fired.
Richt isn’t going anywhere, and nor should he after he roared through his previous five years at Georgia placing the program among the nation’s elite with two SEC championships and a 52-13 record during that stretch that ranked him among the top six of his peers. It’s just that, well, you don’t lose to Vanderbilt. Still, let the praises begin from the Georgia locker room over a school that hasn’t had a winning season since 1982 and played in only three bowl games during its 100 or so years.
“Vanderbilt is a good-caliber team this year, because they played Alabama close, and a lot of other games that they could have won, like Ole Miss,” said Georgia defensive end Quentin Moses, referring to a Vanderbilt team that improved to 3-4 overall and 1-3 in the SEC. Added running back Kregg Lumpkin, “I think [Vanderbilt] is a great team.” Then there was this from quarterback Joe Tereshinski, “I felt like we were the better team, but they played very well against us. They came in here, and they expected to win, and they did everything they could to do that.”
Georgia didn’t, which Richt acknowledged during his postgame news conference. Before entering, he remained the consummate professional, signing autographs of approaching fans along the way and flashing his smile that said things ultimately will be just fine in Bulldog Nation. Not now, though. Said Richt, “I’m sure the [players] will get banged on pretty good. I’ll get banged on pretty good. Our coaches will get banged on pretty good.”
Yep. Just like some guy named Ray Goff, who officially became Ray Goof after his Vanderbilt fiasco.
Permalink | Comments (234) | Categories: Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
NASCAR, PGA an odd alliance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
This was a case of uncommon wedlock. NASCAR marries PGA Tour. Or, perhaps it should be reversed: PGA Tour marries NASCAR, for the format was an original with the stock car empire, the PGA Tour unabashedly following suit. A wedding of thundering racing machines and the silence of the putting green.
They do have one thing in common: Both drive. One, a bulky, bucking fuel-guzzling machine, the other a dimpled ball.
On a day in sports, otherwise contentious, here were a pair of old-time sports taking the vow. Sonny Perdue was feuding with headline writers at our place of business. The Bulldogs still can’t quite make up their mind about Joe Tereshinski III. George Steinbrenner double-crossed those New York oracles who had Joe Torre fired. And the Tigers whacked the A’s where it hurt.
But out at Atlanta Motor Speedway, an overwhelming tower of seats and glassed-in viewing retreats, the PGA Tour and NASCAR took the vow. It was as if the local minister was marrying the town trollop. Golf, you see, has always considered itself “the gentleman’s game.” Ten years ago it wouldn’t have been seen out with one of those grease-stained wretches whose place of business is called a pit.
Time, though, changes, and television has been the big equalizer. Matter of fact, NASCAR has become one of the darlings of the networks. Golf has been losing ground, unless Tiger Woods is in the field. It’s not easy for the PGA Tour to go head to head when NASCAR is racing anywhere and what the Tour has to offer is 84Lumber or the John Deere Classic. NASCAR has come on like a whirlwind as a television creature, and just take a good look at the sartorial splendor of those guys in the broadcast booth.
For that matter, take a look at the class of those guys behind the wheel. Get them out of their “business” clothes, put them on camera and you’ve got yourself a handsome dude who can make a sentence and advance the goal of stock-car suave. Jimmie Johnson, for instance, looks like a movie star. No more tobacco-chewing, cigar-chomping shade tree mechanic with grease up to his elbows, who couldn’t make a sentence without decorating it with his own choice cuss words.
The two main characters in the introductory ceremony at AMS were wisely chosen, Davis Love III for the PGA Tour and Denny Hamlin for NASCAR. Love you know, and the timing couldn’t have been truer, fresh from winning the PGA tournament at Greensboro — first time he has won in three years. Hamlin is a mere rookie, 25 years old with the smile of a kid in a candy store, clean cut and well spoken. The reason Hamlin was the man is that he’ll be driving the No. 11 car with FedEx Cup on the hood, the prize that PGA Tour players will be shooting for. Not only that, but right now he is fifth in what NASCAR calls The Chase, the season-ending dash to the season championship.
Both Love and Hamlin took a whack at each other’s sport. Safe to say, Love had the edge. He’s 42 and has been driving for years and scored well. Hamlin and golf, well, “I shoot somewhere in the 90s,” he said, “if I’m on my game.”
Safe to say, those were the less riveting moments of the afternoon.
The Chase is well established in NASCAR’s schedule, but the race to the FedEx Cup is a PGA Tour plunge in to the unknown. The first 36 events, including the four majors, is intended to establish a seeding for the final “sprint” to the wire, the Barclays Classic, Deutsche Bank and BMW Championships, winnowing the field down to the final 30 players who qualify for the Tour Championship at East Lake.
The intended purpose is to keep top players on the course, rather than taking long stretches off, such as Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods are doing now. It’s also intended to add “drama and intensity” to tournaments which some players frequently avoid. Remains to be seen how much the “Dash to the FedEx Cup” actually becomes a Tour inspiration.
Nice day at the Speedway, as long as you had the 90-shooter driving his car and the golfer driving the golf ball. As it should be.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Auto Racing, Furman Bisher, Golf
Loss only a fluke for Thrashers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
It’s common for fans not to plug into the NHL season until after football has been put to bed for the year. So that only 13,106 showed up on a Friday night to watch the Thrashers play the defending Stanley Cup champions was not surprising so much as it was a measure of the city’s current sports pulse.
Those who showed up witnessed the team’s first regulation loss of the season. But if the 4-3 defeat to Carolina was any indication, there might be something worth watching in February, when, well, maybe somebody will start watching.
It’s hard to pass a test in a loss, but the Thrashers managed. They trailed the Hurricanes 3-0 after playing their worst period of the season, during which time goalie Kari Lehtonen was made to look mortal.
In the first four games, Lehtonen allowed three goals on 105 shots. In the first 20 minutes Friday, he allowed three on 11. That’s not a dropoff. It’s one step off the balcony.
Welcome back to Boo Land? Not quite.
A team that went 3-0-1 in the first four games and hadn’t played from behind all season rallied to tie it before losing in the most implausible of ways — on a shot by Ray Whitney with one-half of a second on the clock after Eric Staal’s frantic pass into the slot.
Factor in the Hurricanes’ third goal coming with 1.6 seconds left in the first period and you wonder just how the moon and the stars were aligned.
“That’s a hard one to swallow,” center Steve Rucchin said. “We showed what we’re made of by coming back to tie the game. But it’s tough. A half-second? The good thing is it’s one of those games we can’t dwell on. It’s just a time thing.”
Right. If periods were 19 minutes and 58 seconds long, the Thrashers would’ve won 3-2. But enough sunshine.
The Thrashers don’t want to fall into a trap of grading defeats. They’ve had six years of that. But this one, they can take. Going 3-1-1 in five games is better than you would’ve expected, considering Ilya Kovalchuk, their 52-goal scorer from a year ago, is sitting on zero.
Kovalchuk had 11 shots on goal. He also hit a crossbar. He failed to score on slap shots, wrist shots, rebounds or redirections. He tried everything but a header. Kovalchuk also failed to score in the first five games last season, but only because he wasn’t in uniform for the first three because of contract problems. To think, he’s being outscored 4-0 by teammate Jon Sim.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” Kovalchuk said. “It’s unbelievable. I should’ve scored three or four tonight. I need to be better.”
Kovalchuk is being told by teammates and coaches to stay calm, the goals will come. That’s probably true. But we’re not talking about a kid with a sit-back-and-let-it-happen personality. If a puck doesn’t go in soon, he’s going to head-butt a Zamboni.
He had four shots in the first period, including a partial breakaway. Immediately after the save by Cam Ward, the Hurricanes came back and scored on a breakaway by Staal to make it 3-0.
Kovalchuk had four more shots in the second period. He hit the crossbar a minute into the second. Ward stopped him on the doorstep midway through the period, then twice more from short range on the power play.
After his ninth shot, when Ward again stopped him in the slot 14 seconds into the third, Kovalchuk appeared to mutter to himself. It couldn’t be determined if he was speaking Russian or English, but we’re assuming the context wasn’t, “At least I’m playing well. The goals will come.”
“He’s obviously frustrated,” coach Bob Hartley said. “It’s not easy for him to calm down. He’s scored goals all his life. But he’s showing a great deal of maturity.”
The team did the same Friday. Down 3-0 to the defending champions, albeit with a hangover, a comeback wasn’t likely. But three goals later and the Thrashers were a half-second from another point. Season 7 isn’t supposed to be about moral victories. But the assumption is they won’t lose another game at 19:59.5.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Jeff Schultz
Gators start out where they left off: No. 1
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
On this weekend of Midnight Madness, we look forward to April 2, 2007, the night this college basketball season will end in our fair city. But nothing about the trek to the Georgia Dome can be viewed without recalling the odyssey of George Mason, the little team that reconfigured all existing notions of March Madness.
We know now that a mid-major can stand in with the big boys for longer than a day or a weekend, GMU having felled Michigan State (holder of two NCAA titles), North Carolina (four) and Connecticut (two) en route to the 2006 Final Four. We know that talent — UConn had it in abundance — ensures nothing. We know what we suspected all along, namely: When the Big Dance commences, nobody really knows anything.
Still, we try. Herewith is the latest attempt to know the unknowable. Herewith, the Top 25 for 2006-07:
1. Florida
• Good news: The reigning champ returns all five starters, at least four of whom have the potential to get even better.
• Bad news: The last champ to return five starters (Arizona 1998-99) didn’t reach the Final Four.
2. North Carolina
• Good news: Tywon Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Brandan Wright arrive to augment Tyler Hansbrough.
• Bad news: The Heels’ history of fitting newcomers into an existing matrix isn’t the best.
3. Arizona
• Good news: Point guard Mustafa Shakur, wing Marcus Williams and freshman Chase Budinger are big-time talents.
• Bad news: It’s been nearly a decade since this program got the most from its talent.
4. Kansas
• Good news: The starting five that fueled an improbable run to the Big 12 tournament title returns.
• Bad news: That same starting five added to the Jayhawks’ history of NCAA whiffs by losing to Bradley in Round 1.
5. Georgetown
• Good news: Roy Hibbert is one of the nation’s best centers but isn’t the best player on his team. (Forward Jeff Green is.)
• Bad news: Green led the Hoyas in assists, suggesting a lack of guards.
6. LSU
• Good news: Point guard Tack Minor returns from injury to take over for Darrel Mitchell. And the irrepressible Glen Davis has lost 40 or so pounds.
• Bad news: A not-so-Big Baby might mean less fun for all.
7. UCLA
• Good news: The ascendant Luc Richard Mbah a Moute should become one of the best players in the land.
• Bad news: Without Jordan Farmar, who left early for the NBA, there’s no true point guard.
8. Boston College
• Good news: The strong and fierce Eagles will make do without Craig Smith.
• Bad news: The strong and fierce Eagles could use a bit more quickness, as they showed in their narrow NCAA loss to Villanova.
9. Ohio State
• Good news: Not since Patrick Ewing has a big man arrived on any campus as ballyhooed as Greg Oden.
• Bad news: Oden underwent wrist surgery and probably won’t play until after New Year’s.
10. Alabama
• Good news: With Ronald Steele, Jermareo Davidson and Richard Hendix, this is the most talented SEC team after Florida.
• Bad news: Mark Gottfried has yet to do his best coaching with the most talent.
11. Georgia Tech
• Good news: Freshmen Thaddeus Young and Javaris Crittenton are the best players on this roster.
• Bad news: The holdover Jackets, some of whom consider themselves near-stars, have to accept lesser roles.
12. Wisconsin
• Good news: Alando Tucker heads a typically rugged band of Badgers.
• Bad news: Ruggedness alone only gets you so far, and Wisconsin was outclassed in its NCAA first-round loss to sleeker Arizona.
13. Pittsburgh
• Good news: Ronald Ramon has served his apprenticeship and is ready to replace Carl Krauser at point guard.
• Bad news: Center Aaron Gray might not be ready to turn potential into production.
14. Duke
• Good news: Josh McRoberts, thought to be NBA-bound after his freshman season, is now a sophomore.
• Bad news: Point guard Greg Paulus looked overmatched in a lot of games last season.
15. Connecticut
• Good news: A.J. Price, who missed the past two seasons due to illness and suspension, is finally set to play point guard.
• Bad news: The still-gifted Huskies have to develop a nucleus after last season’s exodus.
16. Xavier
• Good news: The top seven Musketeers are back after winning the Atlantic 10 tournament title.
• Bad news: Whenever a Xavier coach wins big — Pete Gillen, Skip Prosser, Thad Matta — he leaves.
17. Syracuse
• Good news: Four starters return from the team that made such a stirring run through the Big East tournament.
• Bad news: The exception, Gerry McNamara, stirred the run pretty much by himself.
18. Memphis
• Good news: Somebody has to win the defoliated Conference USA.
• Bad news: Without Darius Washington Jr. and Shawne Williams, both gone to the NBA, the Tigers look pretty defoliated themselves.
19. Texas A&M
• Good news: Acie Law is one of the nation’s best point guards.
• Bad news: The Aggies might be getting a little too much mileage for coming close against LSU in Round 2 of the NCAA tournament.
20. Louisville
• Good news: The deluge of injuries that relegated the Cardinals to the NIT can’t possibly continue.
• Bad news: Rick Pitino’s teams rely on guards, and there’s not a standout on the roster.
21. Texas
• Good news: Forward Kevin Durant heads a recruiting class some prefer to Ohio State’s and North Carolina’s.
• Bad news: Every significant player from last season’s regional finalist is gone.
22. Villanova
• Good news: The innovative Jay Wright is the nation’s next great coach.
• Bad news: Curtis Sumpter returns from injury but might never be the same, and guard Mike Nardi had a terrible postseason.
23. Washington
• Good news: After Ohio State’s Oden, Spencer Hawes is regarded as the second-best freshman center.
• Bad news: Like Oden, Hawes will miss the start of the season after undergoing surgery.
24. Kentucky
• Good news: After last season’s flop, there’s a renewed sense of purpose attached to the Big Blue.
• Bad news: Without Rajon Rondo and Patrick Sparks, who’ll get the ball to Randolph Morris?
25. Hofstra
• Good news: This season’s George Mason beat last season’s George Mason twice and returns nine of its 11 top scorers.
• Bad news: Can anyone presume to spot a George Mason this far out?
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
A look at the Sonny side of life
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Three Burger King workers were arrested this week in New Mexico for putting marijuana in the hamburgers of two policemen. Suspicions arose when the officers went back to the counter for 37 orders of fries and 16 milkshakes. The good news is, the restaurant had record sales, and B.K. has plans to launch, “The Spicoli Burger,” then figures to start buying small countries.
See, I’m all about looking at the bright side now. Gov. Bobblehead has shown me the way.
Hypothetically speaking, if a governor got a tax bill passed that will save him $100,000 on a land swap while everybody else was sleeping or in the john, I’m all for it. At least it benefits generations of little hypothetical Perdue-ettes.
If somebody panics over a potential gas shortage and cancels school, at least it helps TV ratings, and Sesame Street could even help SAT scores.
You’re right, Sonny. Georgia allows 27 points in the fourth quarter to Tennessee and loses, but we shouldn’t criticize. We should praise the Bulldogs for the three quarters they DIDN’T allow 27 points. Call me Sunshine. It’s you and me, Sonny. I got you, Babe. (It’s OK. I’m up to date on my shots.)
Anything Dawg-related, I am so there. Especially in an election year.
This week, the Falcons face the overrated New York Giants. The Giants have a quarterback who went to Mississippi. His brother went to Tennessee. I assume neither one was good enough to go to Georgia. Arf.
The Falcons haven’t scored in their past 11 red-zone possessions, but they have two Georgia players on the roster and the Giants don’t have any. Also, offensive coordinator Greg Knapp played at Sacramento State, which is almost like Macon. Why even play the game?
The line says Falcons by 3. Are you kidding? With D.J. Shockley as the third-string quarterback? That is so covered.
Faber College
(Where Knowledge is good)
Inferior Educational Facility at God’s University: Georgia has quarterback issues. But do people complain that the Mona Lisa needs a fresh coat? Or that Michelangelo forgot to put a pair of boxers on David? My goodness, people, why harp on the fact we rank 46th in SAT scores, when we’re ahead of four states, three dollar stores and several members of the General Assembly? This week, it’s Vanderbilt. Fresh meat. Ferocious Beasts cover 13 1/2.
Florida at Auburn: This game is pick ‘em, I guess based on the theory that Auburn lost to Arkansas and therefore is a really good team that’s really angry. Only one problem with that theory: Really good teams don’t get stomped by Arkansas. Gators win.
Mississippi at Alabama: Winner advances to the 20th century. (I know: You think I’m better than that. But, really, I’m not.) Bammy wins, but take Old Ms. and 141/2.
Kentucky at LSU: Something is wrong when LSU (12) has more turnovers than Kentucky (7). OK, I’ll bite on the 26. Tigers win but don’t cover.
NFL Six-Pack
‘62 Packers: Off this week. Good thing. Dawgs would’ve destroyed them.
Panthers at Ravens: Carolina linebacker Dan Morgan is out for the year after his sixth concussion. If he wakes up next month and thinks he’s Steve Smith, the Panthers can’t lose. They’re 3-0 with Smith and 0-2 without him. This week, they’re with him. Who’s Dan Morgan? Take Carolina and the gift 2.
Chiefs at Steelers: Ben Roethlisberger has no touchdowns, seven interceptions and is 0-3 as a starter after going 27-4. So blow that out your AMA the next time some Harvard doc says the appendix has no function. Pitt wins but take K.C. and seven.
Texans at Cowboys: Terrell Owens has been screaming all week, “Why am I here?” As a Fantasy League owner, I’ve got a better question: Why did I draft him? More heart than head: Dallas covers 13.
Raiders at Broncos: I never give 15 points in an NFL game. Fortunately, the Raiders no longer qualify. Denver covers.
Dolphins at Jets: Daunte Culpepper was sacked 21 times in the first four games, then got angry about getting benched. Why? He should be buying Nick Saban a yacht. Jets cover 2 1/2.
Eagles at Saints: The Saints are 4-1, but five of their next six games are against the Eagles, Ravens, Steelers, Bengals and Falcons. Not the time to buy stock. Philly covers 3 1/2.
Almost Perfect
Last week: 8-1 straight up, 5-4 against the spread.
Profit margins: 38-14 straight up, 29-22-1 against the spread.
Elections: Perdue by 12 embellishments.
Permalink | Comments (91) | Categories: Jeff Schultz
Outrageous comments from Georgia’s Adams
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
You had that silly revolt by Georgia boosters over the ouster of Vince Dooley as athletics director. Folks continue to turn the deepest shades of red and black over tailgating changes at home football games. And who is this guy to take the “cocktail” out of whatever he now wishes to call the Georgia-Florida game?
During the hugely controversial decade that Michael Adams has served as president at the University of Georgia, he has been less popular around the Bulldog Nation than fleas in Uga VI’s doghouse. Maybe that’s why he appeased his barking (as in those against him and those for the Bulldogs) critics with two of the most outrageous comments of the year.
No, ever.
Let’s start with this: According to the latest NCAA statistics for a six-year period that began during the late 1990s, when Adams came to Georgia, the graduation rate for Bulldogs football players was 41 percent. That was the worst in the SEC, which isn’t the Cradle of Rhodes Scholars among athletes. The graduation rate for Georgia basketball players was nine percent, the second-worst among the 319 Division I schools. Even so, Adams told the AJC last week that Georgia would continue to accept some student-athletes who didn’t meet the university’s admission requirements because, “We still have to compete in the [Southeastern Conference].”
Was Adams speaking freely, or was he being dangled over the edge of Sanford Stadium by a dog collar? I mean, surely he didn’t mean to say what he was quoted as saying. Not with Georgia barely free of that Harrick mess. Adams hired the older Harrick, Jim, who hired his son, Jim Jr., who taught that infamous course at Georgia called “Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball.” You know, with multiple-choice questions such as, “How many points does a 3-point basket account for in a basketball game?”
This also is the same Georgia athletics department that was exposed during the 1980s as a plantation system in the Jan Kemp scandal. Back then, the objective was to use a slew of remedial courses to keep as many studs playing for the Bulldogs as possible, just as long as they could identify an “X” from an “O.” Back then, the feeling among the Bulldog Nation was that, “We still have to compete in the [Southeastern Conference].”
Guess Adams was speaking freely, because three days after he was quoted as making that statement, he wrote a lengthy op-ed piece in the AJC. He stressed his displeasure with those graduation rates of Georgia athletes, and he mentioned his commitment to getting it right with a $7 million center on campus dedicated to helping the student-athlete. The thing is, while boasting that “at-risk student-athletes” are given mentors by the university, he delivered his other outrageous comment: “… yes, we have made an institutional decision to be competitive in the Southeastern Conference, and therefore recruit some students who require academic assistance.”
It is what it is, and it is about gobbledygook when you have Georgia saying this week that the graduation success rate (GSR) for its athletics department isn’t as important as the academic progress rate (APR). What Georgia’s APR shows is that, over the past three years, no player is in danger of losing his or her eligibility. Which means they likely will be around to help what Adams is saying with those two outrageous comments: To appease the barkers, Georgia doesn’t want too much of this academic stuff to get in the way of winning SEC football games.
University of Hartford President Walt Harrison paused over the phone from Connecticut. Not only is he the chairman of the NCAA committee on academic performance, he is the chairman of the NCAA executive board that also features Adams. “First, a disclaimer: I don’t think there is a president in the country that I admire more than Mike. I just think that he’s a tremendous academic leader, and I consider him a friend,” Harrison said. “If he was somebody I didn’t know, I might have a different feeling about it. But I don’t think that [not letting academics get in the way of winning SEC football games] is exactly what he was saying.”
I didn’t think so, either. But Adams said so twice. In different ways. Within three days, and to the same newspaper.
Permalink | Comments (43) | Categories: Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
Next 3 games will tell for Falcons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The Falcons have put themselves in position to win the NFC South and play at least one postseason game in the Georgia Dome. They’re 3-1, a record almost anyone based in Flowery Branch would have taken when the schedule was announced. Now comes an even more testing set of games — the Giants at home this week, the Steelers here the week after, the Bengals in Cincinnati to close the month.
Win two of those three and the Falcons will be in business. Win two of those three and they’ll have stamped themselves as one of the best teams in their conference. Win two of those three — the feeling here is that they will — and they’ll have a chance to consolidate gains come November.
Thing is, the Falcons situated themselves similarly a year ago and wilted in the season’s second half. They were 6-2 and looking like the NFC’s No. 1 seed-to-be, and at the finish they were 8-8 looking utterly seedy.
I think this year will be different. I think this team is demonstrably better than last season’s, especially on defense. I foresee no fade this fall. (Then again, I didn’t foresee last year’s.) I refuse to believe that a roster this stocked won’t hold up over 16 games. Beating the Giants on Sunday will go a ways toward turning belief into conviction.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Jackets best in state, ACC
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The writers’ poll has Georgia Tech No. 13 to Georgia’s No. 16. The coaches’ poll has Georgia No. 14 to Tech’s No. 15. The writers have it right. For the first time since 2000, Tech has a better football team than Georgia.
(We pause here while the governor drafts another letter to the editor.)
Tech is better on offense, better on defense. Tech is better everywhere except at making field goals and tackling kickoff returners. (And Georgia, it should be noted, just lost its field goal kicker.) We really shouldn’t be surprised: Even in preseason it was clear this was Chan Gailey’s most talented Tech team, and signs pointed to this being the least imposing Georgia aggregation since Mark Richt’s first season. The more the two play, the clearer the demarcation becomes.
Tech looks like the strongest team in the ACC. Georgia appears fifth- or sixth-best, depending on what you think of Arkansas and/or Alabama, in the SEC. The Jackets seized on their opening loss to Notre Dame and have gotten better. The Bulldogs, who still haven’t fulfilled the basic requirement of finding a No. 1 quarterback, are more addled now than when they began. Nobody could have imagined that a program with Reggie Ball as its on-field leader would come to be categorized as more composed, but how else to describe it?
The Jackets are learning to play to their offensive strengths: They’re having Ball run more and throw less, and when he does throw it’s most often to Calvin Johnson, who is — pronouncement alert! — the best collegiate player in the land. Georgia has no offensive strengths save Kregg Lumpkin. Georgia scored fewer points in eight quarters against Colorado and Ole Miss than Tech managed in 45 revelatory minutes in Blacksburg, Va.
The Virginia Tech game changed the dynamics not just of the ACC’s Coastal Division but of college football in this football-obsessed state. It was the sort of comprehensive performance — the Jackets led 38-13 before three quarters were done — that identified this as a team capable of much more than the occasional upset. The Bulldogs, by way of contrast, waited five games for a true test — and then flunked it. From 17 points up to 18 points down, the loss to Tennessee was the most deflating of the Richt era because it undercut the foundation thereof.
For the third time in 11 months, Georgia’s defense collapsed. The defense, constructed under Brian VanGorder, was always the unit on which the Bulldogs could rely, but the big-game performance of Willie Martinez, VanGorder’s successor, has left Georgia not knowing what to expect. When a team yields six offensive touchdowns in one game on its field, it can no longer be said to be playing championship defense.
Even with the ballyhooed Quentin Moses and Charles Johnson, the Bulldogs couldn’t trouble Tennessee’s Erik Ainge. Contrast this with the rush — really, more like a whirlwind — generated by Tech’s Michael Johnson and Darrell Robertson with Maryland inside the 10 with the game on the line. Said Gailey: “They were flying off the edges, and that’s a lot to have left late in a game.”
Surely there’s a lot left in these Jackets, who are playing with an assurance unseen in Gailey’s wax-and-wane tenure. The assumption is that Georgia will get better — it can hardly do worse than against Tennessee — and it’s possible the Bulldogs could nose ahead by Thanksgiving.
That said, Georgia hasn’t thrashed Tech lately when it was clearly the stronger side — the Bulldogs won 19-13 in 2004 and 14-7 last season — and it’s hard to imagine Gailey’s best team losing to maybe Richt’s worst. It’s hard to imagine anything, even a statewide executive order, denying Tech this time.
Permalink | Comments (326) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Tuberville’s whining must cease
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
I have nothing against the Auburn Tigers in football. I do have something against eternal whiners in sports.
Why can’t Tommy Tuberville just let 2004 go? Hey, it’s over. Yes, your Tigers went undefeated back then and didn’t reach the BCS title game. No, they didn’t deserve it over undefeated Southern Cal or Oklahoma, not with Auburn playing the Division I-AA likes of Louisiana-Monroe, Louisiana Tech and The Citadel.
Still, there was Tuberville spending last week doing what he is obsessed with doing, and that is complaining that college football needs a playoff system.
Guess the whining stops here for Tuberville – or it should. His previously undefeated Tigers were smacked around on Saturday at home by a less-talented Arkansas team.
Permalink | Comments (87) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
The Governor’s got misplaced priorities
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: So glad to see that the state of Georgia is in such good shape that the governor has time to write a letter to the editor about what he considers a bad headline on a football story. Fortunately, the next time I bounce into the “DawgVent” and see somebody with the handle, “YahooOnWestPaces,” saying his Cousin Fred knows somebody who knows somebody who heard Auburn cheats in recruitin’, I’ll know who it is.
9: In case you missed it, Sonny Perdue complained that “Dogs put in their place,” did not accurately portray a football team that allowed 27 points in the fourth quarter and lost in Athens to Tennessee, 51-33. The loss dropped the Bulldogs to 16th in the rankings - apparently because every AP voter also overstates the negative.
8: Say, isn’t it about time for somebody to panic and order a school holiday so we don’t run out of gas?
7: So when does Perdue campaign on North Ave.?
6: After three games, the Thrashers are on a pace to finish with 137 points. Yes, that would get them in the playoffs.
5: To commemorate six straight years of playoff losses, the Yankees have announced Opening Day next season will be Tomahawk Giveaway Day.
4: There is a report that Joe Torre is not going to get fired, which follows the report that he is going to get fired, which I think followed some report about him and Paris Hilton being seen arguing in a cafe about a headline they read in the AJC on a Georgia game story.
3: Are we out of gas yet?
2: See, sometimes Billy Knight gets it right. Who figured that when the Hawks traded Stephen Jackson for Al Harrington two years ago, it would go down as one of the greatest trades in franchise history? Jackson was recently involved in an incident at a strip club at 4 a.m., during which he fired his gun in the air to scare off attackers.
1: I wonder if George Pataki thinks Torre is getting a fair shake?
Permalink | Comments (111) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Knapp pressing to cure offense
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
As the offensive coordinator of a lately uncoordinated offense, it’s probably best if Greg Knapp didn’t peek at his approval ratings these days. The man could walk into Kroger and get second-guessed for picking the wrong melon.
The Falcons are 3-1. That factors out to 12-4 over a full season, though history tells us that the Falcons and factoring out can cause nausea. The point is, they’ve managed to get off to a pretty good start despite having the NFL’s least productive offense. That’s where Knapp comes in.
In the Falcons’ last game before the bye, they failed to score a touchdown in six red-zone possessions against Arizona. They have only three touchdowns in 17 attempts, which is 17.6 percent and ranks worst in a league where the average is 50 percent and only four other teams are even below 40.
It could be worse. They also could be 0 for their last 11.
Oh wait. They are.
Wrong melon, Greg.
Things got so bad against Arizona in the red zone — five field goals, one interception — that Knapp admits he started to second-guess himself during the game, something coaches tell players not to do.
“Like players, sometimes I press,” he said Monday. “Against Tampa we were something like 1-for-5. (Actually 2-for-6.) And that was in the back of my mind in the Arizona game. I was thinking, ‘Come on!’ After the game, I thought, ‘OK, Greg, you better look at yourself because something’s not happening here. Find out a reason why.’ When you’re 3-for-17, it starts with the guy who’s in charge.”
There’s nothing wrong with talking to yourself. One of you just better have the right answer.
Knapp isn’t the most critiqued individual in Atlanta sports. He is second, behind the quarterback he feeds plays to. He is second-guessed even more than head coach Jim Mora. It follows that, “When Jim got the job here and he said, ‘Hey, I want you to come along,’ I was so jacked,” Knapp said. “Then about 48 hours later I thought, ‘Oh crap. We better perform or I’m going to be criticized.’ “
Bye weeks can be wonderful for a football team. Players rest in an ice tub from the neck down — coaches from the neck up.
Knapp took this past weekend off, but not before extended film review last Monday and a week’s worth of brutal self-analysis. He watched 49 snaps, every one in the 17 red-zone possessions.
His findings: “We’ve had too many negative plays.” Five of 24 running plays have lost yardage. Eight of 25 passing plays (three sacks, four drops, one interception) also were negatives. Generally, those are things the Falcons avoided last season, when they converted nearly 56 percent of red-zone possessions into touchdowns.
There also have been a few calls Knapp would like to have back, a few times when he probably outguessed himself.
Then there’s the matter of fullback Justin Griffith. When the Falcons traded T.J. Duckett, logic dictated that Griffith’s role in the offense would expand, particularly near the goal line. But it hasn’t. The man’s collecting dust. He has four carries and four receptions in four games.
Knapp: “We’ve called plays for him. [Opponents] have taken him away. For whatever reason, it hasn’t happened yet.”
Three touchdowns in 17 tries. Safe to say many things haven’t happened yet. The comfort level with Knapp, Michael Vick and whatever mutation of an offense the team runs — part West Coast, part West Virginia — is uneven, at best.
Knapp admits the obvious: The job of building a plan around Vick has been difficult.
“It’s been a challenge,” he said. “It’ll be an ongoing challenge because he brings a different aspect of the game that forced us to think outside the box when we started looking at what other teams were doing at the college level.”
Outside the cranium, things are fine. Somehow, Knapp still has a full head of jet black hair.
“It’s just a matter of time, I think,” he said.
He was talking about the gray. There were no projections on a touchdown.
Final lap at Talladega spoils ending
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Talladega, Ala. — This love affair between Dale Earnhardt Jr., and anybody who knows a restrictor plate from a crankshaft is wonderfully bizarre. I mean, during the 103rd lap of 500 on Sunday inside the Talladega Superspeedway, the only thing more deflated than the tire on the No. 8 car was the crowd. His crowd. It’s always Earnhardt’s crowd around here.
Surely, with his famous Chevy huffing and puffing in search of a spare along pit row, he wasn’t going out like this.
He wasn’t. Neither was it the end for the people’s choice during “The Big One” — well, make that “The Medium One” — that involved 13 cars slamming into walls and each other with 136 miles to go.
Earnhardt’s spotter told him over the radio to shoot high on the track to avoid the mess. Instead, he sort of stopped, then he slid low. Then, with his crowd screaming itself into nearly a Zen state (maybe from guzzling all of those Budweisers), Earnhardt roared through unmolested. He led his 24 other pursuers down the stretch for the longest time, but he wasn’t the winner.
With the checkered flag and Earnhardt’s sixth victory at Talladega just 1 1/2 miles away, he swerved to block an inside pass by Jimmie Johnson, only to get shoved off the track as Brian Vickers rolled across the finish line to become the most hated man in the history of Talladega County. His No. 25 car was pounded with cans, bottles, anything that those howling in the seats along the front straight could hurl during Vickers’ victory spin in the grass.
Here’s why they hug Earnhardt. Here’s why everybody should hug the guy, because he shrugged in the aftermath. “We had a great car, but I’m not really upset,” said Earnhardt, who praised Vickers for discovering a way to secure his first victory ever. “I mean, that’s just the way that racing goes here, and sometimes you come out on the good end of the deal.”
Other times, when you don’t, and you’re Earnhardt, you just shrug, even though your fans have a tendency to shout in these situations and see red for more reason than one. After all, except for a few renegades, folks stretching from the nearby Alabama state line to the stuffed grandstands wore red, and not in honor of the Crimson Tide. All you need to know is that, since this was another race in the midst of forests older than a millennium, this was another chance for 160,000 screamers or so to threaten to cheer anybody named Earnhardt at least that long. Once, the late Dale Sr. was the overwhelming people’s choice, but now it is about Dale Jr. and that No. 8 Chevy, which is red, by the way.
Just so you know, a quick check of eBay on Sunday afternoon showed that there were 5,870 items on sale for Dale Sr., who was killed in a Daytona crash in 2001, and 5,624 for Dale. Jr. While Jeff Gordon was at 5,356, Tony Stewart was at 2,790, with nobody else close. And there was something else to make the crowd want even more to make this Dale Jr’s day: Come Tuesday, it will be the Earnhardts’ day. That’s when a movie will debut in Charlotte about Dale Sr.’s life, and that’s also when Dale Jr. will celebrate his 32nd birthday.
So when the new people’s choice zoomed down the front straight on the 39th lap with his first lead of the afternoon, caps were waved, and fists were raised, often holding a can of Budweiser, Dale Jr.’s primary sponsor, and the primary color of those cans? You’ve guessed it.
Although Dale Sr. famously preferred a black ride as The Intimidator along the way to a record 10 victories here, Talladega officials might as well paint all of their seats red given the ongoing Dale Jr., mania.
That’s opposed to blue, the dominant color of Vickers’ No. 25 car, which likely needed a police escort out of the state.
The car and Vickers.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: Auto Racing, Terence Moore
Johnsons team up to save Jackets
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Things were not looking good for the home team when they came out for the fourth quarter at Georgia Tech in the Saturday gloaming. The Maryland Terrapins were leading them, 23-14. Calvin Johnson had been a decoy until late in the third, then three efforts to get the ball to him had failed, and one, to quote the play-by-play author in the press box, “could have been caught by the Terp mascot.”
Was Georgia Tech going to fall into an old and discouraging habit? Had a trip to Blacksburg, Va., taken all the juice out of the Yellow Jackets one more time? Win a big one, be the favorite, lose the next one. Was it becoming an incurable habit?
In the end, Chan Gailey was pleased, and relieved, to sit before a jury of sportswriting types and make this pronouncement; “Any time you can win in your conference without your ‘A’ game, it’s a good day. They know they didn’t play their best,” the Georgia Tech coach said of his crew, but the fourth quarter was theirs and they had overcome a tough Maryland team.
Show you how confident the Terps were. They’d come into the game trying to cover Johnson one-on-one, but that didn’t last long. It would, however, become a day of Johnson & Johnson & Johnson before it was over. Calvin was joined on occasion by the other pass-catching Johnson, James of Oakland, Fla., and in the climactic conclusion by Johnson No. 3, Michael of Plantersville, Ala.
With all attention usually centered on Calvin, Michael, a sophomore defensive end, gets lost in the flurry. He is the tallest of the three, 6 feet, 7 inches, and he uses his long arms like tentacles. It’s Michael who, in the end, applied the crush to Maryland with two sacks that left quarterback Sam Hollenbach the victim of swarming Yellow Jackets.
You thought back when the horizon had brightened for Gailey’s men. They had upset Auburn, held the War Eagles to a field goal, in ‘03, then lost to Florida State and Clemson. They had upset Clemson the next season, then lost to North Carolina, a clobbering. Last season they opened 3-0, then were blown out by Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. This was the litmus test, as they test in politics, and while it may not have been impressive to the houseful of nervous Techies in Bobby Dodd Stadium, it was sort of like breaking a bad habit.
Once again it is preposterous to imagine this team without what Calvin Johnson has brought to it. What hands, big as pancakes with long attachments that appear to be attracted to any kind of cowhide, or whatever they make footballs out of these days. Quietly modest, not given to demonstrative celebration, a young man who grew up in the rural metroplis of Tyrone. Lived about five minutes from his school, Sandy Creek, and I’d guess he’s speaking of five minutes by bus. He’s not the first national college figure to come out of there. Another end of note, Jabari Holloway, preceded him, one of the Notre Dame captains in 2000.
Calvin caught 133 yards of passes from Reggie Ball, whose development is not to be overlooked.
Apparently, he has carte blanche on when to run, when to throw, when to do whatever, and he has developed as a leader with such freedom. He has had bigger days in numbers, but none more responsive when the issue was one the line. This would have been defeat hung on the defense, had it not been for the last Spartan stand in which Michael of the Johnsons met the enemy and did him in.
In closing, a word of dismay. We have developed in college football some atrocious habits in these days of big-screen society. First, there is the supplication, “NOISE! NOISE!” Then there follows the enhancement, “LOUDER! LOUDER!” Not just at Georgia Tech, but a generally degrading practice, which appears to me to be pretty darned puerile on any campus where the practitioners pride themselves on being well-educated. But on Saturdays, ill-mannered. There, I’ve said it, and I’m glad.
Permalink | Comments (31) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
Volunteers deflate ‘Air Joe’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Athens — There was an early 24-7 lead, which wasn’t expected. There were early heroics by the perceived pedestrian quarterback, which really wasn’t expected.
What followed was … expected?
It might be several weeks before we can say for certain what was the aberration for Georgia Saturday night: the start or the finish. But if you’re looking for the favorite, odds are that reality manifested itself in the second half against Tennessee.
Joe Tereshinski, who competed 7 of 9 passes with a touchdown in the first half, was 5-for-11 with two interceptions in the second. Georgia’s defense, which had allowed 34 points in its first five games and one touchdown in Tennessee’s first four possessions, was drilled for 44 points thereafter.
As safety Tre Battle neatly summarized what surprised him most about Tennessee’s offense: “The scoring.”
The Bulldogs were looking at 6-0 Saturday. They were looking at 6-0 despite dreadful performances against Colorado and Mississippi and an improbable quarterback rotation, with a probability of 8-0 going into the Florida game.
Now, they can’t be certain of anything.
They were smacked by Tennessee 51-33 at Sanford Stadium. They allowed 27 points in the fourth quarter. If Georgia can’t rely on its defense, what can it rely on?
In the first half, the Dogs looked like they actually could be a top 10 team. In the second half, they barely looked top in the SEC.
“They definitely surprised us,” said defensive end Quentin Moses, whose team was held to one sack (that by Battle off a blitz). “We take pride in our defense, so it’s tough to go through that. Our offense got the job done, and that’s why we lost the ballgame.”
In truth, the offense helped. Tereshinski’s two second-half interceptions led to touchdowns. He clearly wasn’t the same quarterback.
“We came out and we were firing all over the place,” he said. “But in the second we weren’t the same team. We have to find the team that played in the first half.”
Keep looking, Joe.
When the Dogs jumped out to a 24-7 lead, the thought occurred: So this is why Mark Richt closes practices. It’s where he has been hiding his real team. But it didn’t last. Understand, Tereshinski didn’t regain his job for the Tennessee game because he blew doors open early in the season — he got it by default after Matthew Stafford and Joe Cox looked too green too often in his absence.
Until he sprained an ankle at South Carolina, these were Tereshinski’s season totals over five quarters: 9 of 20 passing for 108 yards. And these were his totals in the first half alone against Tennessee: 7 of 9 passing for 127 yards.
Sure. Who couldn’t see that coming?
It’s difficult to say which was more surprising: that Tereshinski was throwing or that his receivers were catching. For much of this season, they have showed an excess of thumbs. Not Saturday. On Georgia’s first possession, he stepped back on third-and-16 and fired over the middle to Mohamed Massaquoi, who made a leaping 18-yard catch at the Tennessee 12 to set up a field goal.
Massaquoi had another third-and-long reception on the Dogs’ next possession, this one covering 33 yards to midfield. And three plays later, on third-and-13, Tereshinski dodged traffic and threw down the right sideline to A.J. Bryant, who turned and leaped for a 46-yard gain to the Volunteers’ 9, setting up a touchdown.
The lead grew to 17-7 on an 86-yard punt return by Mikey Henderson, then 24-7 on an 8-yard pass from Tereshinski to fullback Brannan Southerland. But if the Vols were stunned like everybody else, they weren’t numbed for long. And their comeback coincided when Tereshinski’s flaws were revealed.
With a 24-14 lead, a pass was tipped at the line of scrimmage and intercepted by Antwan Stewart at the Dogs’ 19. Five plays later, quarterback Erik Ainge snuck in from the 1 to close to 24-21. Late in the third quarter, another Tereshinski pass was intercepted by Tennessee’s Jonathan Wade at the Dogs’ 36. A few minutes later from the 16, Ainge spotted wide receiver Robert Meachem wide open in the corner of the end zone to give the Volunteers their first lead at 31-27.
Suddenly, the first half seemed like a dream.
Maybe it was.
Permalink | Comments (166) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
Talented Jackets find their way, could go far
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
So there went Darrius Heyward-Bey, shaking a tackle along the sideline and fleeing downfield. And now, with Georgia Tech’s skinny lead subject to imminent override, what were the Jackets thinking?
“I can’t say what I was thinking,” linebacker KaMichael Hall said. “I looked up and all I saw was field in front of [Heyward-Bey], and I’m sure that’s all he saw, too.”
“I was just thinking, ‘Cover down,’ ” defensive end Michael Johnson said. “Everyone chase the ball.”
“I wasn’t even thinking,” safety Avery Roberson said. “I was running. You can’t stop running.”
A year ago Tech lost almost this exact game to North Carolina State, missing two point-blank field goals, falling behind on a long catch-and-run and being ultimately undone when Calvin Johnson, of all people, turned a game-winning touchdown into a game-losing interception. A year ago the Jackets were a different team, a lesser team, a team that half-expected something bad to happen.
Here’s what happened Saturday: Roberson kept running, kept running, finally dragging Heyward-Bey to ground at the 7. The 57-yard-gain left Maryland with first-and-goal and a minute to play, but for the Terps the moment had come and gone. Two runs — two runs, you’re saying? Me, too — netted 3 yards. On third down Johnson induced quarterback Sam Hollenbach to ground the ball. On fourth down Johnson wrestled Hollenbach to the ground. Tech won a game it could easily have lost, yet another indication that this year and this team are different from their predecessors.
The Jackets messed up every which way against the Terps, missing two field goals and falling victim to two strange Chan Gailey choices involving kicking (faking a field goal on fourth-and-inches, going for two with a four-point lead) and allowing the plodding Terps a galvanizing kickoff-return touchdown. And they won anyway. They won because Avery Roberson kept running. They won because Michael Johnson played the last two defensive downs like a man trying to outrun an egregious error, which was in fact the case.
“I take the blame [for the kickoff return],” Johnson said. “I was all out of my lane. … It hurt me tremendously. … For me to cause them to score, that was on my heart all day. I wanted to get that back.”
He got it back. He blew up the esteemed Ralph Friedgen’s schemes with the game on the line. The Jackets made a day going wrong go right at the end. And when a team stacks a breathless victory back to back with that clinical dissection of Virginia Tech … well, that’s a team capable of going a long way. Maybe to Jacksonville for the ACC championship game. Maybe all the way to the Orange Bowl.
This is a gifted team that has always known how to play defense and is learning to play offense. This is a gifted team that has always been adept at winning big games and is figuring out how to handle the little ones. This is one of the 10 best teams in the land, and it is looking more and more like a blessed one to boot. Yeah, Tech was a little lucky Saturday, but all championship teams require a little luck en route.
“The harder you play,” Johnson said, “the more good things happen to you. When people say, ‘They’ve been lucky,’ I say, ‘Thank you.’ “
For the first four seasons under Gailey, the Jackets reacted to any good fortune by acting as if they didn’t deserve it. That halting approach kept Tech from truly consolidating any gains, but these Jackets feel they’re as deserving as anybody. They won a game Saturday that they lost last October. They could win a half-dozen more games before they’re through.
Permalink | Comments (46) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Open collapse sent Lefty’s game reeling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Whoever can block out that depressing picture of him bent over, head in hands, saying for the world to hear, “I’m such an idiot”?
Later, Peter Oosterhuis, the television fellow, saying, “What would Phil’s life be right now if he had parred the 18th hole at Winged Foot?”
This was to have been Phil Mickelson’s year, and Lefty got off to that kind of start. He swept through Georgia like Sherman, won the BellSouth — again — and then the Masters – again. He was leading the world in earnings by a ton, then playing the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open with a one-stroke lead. He had the world’s No. 1 in his gun-sight. Tiger had already missed the cut. Now came Lefty’s crash. It would have been his fourth major but for his tee ball over there among some trees near a pavilion.
The same old Phil hasn’t been there since. He had socked away $4,046,893 in the bank at the time, and since then has made only $209,612, about good enough to finish fifth at Greater Hartford or 84 Lumber. He could belch and make that much. He lost his second position in the world rankings to Jim Furyk.
Playing for the Stars and Stripes, he failed to star. No points in the Ryder Cup is about as bad as not being there. Then he took early retirement, no more tournaments this year, see you in mid-January at the Bob Hope. No Tour Championship, and you can feel East Lake’s pain for the second year in a row. Is this all because of the crashing finish at Winged Foot? Has he lost his game, his confidence? Where has it all gone? Is he trying to run and hide?
He had said of that wretched day at Winged Foot, “I’m not going to let one bad hole ruin the rest of my life.” But it had put a huge dent in his psyche.
“Typically, he tapers off this time of the year,” said T.R. Reinman, the public relations director for Gaylord Sports, Mickelson’s managing firm, “though not usually this early.” What that amounts to is nearly four months of no golf. Is he working on his game? In consultation with Rick Smith? Surely he can’t let it go to pot.
“Oh, he’s playing. He has corporate outings. He has done a photo shoot with Golf Digest. More corporate outings. He plays regularly when he’s in town. But he has been traveling and taking time for family things. He went to Byron Nelson’s funeral. It’s his and Amy’s 16th wedding anniversary, and they celebrated with a trip to Italy,” T.R. said.
“He was not going to win the Vardon Trophy, nor the money title, nor golfer of the year, so he’s not passing up anything. He hasn’t been playing the champions tournament at Kapalua, a course he doesn’t like and greens he doesn’t like. He passes up those three weeks in Hawaii and waits until the tour comes back to California. If you check the record, you’ll find that 12 of his 29 wins have come on the West Coast.”
But did the finish at Winged Foot take away his lust for the game? “I can’t say you’re right,” T.R. said, “but you’re close. It’s not like he’s quitting. He just hasn’t been able to find his game. It’s not like 2003. [That was an un-Mickelson kind of year, never won and finished 38th on the tour.] He came back strong from that.”
For one thing, this removes him from the constant bore of repetitive questions in the interview room. “Everywhere he goes, it’s the same. Same questions, same answers, same old routine. Then he comes out and he’ll sign autographs until he develops writer’s cramp. That’s just the way he is. Other guys walk right by; Phil stands and signs.
“So now he gets to be husband and father. He’s a Christmas and New Year’s family kind of guy.” So you can count on Lefty being back and at the top of his game, the 18th hole at Winged Foot behind him. In other words, southpaws of the world don’t have to look to Eric Axley to take Phil Mickelson’s place in their planet.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Furman Bisher
Richt worried about wins, not style
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens — There’s the tiniest edge in Mark Richt’s voice, and this qualifies as news. The famously serene coach is suddenly being asked to defend his unbeaten team, and an unvarnished question like this — “Are you guys any good?” — can ruffle anyone.
“We’re good enough to win five games,” says Richt, by way of an almost-heated response. “There’s definitely some merit to that.”
Point taken. But how his Bulldogs have won their last two games has cast doubt on their No. 10 ranking as they ready to play Tennessee Saturday night. Georgia didn’t score a first-half point against lightweights Colorado and Ole Miss. Georgia is ranked 89th in total offense among 119 Division I-A teams. Georgia is about to start its third different quarterback in 15 days. Is Georgia even half the team its record and its rating suggest?
Richt votes in the coaches’ poll but won’t disclose exactly where he put his team this week. Then, smiling: “It’s right there where everybody else has us.” We should not, however, take that as a full-blown endorsement.
“If you’d asked me before the season how I’d feel if we were 5-0, I’d have said, ‘Pretty stinking good.’ But have we progressed like I’d hoped? I’d have to say no.”
Some of this, Richt concedes, could be a function of trying to play too many people. With five games gone, Georgia has yet to settle on a No. 1 quarterback, a No. 1 tailback or a No. 1 wide receiver. “It’s hard to be a consistent football team when you’re constantly changing parts,” he says.
To be fair, senior quarterback Joe Tereshinksi hurt his ankle against South Carolina and missed the next three games, leaving the position to freshmen Matthew Stafford and Joe Cox. All three quarterbacks’ performance has been diminished by the receivers’ penchant for dropping passes. Says Richt, wryly: “It’s possible I’d be settled on a receiver if I knew who to settle with.”
With Tennessee in town and a vital SEC East game in the balance, look for Richt to err on the side of continuity. Look for Kregg Lumpkin to get most of the carries. Look for Tereshinski, who’s healthy again, to get nearly all the snaps unless a fourth-quarter rally is needed. “I like what Joe T is doing [in practice]. He’s a very good leader, and we need that. He may be some really good medicine.”
Richt admits the Bulldogs’ sense of self isn’t what you’d expect from an undefeated aggregation: “I wouldn’t say we’re an overconfident football team right now.” But he bristles at the notion that Georgia has worked nearly half its regular season without a real test. “We have been tested,” he says, his voice rising slightly. “No one wants to admit that we should have been tested, but we have withstood some very stressful games, and we’ve won them. Now, is that going to be good enough [against Tennessee]? I don’t know the answer.”
The Bulldogs have won 49 of their last 58 games, proof they don’t shrink from challenges. That glittering track record is, as Richt well knows, the reason this team has been subjected to such scrutiny over consecutive close calls. He recounts a conversation he had this week with his wife Katharyn. (“The water girl,” Richt calls her, referring to her game-day duties.)
“I said, ‘Honey, we’ve gotten to the point where everyone wants some style points.’ When we first got here [in 2001], everybody was just happy to win. Now expectations have gotten to the point where people expect us to win and to look good doing it.”
Before anyone reads this as a slap at Bulldog Nation, let the record state that Richt has those same expectations. He knows he has built a formidable program. He expects it to act the part. Recent performances to the contrary, he expects Georgia to play like Georgia Saturday night.
Permalink | Comments (107) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Pressure is on for Thrashers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Barring an epidemic of injuries or little green men zapping Ilya Kovalchuk away on a spaceship, the Thrashers must do what they should have done last year.
Or else.
That’s me talking. As for Bruce Levenson, among the slew of folks in the Western Hemisphere who own part of the Hawks, Thrashers and Philips Arena: “I think the pressure is put on themselves,” said Levenson, referring to the underacheivers involved with the Thrashers’ management group. “This is only our second year of owning the hockey team. I don’t know if pressure is the right word, but there is definitely an atmosphere of determination that has been evident to me. It’s probably a little different than last year.”
In other words, given Thursday night’s underwhelming season opener at home against Tampa Bay after last year’s wonderful sprint down the stretch, somebody has to go if the Thrashers spend another season as only a tease. You can’t win if you can’t score. You also can’t score if you can’t shoot. So here were the Thrashers, taking their objective to become more defensive for the first time ever to the extreme. They used an offensive strategy that was more conservative than Jerry Falwell.
As a result, the Thrashers shot just six times in the first period, but that was triple the amount of shots they attempted in the second and the third to tie the franchise low of 11 shots for an outing. That included an overtime period and a shootout along the way to a 3-2 loss. It didn’t help the Thrashers’ cause that they blew a 2-on-1 rush near the end of regulation with a silly penalty for too many men on the ice.
Still, the Thrashers continued to receive hugs from the notorious front-runners who dominate the Atlanta public. And remember: The Thrashers have spent much of their six years looking ghastly.
Not last year, though, when the Thrashers finished two points away from their first trip to the playoffs. Now they have a veteran bunch that includes a couple of solid (and finally healthy) goalies, a coach and three players with championship rings, a slew of others who have skated in the Stanley Cup and conference finals, and more pressure (or determination, if you prefer Levenson Lingo) to get it right this time.
Or else. I mean, Ottawa, Tampa Bay and Anaheim were NHL expansion teams during the early 1990s, but each made the postseason in their fourth season. The Minnesota Wild and the Florida Panthers did so in their third. Not only that, the Panthers growled their way that same year into the Stanley Cup Finals. Plus, during the first coming of professional hockey to Atlanta, the Flames ended their second season in the playoffs.
If all of that isn’t enough to make the seats of Thrashers general manager Don Waddell and his lieutenants slightly hotter than the sun this season, consider this: Nobody in the league has a longer streak than the Thrashers out of the playoffs.
“Our goal from the day that we bought this team was to build a team that would contend for the playoffs year in and year out like the Braves have done for so many years,” Levenson said of his ownership group called the Atlanta Spirit, which includes seven other guys and whatever you call Steve Belkin. In case you haven’t heard, Belkin is suing his peers to snatch away their ownership of everything, but that’s another story. Added Levenson for this one, “We made a step forward last year. We won the most games [in the team’s history]. We scored the most points. We finished one game shy of making the playoffs. So our expectation is to move to the next level and to see them improve on what they did last year.”
Anything less than that — with those hugs from the Atlanta public doing the inevitable by turning into apathy — and the Thrashers will evolve from cute and cuddly losers to just losers. You know, with the talent to be winners.
That’s usually a scenario to get those running such a team fired.
At least it should be.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Thrashers / NHL
Joe T’s not the model; Vols cover
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Before wondering how Joe Tereshinski possibly could have turned into Joe Namath, Joe Montana, Joe Theismann, Joe Hamilton, Country Joe and the Fish or anything but Ordinary Joe while he did — let me see, oh yes — NOTHING, we begin with a sweet college romance:
Just the other day on the campus of Northern Michigan, a moose broke a window and wandered into a dormitory. It wasn’t immediately clear if the moose played for NMU’s hockey team or merely was returning to take a class so he could finish his degree, thereby moving the moose species ahead of Georgia athletics.
However, according to Dean Beyer of the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources: “It’s not unusual for a moose to do something like this now. We’re in the middle of the [mating] rut right about now. Moose, especially a young bull moose, will move long distances.”
I would like to make two points about this: 1) There are no indications that the moose is a member of Congress; 2) We members of the animal kingdom sometimes look in the wrong places for answers.
Tereshinski wanders back into Georgia’s starting lineup Saturday against Tennessee, because coach Mark Richt started to run a fever after looking at tape of Matthew Stafford and Joe Cox.
Nice kid, that Joe T. The amusing part about all of this is the sudden perception that Tereshinski is the savior for an anemic offense. I will grant you that I missed the last few issues of the New England Journal of Medicine. (Still working my way through the swimsuit issue.) But since when do rehabs from ankle injuries elevate somebody’s skill level?
Hey Rocky, watch me pull a starter out of a hat: Presto!
Bullwinkle: That trick never works.
The Dogs are a home ‘dogs. There’s a reason.
Give the 2-1/2. Tennessee covers.
Pros(ac)
Falcons: Off. But they list John Abraham as a game-time decision.
T.O. at Not T.O.: The first eight paragraphs of an Associated Press story Thursday were devoted to whether or not Donovan McNabb really sent a text message to Terrell Owens last week. Forget Owens’ suicide watch. I’m outta here. The Dallas-Philly game has headslap written all over it. Eagles’ defense alone covers 2-1/2.
Titans at Colts: Mental injury update: Albert Haynesworth spit his “quiet pills” at Nurse Ratchett and had his green Jello taken away. But I can’t resist two TDs in an NFL game. Colts win but gimme the 18.
Bucs at Saints: Tampa will start a rookie right tackle blocking for a rookie quarterback after Kenyatta Walker was lost for the season. On a related note, coach Jon Gruden phoned Haynesworth and asked him to come stomp on his head, too. Saints cover 6-1/2.
Bay Wretch: Randy Moss says of his 0-3 Raiders “no one cares what’s going on around here.” So, he’s “just enjoying life.” Thank you, Captain Happy Pants. Moss has only 84 receiving yards in three games. Keep it up and he’s going to get attacked by somebody more dangerous than a teammate: a Fantasy League player. Niners cover 3-1/2.
Steelers at Chargers: Ben Roethlisberger had his appendix removed. Unfortunately, he still has his quarterback rating (34.4). And Hines Ward’s hamstring: also not so good. OK, now that everything screams Chargers, I like the Steelers in an upset (but take the 3-1/2).
Semi-Pros
Maryland at Tech: It’s the week after nirvana for the Bees. Wasn’t it, like, five minutes ago when everybody wanted to steal back Ralph Friedgen to coach Tech? Oops. Terps actually are 4-1, which sounds better than saying they beat Florida International only 14-10 two weeks ago. Jackets cover 13-1/2.
LSU at Florida: The Tigers won in Gainesville in 2002 and 2004, which led to Ron Zook’s firing at least as much as — well, all of the other games. The Gators haven’t started 6-0 since winning the national championship. Nice stat, at least until the Auburn game next week. Vegas says it’s pick ‘em, so I pick Gators.
Clemson at Wake Forest: The Demonic Deacons are 5-0. Nothing stirs the masses like wins over Ole Miss and Liberty. Sir, would you like fries with your reality? Clemson covers 16-1/2.
Progress/regress report
(Could’ve been worse. Could’ve gotten a text message from Mark Foley.)
Straight up: 6-4 last week, 38-14 overall.
Against the line: 4-5-1 last week, 29-22-1 against the line.
Permalink | Comments (97) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Baseball playoffs make no sense
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
I give up. The baseball playoffs are beyond all reason. I thought the scariest Round 1 opponent on the board was Minnesota simply because of Johan Santana, so what happens? Santana loses Game 1 in the Metrodome to Barry Zito, and now the scary Twins are facing elimination.
I thought the easiest Round 1 opponent was St. Louis because the Cardinals died down the stretch, so what happens? Chris Carpenter wins Game 1 on the road and Albert Pujols hits the key home run, and now the gasping Redbirds can close out their series without having to return to San Diego for Game 5.
I thought the Mets were in trouble when they lost Pedro Martinez and in real trouble when they lost El Duque, so what happens? They throw a rookie in Game 1 and get away with it, and now Tom Glavine can put the Mets up 2-0 and give them reason to believe again.
The baseball playoffs have become the professional equivalent of the NCAA tournament: Anything can happen. As long as you get in, you’ve got a legitimate shot. At least one wild-card team has graced every World Series since 2002, and four wild cards have won it all.
Just as nobody could have foreseen George Mason last spring, nobody could have predicted that the 2004 Red Sox, who were three outs from elimination facing the greatest closer ever, would not only win that night but every night from then on. When it comes to baseball, I’ve given up predicting.
At least for this week.
Permalink | Comments (19) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Few excuses for Thrashers now
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
They are coming off a season in which they won more games, finished with more points and scored more goals than at any time in their existence. And yet, the Thrashers are sliding off Mapquest.
It didn’t matter in Year One that they didn’t win. They were hip. By Year Six, everybody noticed the roster of stars, but sellouts were rare. Then another injured goalie was followed by another slow start and, ultimately, no playoffs.
This is Year Seven.
- Thrashers add more depth
- Thrashers prospect Morin earns high praise
- Thrashers prospect eager to prove self in NHL
- Thrashers' top pick Kane was reared to play hockey
- Esposito looks to come back stronger from injury
- Thrashers agree to terms with Oystrick, Crabb
- Former Thrashers return to bolster new look roster
Still here?
The absence of Thrashers euphoria in this town speaks volumes about their existence. Miss the playoffs again and people lose jobs. Miss the playoffs again and the team could lose a city, and vice versa. It doesn’t mean a moving truck will back up to Philips Arena in April. But game losses lead to empty seats, which lead to financial losses, which lead to vultures circling arenas.
And rumor has it that current ownership is not, like, stable.
Thrashers general manager Don Waddell thought he finally had a playoff roster. But Kari Lehtonen crumbled with a groin injury in the first period of the first game and things unraveled quickly.
During a late-season losing streak, Waddell made an off-the-cuff remark, “guaranteeing” that the Thrashers would make the playoffs. When that didn’t materialize, a season-ticket holder sent him a letter after the season, threatening to sue him.
“No guarantees this year,” Waddell said.
But he is confident. Well, that’s one.
The Thrashers certainly have a potential playoff roster. But even with all of the talk of Lehtonen’s offseason core muscle workouts, nobody is going to buy into his six-pack ab stories until they see him get through a game upright.
Waddell and coach Bob Hartley say believe this team will be more responsible defensively and will win more games. But that’s what they have to say, because so many points were lost in free agency. Center Marc Savard and winger Peter Bondra were not re-signed. Teams don’t just lose 49 goals and 136 points without feeling it. Savard was the team’s best playmaker and there isn’t a true No. 1 center on the roster.
Waddell added Vitaly Vishnevski to the defense, which should help. But the group as a whole remains just slightly above average.
If Waddell’s biggest misfires have come in picking goalies, defense is a close second. Since 1999, the Thrashers have picked 28 defensemen in eight drafts, including eight in the first three rounds. Drafts can take up to five years to judge. But the fact remains that only one — one — of those 28 defensemen has proven to be NHL caliber: Garnet Exelby, who was taken in the eighth round in 1999.
Expansion teams are reliant on goaltending and defense to grow, which is why this one hasn’t.
Hartley said, “We’re no more a young expansion team. Those are weak excuses.”
He’s right. He has tried to preach responsibility and accountability. He has proven his ability to coach through adverse circumstances, holding the team together after Dan Snyder’s death two seasons ago, and navigating through the blur of goalie injuries last year.
But the coach shares culpability for last year’s fizzle, and he, too, likely will be gone, if the Thrashers whiff again. They appeared playoff-bound even after all the goalie issues early last year. But in late January, they went on a seven-game losing streak that ultimately buried them. Several months later, he still doesn’t know why. “We just lost our game,” he said. “I can explain the rest of the season. But those seven games, I can’t explain.”
It has been a summer of re-evaluation. For Bobby Holik, that meant losing 13 pounds. He learned the hard way last season that clutch-and-grab centers no longer are tolerated by league officials. Holik was the team’s best player in the final six weeks, but he had started slow, having not played elsewhere during the NHL lockout, and then suffered a broken foot.
One thing nobody can ever accuse Holik of is being misguided. The Thrashers weren’t officially eliminated from the playoff race until Game 81, but he said the problem was they never should have been in that position.
“You don’t lose the Cup in the seventh game of the finals, and you don’t miss the playoffs with two games left,” said Holik, who played on two Stanley Cup teams in New Jersey. “We gave ourselves an opportunity to stay in the race that long. But was it more luck than we deserved? We should not have had to scramble.”
Another season starts Thursday night.
This is Year Seven.
Still here?
Permalink | Comments (29) | Categories: Jeff Schultz
World Series rings can’t be bought
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
If the Yankees do what they should do, and that is win the World Series (again), ignore all of the inevitable whining about how they just bought another world championship.
You can’t buy these things. All you have to do is look at … The Yankees.
During George Steinbrenner’s first 23 seasons of owning the Yankees, his relentless spending for players produced two Reggie Jackson-generated world championships. That means his Yankees were busts (well, given all of that spending) for those other 21 years.
Here’s the point: Steinbrenner still spends like crazy, but his recent Yankees have become a regular championship team since 1996 because they’ve had the right manager (Joe Torre) and the right players for winning championships (Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams).
The Red Sox spend a lot of money, too, but their season is over.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Braves’ fall brings peculiar kind of hurt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
To be honest, it’s just as well it’s over. The Streak. We’ve been tooting our horn about it long enough, with little to show for it after September. “Fourteen in a row,” emblazoned on our minds. Wonderful. Marvelous. That means the Braves have won 14 consecutive division titles, the National League East the past 11 times. OK, so that means they’ve beaten four other teams.
That’s where things get sticky. Of those fourteen times, they’ve made it to the World Series five times. Of those five times, they’ve won one. One World Series out of 14 chances at the big lottery. The last time, the Yankees wiped them out in four straight, 1999, and it wasn’t as close as it sounds. Main pleasure the Braves got out of that was that they knocked off the Mets for the pennant and robbed New York of a Subway Series. Since that season, it seems they’ve been happy just to hang one more of those facsimile flags over the leftfield stands.
Until this year. This time it had a peculiar hurt to it. This time they were never in it. They broke well from the gate, but in no time they were looking at somebody else’s hindside, and the view never improved. When they beat the Dodgers on the last day in May and fattened their record to 28-25, they didn’t realize it, but they would never reach such dizzying heights again.
Yep, there were injuries, plenty of them. Yep, once again they worried themselves sick over who would pitch the ninth inning with a lead, as if the other eight innings were superfluous. The season before they had traded for Dan Kolb, confident that he was the celebrated “closer” they needed. He wasn’t. Four million bucks wasted. But they muddled through and led the NL East by two games, and that wasn’t much to brag about.
Once again they sloshed through the season this time, wringing their hands about a “closer,” until they made a deal for burly Bob Wickman, who could drive a beer truck for me any day, and he gave in return. So well that he’s already signed for next season for about six million bucks and change. That’s a good price, lower than what you’d consider to be the going rate.
A puzzle to me has been the sudden concern about Andruw Jones. Is he worth that fat paycheck one more season, after which Steve Boras, his bullish, arrogant agent, will have to be dealt with? Thirteen or 14 million dollars? After all, he’s only a .260 hitter. They finished out of the money with him this year, they could finish out of the money without him next season. He has the kind of fancy numbers that could bring a fat return on the market and ease the pain on the payroll.
They have centerfield potential for considerable less pay on the roster. Ryan Langerhans, for one, who has been platooned more than a little. So was Adam LaRoche, who shared time with Julio Franco last season but blossomed into one of the league’s susbtantial hitters, swinging at left-handed as well as right-handed pitching. I’d like to see Langerhans given a full-time chance, and if he makes it, good. If he doesn’t, move on.
On the pitching side, the Braves pick up a formidable arm next season, but Mike Hampton carries a $14-mil salary. Chuck James, rookie of the year in my league, is a bargain at his price with good deceptive stuff. Throw in John Smoltz, a healthy Horacio Ramirez, plus Kyle Davies or Lance Cormier, and you have solid pitching potential.
The loss of Rafael Furcal cost the Braves two ways — at shortstop and forcing Marcus Giles to lead off. Edgar Renteria was adequate, but performed without Furcal’s fire and base-running threat. With Furcal, it’s perhaps another kind of season.
Whatever it was, it’s over. The clubhouse is dark. Vacant. No rancid smell of wasted champagne. For the first time in years, the Braves knew where they were going on the first Monday of the rest of their lives. They’re scattered from here to yonder, from Australia to the Caribbean, to lick their wounds. Nobody headed for Disney World. And all this on John Schuerholz’s 66th birthday.
Permalink | Comments (44) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Desperate for the truth
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Went to synagogue Sunday night. Had to repent for a year of sins, begin a 24-hour fast and sit “Shiv’ah” over the Falcons’ red zone offense. (Loose translation: a period of mourning.)
9: Saw Arthur Blank in synagogue Sunday night. He assured me that the red zone offense isn’t dead, just malnourished. (Loose translation: He will be chucking large, heavy nutritious vegetables through the door of the coaches’ rooms this week. OK. My loose translation.)
8: It has been three days since Georgia Tech upset Virginia Tech and Georgia pulled another unimpressive win out of its earflap at Mississippi. I would estimate five times as many people have approached me about Mark Richt and the Bulldogs’ quarterback issues than the Yellow Jackets’ sudden rise. Memo to the whiners on e-mail and message boards about unequal coverage: Step up or shut up.
7: Breaking news: Eva Longoria splits with the Spurs’ Tony Parker, then is spotted shopping at Target. Views: She’s gone from a wealthy Desperate Housewife to hunting for marked down socks and buying Oreos in bulk. I figure in about six months, she’ll be blogging me about the Auburn game. And that’s … when I make … my move. Oh, yeah.
6: There goes my clean slate in the new year.
5: I see now where all parties, including Jason Grimsley’s attorney, are denying that the former player fingered Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte in a drug investigation. Too late. The stain has already set.
4: Yes, I feel sorry for any athlete whose name is blindly thrown against the wall in a drug investigation. But I’ve been beaten over the head too often for too long about this stuff, so my first inclination is to believe every charge. I believed the first reports of Grimsley’s sworn statements, just as I believed Jose Canseco when his book came out, just as I believed Barry Bonds’ former girlfriend when she spoke up. I have been conditioned to believe the worst.
3: I used to get excited about great athletes doing super-human things. But the years have conditioned me to believe that if anybody, like Clemens, is doing something super-human, there must be an illegal reason.
2: Look, if NFL coaches think lying about injured players gives them an edge, that’s fine. But when it affects who I start on my Fantasy League team, that’s when I lose it. Starting Brian Westbrook this week cost me a game.
1: Finally, a post-season without a Braves’ opponent celebrating at Turner Field.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Hawks only talk a good game
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Apparently emboldened by the bronze medal he earned at the world championships, Joe Johnson looked into the lenses of two cameras Monday and said, “We can be a great team.” He said this not of Team USA, which looked pretty great until coming undone against Greece, but of the Atlanta Hawks, who have made it their habit to come undone against everybody.
We probably should cut Johnson some measure of slack. This was Media Day, that annual occasion where silly things get said. The disclaimer aside, Monday might well have been the first time in recorded history when the word “great” was in any way affixed to a team that has lost 125 of its past 164 games. (By way of apples-to-oranges comparison, the 1962 Mets lost only 120 of 160.)
All lousy teams yearn to get better, and the Hawks are awash in yearning. As bad as they’ve been to watch, they’ve been that much worse to play for. “It kind of hurts,” Josh Smith said, “as well as being embarrassing. You want to prove to yourself you belong. You want to prove to other teams you belong.”
Maybe this is the season the proving actually begins. Maybe, but probably not. These Hawks will do well to win 35 games, and going 35-47 won’t put a team in the playoffs. And at this late date another season of incremental progress isn’t what this franchise, which hasn’t graced a postseason this millennium, really needs. To get and hold our attention, the Hawks must at least be in the playoff hunt.
This process of ceaseless rebuilding has gotten old. You can only finish in the lottery so many times before you get mistaken for the long-suffering Clippers (who, in a breakthrough that might or might not serve as a beacon to the Hawks, made the playoffs last season). The Hawks keep adding players, some of whom might turn out to be rather good, but recent personnel choices make us wonder if this organization is capable of adding the right players.
Latest case in point (pun intended): Speedy Claxton. The Hawks spent $25 million to make him their starting point guard a year after spending $70 million to make Johnson their starting point guard, the latter having lasted two games at the position. While Claxton marks an upgrade over incumbent Tyronn Lue, it’s worth noting that he wasn’t the starting point guard for his last team and also that he’ll miss a chunk of training camp with a broken finger. “We’re pretty strong at the point-guard position,” Claxton said Monday, overstating.
Said Johnson: “I’m not playing point guard going into camp. I’m back to my natural position.”
As we know, many Hawks lack natural positions. Is Marvin Williams a small forward or a power forward? Is Shelden Williams a power forward or a center? Is there a place for Smith if both Williamses start at forward? Is there a spot for Josh Childress anywhere? The Billy Knight method of drafting without regard to specific deployment sounded bold in theory, but in practice it has been a whiff.
Still, on Media Day every team can visit the land of make-believe. Playoffs? Said Johnson: “That’s the goal, baby. That’s the goal.” And then: “We’ve got a great group of guys.” But then, downshifting abruptly: “For this season to be a flop would be very disappointing.”
It would be, except that these are the Hawks and those of us on the periphery would be less surprised by another fizzle than by honest-to-goodness improvement. It would be nice to report that the pieces are at last in place and the proper leadership is in power, nice to suggest that the ingredients for a great leap forward are indeed at hand. It would be nice. It would also be a lie.
Permalink | Comments (43) | Categories: Mark Bradley
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
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