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Sunday, December 31, 2006
Players’ sad effort will cost their coach
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Philadelphia — Arthur Blank didn’t need another reason to fire his head coach. He got one anyway. Looking down from his owner’s box Sunday, he saw a team, his team, the one with the nearly $111 million payroll, had morphed into a bus. Jim Mora was somewhere underneath.
If Mora loses his job, he’ll need at least a year to scrub the tire marks off his forehead. For all the talk about pride and effort, for all of Mora’s claims that he repeated Sunday about the Falcons being composed of “high-character, hard-working” players, they were anything but that in their final game. Or their final three. Or for most of this season.
If the Falcons wanted to kill their coach, well, congrats, boys. You stomped that sucker flat. The performance against a Philadelphia team that had absolutely nothing to play for — and accordingly played backups for all but41/2 minutes — spoke volumes.
The Falcons lost to Eagles Lite 24-17.
This is how you destroy what little career a man has left. The Eagles’ third-string quarterback, A.J. Feeley, who had thrown five passes all season, completed 22 of 31 for 321 yards and three touchdowns. The offense was no more efficient against backups than it has been against starters.
The team lost seven of its final nine after a 5-2 start. It also went 0-3 after Mora went on a Seattle radio station and (you decide) either professed his love/joked about desiring a college job 3,000 miles away, while in a playoff race. You decide if that’s coincidence.
“We definitely made it hard for him,” running back Warrick Dunn said. He didn’t mean that to sound like some accomplishment.
“There’s a lot of really good coaches on this staff, and a lot of times you can’t blame the coaches.”
Yeah. Except, well, duh.
This was not a well-coached team this season. It was not a team that reacted well in big games. For that, coaches pay the price. At the very least, Mora’s coordinators, Greg Knapp and Ed Donatell, probably are gone. After what happened Sunday, it would border on a miracle if the entire staff, Mora, included, isn’t blown out.
“No comment,” was all Blank would say Sunday when asked about Mora’s future. He then wished a reporter, “Happy New Year,” spoke privately with general manager Rich McKay for a few minutes and proceeded down a tunnel at Lincoln Financial Field before stepping into an awaiting car.
McKay was only slightly more accommodating. He initially said his “entire focus” has been on Sunday’s game. But when asked if a decision already has been made, he said, “I’m sure the answer to that is no. But I don’t think it’s appropriate right now to talk about that issue.”
That wasn’t a position shared by players. Most notably, Michael Vick had at least three opportunities to come to Mora’s defense in the interview room and didn’t. If Mora is fired, Vick said, “It wouldn’t be tough for me to learn a new system. If it didn’t happen, it’s all good. I’m just a player and I just want to continue to play ball and not worry about what’s going to happen in our organization.”
What is that? Leave me alone?
When told his remarks didn’t sound like he was endorsing Mora’s return, Vick said: “I don’t know, man.”
Whoever ends up coaching this team, here’s issue No. 1: Turn Vick into a leader. Because on Sunday, he was the bus driver.
Two years ago on this same field, the Falcons lost to the Eagles in the NFC title game. That wasn’t viewed as an ending for Mora, but the beginning. There’s no way to explain what has happened since. There’s no explanation for erratic play and inconsistent effort.
There’s no explanation for reaching a new season low — and who imagined that was possible after consecutive losses to Detroit and Cleveland (teams that finished a combined 7-25). The Eagles outgained the Falcons despite pulling 15 starters immediately after learning Detroit had upset Dallas, giving them the NFC East title.
The Falcons didn’t pull their starters. Pray that happens in the offseason.
If Mora had a sense of his future, he wasn’t saying.
“I expect to get on that plane and go home,” he said. “After that, I don’t know.”
He praised his players. Maybe it was because Blank was sitting in the first row and didn’t want to look bad. But it might be too late for that.
Permalink | Comments (215) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Mood of season rides on bowl win
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Talk about a must-win game. It’s in Jacksonville Monday for Georgia Tech’s reeling football team against West Virginia during the Gator Bowl. Anything less than a Yellow Jackets victory would turn an already messy season into something just shy of unfathomable.
How unfathomable? Well, Chan Gailey would complete the journey from previously beleaguered coach who discovered magic during the start of his fifth season at Tech to suddenly beleaguered coach whose Jackets did all sorts of destructive things to turn prosperity before Halloween into poverty after Thanksgiving Day.
Consider this: With a loss, Tech would finish with a three-game losing streak after climbing as high as 13th in the October polls of the Associated Press, USA Today/Coaches and Harris. The Jackets’ rise in national consciousness was punctuated by a rare whipping of traditional power Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. Just like that, Georgia Tech had the ACC’s brightest future, but then the clouds gathered around the Jackets in a hurry.
In no particular order, there was another disaster against the Bulldogs, and there was that meltdown against Wake Forest in the ACC championship game. The Jackets also looked scared in Death Valley against Clemson. Plus, even though they roared to a five-game winning streak after losing their opener at home to Notre Dame, the question remains: Why did the Jackets stop throwing to the great Calvin Johnson during the second half against the gasping Irish?
Not only that, members of Tech’s coaching and athletics support staffs twiddled their thumbs or something as Reggie Ball, their starting quarterback, and Kenny Scott, their best cover cornerback, became academically ineligible for the Gator Bowl.
The thing is, the Jackets can turn these negatives into a positive, but they have to do something first.
Win.
Like now.
And then Tech would have to win again during its next game in South Bend, Ind., to start the 2007 season.
Listen to Tashard Choice, Tech’s efficient running back, who knows exactly how to push his team back in the vicinity of the elite. It starts with the acknowledgement by Choice and the rest of the Jackets that this game against the famously swift legs of 13th-ranked West Virginia is big.
“I think it’s really big,” said Choice, the ACC’s leading rusher after averaging more than 100 yards per game. “Winning this game by beating West Virginia only will get us thinking about starting out next season with that big game at Notre Dame. That’s going to be huge. We’re going to start looking at Notre Dame really early. But first we have to win this game, and then start going into the offseason conditioning program, and then start preparing for the summer, and then the clock really starts ticking.”
The Jackets’ clock struck midnight last season after they were clobbered by a mediocre Utah bunch in something called the Emerald Bowl.
Still, Tech used that as motivation to set the foundation for much goodness this season.
You had Choice’s wonderful season, for instance. Then there was Durant Brooks punting his way to second-time All-America honors. The defense continued as a consistent force through the brilliant schemes of Jon Tenuta and more than a few gifted athletes. Johnson also was Johnson, which is to say he was otherworldly. If that wasn’t enough, Tech’s recruiting was its best in years. According to rivals.com, the Jackets’ recruiting should finish second or third in the conference and among the nation’s top 15.
None of that will matter if Tech doesn’t do what it has to do Monday. Said Choice, nodding, “We talk about this all the time, and that is, you always want to end your last game with a win.”
In this case, the Jackets HAVE to end their last game with a win.
Permalink | Comments (36) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Win mixed with pangs of regret
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
The seniors on Georgia’s football team are a proud group. That’s why, after the schizophrenic Bulldogs ended their regular season in November after the shredding of No. 5 Auburn on the road and another triumph in their rivalry with a Georgia Tech bunch that was ranked No. 16, there was much gnashing of teeth.
Not among the losers of those games, but among the winners.
Earlier this week, for instance, center Nick Jones sighed as his Bulldogs prepared to meet No. 14 Virginia Tech on Saturday night in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Then the senior said, “As players, you look back at some of the losses this year, and you think about how you’ve beaten great teams like Auburn and Georgia Tech, and you just say to yourself, ‘Dang.’ “
Dang, as in how did Georgia get flattened like that at home by Tennessee? Dang, as in how come the Bulldogs lost to the hated Gators again? Dang, as in how can Georgia lose to Vanderbilt or Kentucky during any season, and how did they get upset by both this season? Dang, as in how come Georgia couldn’t play this way all season after slaying Virginia Tech by turning a 21-3 deficit at halftime into an unlikely 31-24 victory?
“What a comeback like this tells us is that we always play together, and we always play with heart, and that we realize that it’s a 60-minute game, not a 30-minute game,” said Charles Johnson, Georgia’s magnificent defensive end, who was everywhere. His sack of Virginia Tech’s Sean Glennon in the fourth quarter produced a fumble that Georgia recovered and used to create a scoring drive that continued its run toward 28 consecutive points.
This was encouraging stuff, especially if you’re among the Bulldog Nation in search of signs that 2007 will be Georgia’s return to at least the edge of the elite.
Barring injury, the Bulldogs will have Brandon Coutu’s prolific right leg for a whole season. He proved his worth against Virginia Tech after he returned from a nearly three-month layoff (hamstring) with field goals of 39, 51 and 28 yards. Too bad Georgia loses seven starters from a defense that kept making Virginia Tech’s offense implode. Even so, with the accomplished Willie Martinez as defensive coordinator, the Bulldogs will be fine.
Georgia has a nice quarterback, too, with Matthew Stafford using the second half of the Virginia Tech game as his coming-out party. After more than a few sloppy moments in the first half, including an interception that triggered Virginia Tech’s early explosion, Stafford had more than a few splendid moments. None surpassed his well-placed bullet at the start of the fourth quarter to a streaking Martrez Milner for a 41-yard play. It put the Bulldogs at the Virginia Tech 2. Kregg Lumpkin rushed to close Georgia’s deficit to 21-19, and then Stafford fired a pass to Milner in the back of the end zone for the tie.
The tie became a lead that Georgia wouldn’t relinquish. Then again, there was that omen for the Bulldogs. Days, weeks, months prior to the opening kickoff, the folks at the Chick-fil-A Bowl asked a guy if he would do a prayer before the playing of the national anthem.
That guy accepted. Some guy named Herschel Walker.
Actually, during the early part of the evening, this was Georgia’s version of “The Omen,” only this horror movie involved the Bulldogs getting spooked by the Hokies and by themselves. When Stafford wasn’t playing like a freshman, the Bulldogs were forgetting how to tackle on their punt coverage team and how to catch on offense, period.
Then the strangest things happened. Mostly, Stafford quit looking like a freshman. And his receivers began catching passes. And the Georgia defense continued to outshine the nation’s top-ranked defense across the way. And the Bulldogs’ seniors were turning frowns into smiles.
Permalink | Comments (60) | Categories: Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
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