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Sunday, December 17, 2006
Sooner rather than later for Mora’s exit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
The question isn’t whether Jim Mora’s regime is outta here with the Falcons after three seasons (if it lasts that long). The question is when will owner Arthur Blank do the inevitable and begin taking résumés for a new head coach.
In case you’re wondering, here’s the answer to the “when” question: Sooner than later, especially after the combination of Mora’s joke that wasn’t involving his campaigning for the University of Washington job and the horror of Saturday night at the Georgia Dome for those who care about this suddenly reeling franchise.
Before we get to the horror, let’s start with the big picture involving the Falcons’ 38-28 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, and the big picture is “Gone With the Wind,” as in how you would describe the Falcons’ playoff chances right now. At 7-7, and with I-85 rival Carolina next for the Falcons followed by a trip to likely frigid Philadelphia to face the highly competitive Eagles, Mora’s Falcons are on the verge of an underwhelming finish for the second consecutive season.
Not good. Not if you’re Mora, and if you wish to keep your job with the Falcons, which is doubtful anyway. I mean, did he really tell those Seattle radio folks on Thursday (jokingly, of course) before the Falcons’ biggest game of the season that he would even leave in the middle of the playoffs for the Washington Huskies job? Yep, and between apologies during his subsequent news conference, Mora even admitted that after he listened to the interview again that he sounded sincere. That’s because he was sincere, which makes you wonder if he has seen or heard something involving the Falcons’ ownership, management or both that he doesn’t like.
Why else would Mora do the unprecedented? Dan Devine and Steve Spurrier went from NFL head coaching jobs to the college ranks, but they didn’t announce their intentions during those respective seasons. Not only that, Devine and Spurrier came to the pros after serving as college head coaches. This was Mora’s first head coaching job of any kind. So we’re talking about a double oddity for Mora. Then again, he has been involved in several oddities with the Falcons.
That cellphone controversy last season during the Tampa game. Headphonegate, when Mora hurled the things in anger after he didn’t like a question during the Falcons postgame radio show and nearly significantly bruised somebody. His wild swing in the direction of a referee after questioning a call. Equating the glib ability of former Falcons great Mike Kenn and Jeff Van Note with losing.
Those oddities affected the Falcons as a franchise off the field. As for on the field, we’re back to the horror. Which was: Mora and his offensive lieutenants doing the unconscionable against Dallas by putting their starting quarterback at tailback. It doesn’t matter that Michael Vick just set the NFL record for must rushing yards in a season at quarterback, or that he is a unique talent courtesy of his magical legs, or that The Great Matt Schaub is considered a wonderful backup who never gets to play, or blah, blah, blah.
You just don’t put your starting quarterback at running back.
Period.
Why? Well, because your starting quarterback could suffer, oh, say, a groin injury. You know, similar to the one that Vick suffered in the second half against Dallas in the midst of the Falcons employing a slew of gimmicks you might find in a college playbook. Like Stanford, for instance, where beleaguered offensive coordinator Greg Knapp supposedly is up for the vacant head coaching job. Or like Washington, where the Huskies already have Tyrone Willingham as head coach, but where Mora told that Seattle radio station (jokingly, of course) of his alma mater that “if that job’s open, you’ll find me at the friggin’ head of the line with my résumé in my hand ready to take that job.”
Looks like Knapp and Mora already are auditioning for their next stops at the Falcons’ expense.
Permalink | Comments (310) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Falcons are a mess
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
What a mess! You’ve got a team of Falcons drawing a bead on a place in the playoffs, biggest game of the season coming up, and the coach says on an interview with a Seattle broadcaster that he’d jump ship in a split second to coach his old college team. I know, you’ve read all that, but I’m not sure you were making notes. Surely, Jim Mora must have known that the Pony Express has been bypassed by radio. News travels fast nowadays.
I know, the power was off in most of Seattle because of a furious storm, but that doesn’t mean Atlanta was in the dark. (“This is the job I want,” speaking of University of Washington. “You would leave the Falcons for that job?” Reply: “I don’t care if we’re in the middle of playoffs, I’m packing my stuff and coming back to Seattle.” Radio guy: “You would leave the Falcons for that job?” Mora: “Absolutely.”)
There’s a rather positive ring to that, I’d say. You can’t drop a bomb and stop it in mid-flight. You can’t say “if I was in the middle of playoffs” and say, “Aw, shucks, can’t you take a joke?”
There’s a little bit of sophomore in Jim Mora. The boyish grin, the twinkle in the eyes, the overload of self-confidence, but how could that self-confidence have led him to think he could take off in a such a flight of fancy and expect to get away with it. Kidding around? Two days before he had to look across the line at the Dallas Cowboys, with a place in the NFL playoffs on the line. What could his players think? What’s with this guy, who’d rather coach the Washington Huskies than us?
Most of all, what could his boss be thinking? Arthur Blank took it calmly. No furious outburst, not as if Joe Torre had been sending an unofficial message to George Steinbrenner. The Falcons owner simply said something about “inappropriate remarks,” and let it go at that, but beneath that stylish haberdashery the blood pressure had to be on a rise. Look, Blank had just extended Mora’s contract through the season of 2009. How’s this for appreciation?
As for the team, the Falcons played as if they had never read the papers or heard the news. They gave away an early lead, got a lead of their own, then lost it again when Tony Romo — not a place for ribs – found out he could pick up yards any time Allen Rossum was on the field, and the Cowboys quietened the Georgia Dome throng. And I’ll tell you this, there was a lot of Cowboys blue among that throng.
Some of the best leaders you’ll ever know couldn’t work long division. One great major league manager never got beyond the 7th grade in school. But he wasn’t dumb. This was dumb, just before the most vital game of the season. I would say this, without any knowledge or personal interest, that what Jim Mora did was talk himself out of town. Tough for me to expect the owner of a team to read such a transcript and tell its author that he wants him around three more seasons. No reason to expect a change now, but I’d guess Arthur Blank’s talent scouts are getting busy going over their private list and checking it twice.
Show you how things work out, the best the Cowboys could take back home with them in the way of clubhouse friction was merely another chapter in the turmoiled presence of Terrell Owens. “The Spit” it was titled on a Dallas broadcast. “After winning a big game like this, all you’re going to get when you get home to Texas is “The Spit,” one commentator said.
What happened — and I don’t know how we missed this during the game — is that Owens told his teammates he had spit in the face of D’Angelo Hall. Confessed in the locker room. The two had been sparring throughout the game. Hall had boasted that he would take Owens prisoner; instead Owens burned Hall with five catches, two for touchdowns. Yet, Owens did the spitting, which would get him a fine in the subway, but not in the NFL. You know, boys will be boys.
Permalink | Comments (55) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Furman Bisher
Blame this loss on coaching
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
And here we thought the run-up — rumors of Michael Vick playing running back, Jim Mora having to apologize for identifying his Dream Job as one other than his current (if tenuous) position — was weird. Who knew the game itself would be crazier still?
Who knew T.O. would roast D-Hall so roundly? Who knew the running back of a quarterback would throw three touchdown passes — five if you count two overruled by penalty, six if you count the one he threw to the other team — in a half? Who knew this careening version of Saturday Night live would trump anything “Saturday Night Live” has aired since Bill Murray was playing Nick the Lounge Singer?
And who knew the Falcons, having done their usual thing of falling behind 14-nil at home, would rouse themselves, as opposed to quitting on the season and letting Mora pursue other vocational opportunities, and author their finest 15 minutes of 2006? And then, after all that good work, who knew they’d turn a seven-point lead into a crushing 10-point loss?
Their effort cannot be faulted. The Falcons played as hard as they’ve ever played, and for those parts of two quarters they looked like the team Arthur Blank and Rich McKay envisioned when they made all their offseason hires. Vick threw the ball beautifully, and Roddy White and Michael Jenkins — stop the presses! — caught it the way first-round receivers should. The defense clearly rattled Touchdown Tony Romo in that wild first half, and for the longest time it seemed the hand of Rod — Coleman, the fearsome defensive tackle — had actually saved Jimbo’s job.
With the Falcons down 14-0 in the second quarter and the Cowboys positioned to throw a hammerlock on the game, Coleman bore in on Romo and swatted a pass upward, thereby turning a bullet into a balloon. Michael Boley took the gift interception to the Dallas 12, and over the next 15 minutes the Falcons would outscore the high-profile visitors 28-7. But there, for reasons unknown, the excellence stopped. The Falcons had taken a grip on a slippery game, and then it was gone. And maybe a season, and maybe even a head coach, with it.
If you’re looking for the story of 2006 (to date, anyway), it can be found in those moments after the Falcons seized the lead. Dallas scored on three of its next four possessions. The Falcons went three-and-out, then failed on fourth-and-1 from the Dallas 37 when Vick’s rollout pass — another of those strange Greg Knapp-ian calls we’ve all come to know and bemoan — to Ashley Lelie was thwarted by Anthony Henry. Then a five-and-out, and that was that. A mighty opportunity had been lost because, for all their skill and all their will, the Falcons still cannot close out games against a big-time opponent.
Some of that has to do with playing, sure, but more of it has to do with coaching. Contrast the Falcons’ inefficiency at the end after doing so much right in the preceding minutes. Contrast the way the Cowboys allowed Romo to work his way back into the game — throwing to his tight ends, hitting quick outs — with the way the Falcons asked Vick to make more difficult throws. Dallas doesn’t have any more talent than the Falcons do, but Dallas is coached by Bill Parcells.
Afterward a conspicuously subdued Mora praised his men, saying, “We fought hard – I’m proud of the effort and determination.” Were this high school football, that would be enough to satisfy a constituency. But this is the NFL, where there are no moral victories, where players and coaches are paid to win, where the Falcons are 9-13 since the midpoint of last season.
They might still make the playoffs, but a team that cannot win such a pressurized December game at home isn’t apt to linger long in the postseason even if it lands there. Blank said over the summer – and reiterated last month — that anything short of a playoff berth is tantamount to failure. Jim Mora might soon be free to apply for all the jobs he wants.
Permalink | Comments (227) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
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