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January 2007
Bears can’t match legend of 1985 team
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Miami — As the unofficial spokesperson for the 1985 Chicago Bears and their slew of worshippers, Richard Dent isn’t impressed. Not with the defense for the latest Monsters of the Midway compared to the defense for the previous one.
It isn’t as if this new bunch has a personality or something.
That other bunch had a Fridge. It had Coach Ditka. It had the explosion always waiting to happen named Buddy Ryan at defensive coordinator. It had the Super Bowl Shuffle. It had Steve McMichael flinging chairs into walls. “When you think about it,” said Dent, the Atlanta native and sacks leader for those other Bears, pausing over the phone from Chicago, “we were sort of the first reality show. Most teams are going to resemble their coaches. With Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan, they were wild and crazy, so we were wild and crazy.”
Current Bears coach Lovie Smith is quiet and boring. Defensive coordinator Ron Rivera raises his voice, but not to the constant roar of Ditka or Ryan.
Not only that, the growling that symbolized the Bears from Bill George to Dick Butkus to Mike Singletary has vanished with the decades. While Dent’s bunch scared folks along the way to the easiest of world championships with brutality and the jumbo eyes of Singletary at middle linebacker, this new bunch will go into its Super Bowl on Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts in search of victory with speed and quickness.
This new bunch hasn’t much choice in this NFL era where the combination of brutality and jumbo eyes will get you penalized, fined, banned or all of the above. So we have these dancing Bears as opposed to those pounding Bears.
Whatever works. Despite their ugly swoon during the last six games of the regular season, these dancing Bears finished fifth overall in defense in the NFL. They also continued Smith’s obsession with forcing turnovers with a league-high 44. “Everything we do is about stripping the ball,” defensive end Adewale Ogunleye said. “If the equipment guy is walking and he fumbles the ball, [Smith] probably wants somebody to run over there and pick it up and run it into the end zone.”
It goes back to Smith’s single-gap approach. He brought it to the Bears three seasons ago after his three seasons as defensive coordinator with the St. Louis Rams. “We don’t ask guys to do too much, just to take this gap or that one,” Smith said. “Then you just get set and play fast until the whistle blows.”
Dent’s Bears did a lot of that through the complexities of their unique “46” defense, but they also did a lot more.
They bruised people.
“We kind of took on the world, with records and videos and attitude and swagger, and with the philosophy of ‘It’s not whether we’re going to win. It’s a matter of how much we’ll win by,’?” Dent said. During one three-game stretch of those Bears’ 18-1 season, they hammered Detroit, Dallas and Atlanta by a combined score of 104-3. Just last week, the legendary running back Jim Brown told Dent that those Bears (also known as Da Bears) had the greatest defense ever.
Brian Urlacher, the successor to George, Butkus and Singletary, nodded with a shrug when told as much on Wednesday during a media session at the team hotel. For one, he has been with the Bears for seven seasons, which means he has heard somebody mention the 1985 Bears’ defense nearly every day for seven seasons.
For another, Urlacher gets it. “We don’t compare to them. They’ve already won a Super Bowl, and just look at their numbers,” he said. “They did everything. They took it away. They sacked the quarterback. They intercepted passes. There have been games when we’ve been dominant, but they were dominant the whole season. Didn’t they give up something like 16 points during three playoff games?”
Ten, with two shutouts.
How many of today’s Bears would start for the 1985 Bears? Dent thought and thought, before saying, “Maybe two.”
Which two? Dent laughed while pausing to suggest that the answer really was either Urlacher or nobody.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Hewitt must lift his game to stop slide
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Cognitive dissonance: I believe Paul Hewitt is a good coach, but I believe good coaches shouldn’t have lousy seasons.
Cognitive dissonance: I believe Hewitt is a better tactician than Bobby Cremins ever was, but Hewitt is 45-59 in ACC regular-season games (13-40 on the road). Cremins was 52-52 in his first 104 league games (18-34 on the road despite needing nearly three full seasons to post his second away victory). And Hewitt, it must be said, inherited Alvin Jones and Tony Akins and some measure of tradition. Cremins had to start from the sub-basement in a conference that was even stronger back then.
March Madness in Atlanta:
Paul Hewitt is a smart and decent man who’s a splendid ambassador for the Institute. I know no Tech fan who doesn’t want him to stay and succeed. (I know several who wish Chan Gailey would leave.) But Gailey, for all his critics, is 24-16 in ACC regular-season play and just won the Coastal Division. Hewitt’s teams are 6-18 in the league these past two seasons, and events of the past fortnight have been utterly sobering.
Tech lost at North Carolina, which was no great sin, but lost four days later at Maryland and was (troubling sign) less competitive than in Chapel Hill. Then the Jackets lost to Virginia Tech at home, allowing the clever opposition to make 59.5 percent of its shots. Then they went to Wake Forest, where surely even they couldn’t contrive to lose.
Tech got ahead early, which was news, but fell into the usual halftime hole. Still, the difference in resources was so conspicuous that there seemed no way the Jackets wouldn’t win at the end. This, however, was the final: Wake 85, Tech 75. This was the shooting percentage — 54.3 — amassed by the Demon Deacons, who’d already lost seven ACC games and who lost to Air Force by 36 points. If Wake is woeful (and it is), what does that make Tech?
Talent can be overrated, but it says something when NBAdraft.net has two Jackets slotted as lottery picks: Thaddeus Young this year, Javaris Crittenton next. It says something when a team is gifted enough to beat Memphis and Georgia and Duke but so unsound it has lost its past four games by an aggregate 49 points. It says the coach is underperforming, and that, I’m sorry to report, wouldn’t be the first time. The 2002-2003 Jackets had essentially the same guys who would play for the NCAA title in 2004 plus Chris Bosh, now an NBA All-Star, yet they missed the Big Dance. The 2004-2005 Jackets returned six of the top eight from their Final Four squad but lost 12 games and were routed by Louisville in Round 2. Last season was always going to be a transitional time, but a big-time program shouldn’t fall to 11-17 unless it’s on probation. Now this: 2-6 in the ACC.
I once thought I had a clear understanding of Hewitt and his methods, but I have no idea what these Jackets are trying to do. They don’t press much anymore because they can’t find anybody other than Mario West willing to defend, and their halfcourt offense, a precision instrument in the December dismissal of Georgia, goes through dawdling stretches where even patrons at Alexander Memorial Coliseum can be heard to yell, “Move, Jackets!”
I used to believe Hewitt was the game’s Next Great Coach, the ideal choice to hoist Tech upward after the Cremins regime ran out of ideas. Now I wonder if the successor has anything left to show us. I wonder if losing assistants Dean Keener and Cliff Warren has damaged Hewitt as much as the departures of George Felton and Perry Clark hurt Cremins. Mostly I wonder why I expect so much more when the cold truth is that, since its famous Final Four run, Georgia Tech is a chilling 44-37.
Permalink | Comments (46) | Post your comment | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Atlanta’s unfit for Super Bowls
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Miami - Now this is the way it ought to be for a Super Bowl.
No snow (as in Detroit and Minnesota), and no ice (as in Atlanta or other places that don’t have an ocean or a gulf nearby).
It’s been a little chilly this week by South Florida standards. I even tried to turn on the heat in my hotel room the other day, but there was a problem: Most hotels in this city don’t have heat.
“Just flip off the air conditioning,” said the hotel desk clerk, giving her best way for guests to survive unseasonably low temperatures that were 50ish during the night and 60ish during the day.
That said, Miami is slated to have a high of 72 degrees today and near 80 degrees by Super Bowl Sunday.
I’m sure you already know that those numbers are blistering by, say, Georgia and Michigan standards. Atlanta’s predicted high this Wednesday is 44, with an expected low of a degree below freezing.
As for Detroit, don’t ask. Imagine sitting in the middle of an icicle. Imagine if the Super Bowl was in Detroit again this year.
Imagine the screams from fans who come to Super Bowls as a vacation.
Permalink | Comments (82) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Can Manning be The Man?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Miami — No victories in four tries against those hated Gators. Despite gifted Tennessee teams, zero national championships. Two failures against Tom Brady and his Patriots before last week’s AFC thriller to reach the Super Bowl. There is a game on Sunday that Peyton Manning has to win, and he will.
He hasn’t a choice.
That’s why Manning is obsessed with getting it right this time. In fact, here’s the most impressive thing about his attempt to use his perfectionist ways to win the Big One for a change: After he spent barely a minute scooting the Colts 80 yards through New England’s defense and into the Super Bowl, he began to hear from elite quarterbacks from the past and present. He called some, but many called him.
The subject: How to make Manning end his first Super Bowl Sunday looking more like Joe Montana and Tom Brady than Fran Tarkenton and Jim Kelly.
Were Montana, Brady, Tarkenton and Kelly among those on the phone with you during the last few days? “I’d rather not disclose the names,” said Manning on Tuesday from his podium during the Colts’ portion of Media Day. He was surrounded by nearly everybody carrying a notebook and a camera in South Florida, which means the following was directed to the considerable masses: “Maybe y’all can go do a little research and a project for the week and try to find the names.”
Then Manning eased into a devilish grin before adding, “I can tell you who it wasn’t, I guess. It wasn’t [Vince] Ferragamo or [Craig] Morton. [Len] Dawson or [Bart] Starr. It wasn’t [Earl] Morrall, but you probably can figure it out. I was just trying to have a pretty good idea of sort of what I was getting into during the week, and getting some good advice.”
The advice likely was to remember that Tarkenton scrambled his teams into Super Bowl losses and Kelly operated as the antithesis of a Hall of Fame quarterback during the NFL’s ultimate game. Manning also likely was told to remember that a heavy dose of poise gave Montana four Super Bowl rings and Brady three.
Neither Montana nor Brady lost this game, and that means Manning has to win this game on Sunday to have a chance to become Montana or Brady.
And to have a chance to become free of his past failures in the Big One.
“Don’t they always show that commercial with Steve Young after he wins the Super Bowl that involves taking the monkey off his back?” said Colts backup quarterback Jim Sorgi, nodding in Manning’s direction. “This would be kind of the same thing. It was huge for us to win that game against New England to get here. But to shed all doubters and to get everybody off of his back, he has to get a Super Bowl win. It would relieve a lot of pressure and stress on him.”
Pressure and stress that neither Manning nor his best friend say exist.
Well, that’s what they say.
There was Manning, speaking of his father, Archie Manning, the former NFL quarterback who gave a younger Peyton Manning a quotation from Chuck Noll, leader of Pittsburgh’s dynastic teams. The older Peyton Manning now rattles off the words with ease, saying, “Pressure is something that you feel only if you don’t know what you’re doing. I really abide by that when it comes to preparation, and [offensive coordinator] Tom Moore and [head coach] Tony Dungy have exactly that same philosophy. They both worked for Chuck Noll.”
Brandon Stokley didn’t. Even so, the Colts wide receiver knows about the Noll Doctrine as the teammate closest to Manning through the years. Stokley contended that the combination of the big, bad Chicago Bears and the overwhelming lights of the Super Bowl won’t cause Manning to go from prolific to pitiful after the opening kickoff.
“He’s always the same person,” Stokley said. “What I admire most is that, after we beat New England, I probably would have stood up on the victory podium and given a few people [an obscene gesture]. You know, like ‘Look at me now.’ But he doesn’t do those things. He’s a humble guy. He goes about his business and works hard.”
Sounds good. It will sound better after Manning ends the week with his fingerprints on the Lombardi trophy.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Post your comment | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
A night in the Garden with legendary Gump
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
It would have been memorable, for no other reason that it was the first hockey match I’d ever seen. The Rangers were playing the Maple Leafs — New York against Toronto. Big rivals. Big-time stuff. It was also the first time I had inhaled the musty vapors of Madison Square Garden, the old one up on 8th Avenue. I’m sure it was. A sight for this out-of-towner to behold, armored men on skates slashing at one another with weapons like bed slats. This hick’s eyes must have looked like the bottom of shot glasses.
This all comes to mind because Gump Worsley died the other day. Gump was between the pipes — see how fast I catch on — for the Rangers that night. He was riding the crest of some kind of record, had some sort of scoreless streak going. When he appeared on ice, those New York sophisticates burst into worshipful applause and shouts of earnest love. In team warmups, Gump took his bows modestly with each puck he casually slapped away from the cage. A love affair was in bloom, Gump and his gallery.
His actual name was Lorne, hardly the kind of name that goes with heroes. For that matter, neither was “Gump,” other that the fact that it referred to his plump face — he was a holdout who never wore a mask, until his final season — surely not to the chinless cartoon character Andy Gump. Nor to his physical presence. Gump was short, rather lumpy, especially with all that hardware hanging on him.
The Flames were years away from coming to Atlanta, and I was yet to learn what a heroic shadow the goalie casts over a game.
His was the only name that sticks in my memory from that night in the Garden, for the obvious reason that he was on a roll, a valiant defender of the Rangers against the world. His fans were there to cheer on the tough little man tending their goal against the brutish invaders from across the border, and they let him know of their affection.
But there would be a mood change as the evening wore on. Gump wasn’t on his game. The record, whatever it was, was under serious fire. One of the Leafs got away a shot from long range, the puck got by Gump, and the Rangers lost a big one at home. Six times the puck had slipped under Gump’s stick, and worship turned to scorn. Later, I read in one of Stan Fischler’s books that it was “one of hockey’s all-time chokes.”
Gump, who had made his appearance on ice to cheers and wild adulation, stood in front of the cage while the boos rang down. He looked like an overstuffed bag of laundry, a defenseless little man whose only recourse was to skate out on the ice and stand there shaking his fist at the turncoat fans, a lumpy, forlorn little figure, like an abandoned waif in a field of ice. How the world had turned.
One of the Rangers’ executives made it no easier later, when he was quoted as saying, “If one player can be singled out for the collapse, it’s Worsley. I can’t understand why he has lost his touch.”
So that was my introduction to the cold heart of ice hockey, and as brutal was it was for Gump Worsley, he would have his revenge in time. He was later voted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. He had already registered indelibly in my hall of memories.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Thrashers / NHL
Lowering our standards
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
THE TUESDAY COUNTDOWN…
10: The last time a horse’s death moved me was in “The Godfather”. So unless you can somehow tie Barbaro into the Corleone family - sorry, this is the most overblown sports story of the decade.
9: I like Lovie Smith, the Bears, their defense, their toughness, their story. But I can’t get past that Indianapolis is the team that bounced Bill Belichick and Tom Brady from the playoffs. And Peyton Manning vs. Rex Grossman?
8: Then again, it is the year of the Gator, isn’t it? Manning was 0-3 against Florida (Grossman’s alma mater).
7: Greg Knapp apparently was so worn down after his firing from the Falcons that he decided to leave football. He has taken a job with the Raiders.
6: Cam Cameron to Miami. Lane Kiffin to Oakland. Norv Turner potentially to Dallas. Has there ever been a weaker crop of coaches in NFL history?
5: Sat with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman the other day. Asked him about the ratings for the NHL All-Star Game being 76 percent lower this year on Versus (474,298 households) than three years ago on ABC (1,985,000). He said Versus officials were “thrilled.” Well, yeah, but what would the cable network have had on otherwise? Cycling? Camp cooking? A horse funeral?
4: I see AJC.com has posted a behind-the-scenes look at our swimsuit pictorial. I’m not sure at what point in time women’s bathing suits became a news story. But Sports Illustrated has made a lot of money selling its soul once a year and every sports website now has soft porn links. So I guess we’ve fallen in line. Personally, I’m repulsed by the whole thing, at least until such time that they need a writer for the photo shoot.
3: Everybody’s jumped ship. One of the judges at the Miss America pageant Monday night: Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s “Hardball.” Coming next: swimsuit competition at the Pulitzers.
2: It took nearly two months for Barry Bonds and the Giants to agree to contract language that effectively banned his personal trainers from the clubhouse and protected the team in certain court matters. Seems like a long time to work something out with such an innocent man, don’t you think?
1: Colts 27, Bears 16.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Felton’s Bulldogs are worth watching
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
It has been some time since Georgia basketball represented anything but a connecting airport (Tubby Smith), a punchline (Ron Jirsa) or a sales stop for somebody pitching voodoo potions that promise one thing but ultimately make your hair fall out (Jim Harrick).
But this is Georgia basketball now: Not short term. Not a joke. Not a grease spot.
The Bulldogs have forever operated in the shadow of the football team. Also women’s basketball. Also gymnastics. And tennis and golf and animal sciences. But after consecutive upsets of Kentucky and LSU, Georgia is 5-2 in its conference, which would be the inverse of Georgia Tech.
They are getting better (unlike Tech). The Dogs are selling out the storage facility of college arenas (Stegeman Coliseum). They are creating an atmosphere. And though they have yet to crack any rankings or shake bracketologists, they would be on a six-game win streak in the SEC if not for a late-game collapse at Alabama (somewhat aided by logic-challenged officials).
Georgia has a basketball team.
Who knew?
The next thing you know, we’re going to start hearing smack talk about how hoops in the SEC are superior to hoops in the ACC.
Next thing: “I’ll say this,” Georgia coach Dennis Felton said Monday, “Since I’m looking for easy wins, I’d rather play in that other league right now. I can’t find anything but difficult games here.”
Coach K: Line 1.
Georgia is not stuffed with McDonald’s All-Americans. It would settle for one. But the Dogs have some pretty good players (Sundiata Gaines, Takais Brown, etc.) who play hard, and generally together, and generally smart.
This team’s margin for error is not big. An upcoming stretch of games — at Tennessee, at Vanderbilt and home against Florida — could define this season. Regardless, Felton has engineered a remarkable makeover for a program that was wrecked by the human virus, Harrick. He has not only disinfected the program, but he also has created something worth watching — today, next week, next year.
Georgia was 8-20 overall two years ago, and had lost 25 of 32 SEC games the past two seasons. It wasn’t even a fallback choice for top recruits. Now, with the SEC’s basketball stock up and the school funding a new training facility that will include a practice gym, locker room and offices for the basketball team, you wonder about the potential.
If Florida can do it, why can’t Georgia?
“There isn’t any reason,” Felton said. “That’s what we’re working toward. We believe the SEC is the best conference going right now, and one reason is the facilities that are being built. Florida built a facility similar to the one we’re going to have when Billy Donovan went there. It’s a statement about how serious we are about this.”
The team has excited students, and Felton has tried to reciprocate. After the LSU game, he sent players into the stands to shake hands with the fans. If he had tried that in the past, the problem would’ve been finding somebody.
“It was just a spontaneous thing,” he said of the players’ handshakes. “It’s been sheer pandemonium in the stands. It was a response to how helpful they’ve been.”
It’s not football. To say it never will be football doesn’t qualify as crawling out on a limb. But success in one sport doesn’t preclude having success in another.
This is Felton’s fourth season, but his first team with NCAA tournament aspirations. Nobody could have imagined the Dogs’ presence would be at least as plausible as Tech’s (the Jackets have dropped three straight since beating Duke and Florida State).
“We’ve had obstacles but we’ve been able to fight through them — nothing really has taken me by surprise,” Felton said. “I knew we would hit rock bottom in the second year. We inherited four guys and none were going to be with us in the second year. But I’ve always felt we were progressing. We’ve come a long way, but we’re still a long way from where we want to be.”
Just success. Nothing funny, nothing greasy and probably nothing brief. And all in the middle of football recruiting. Who knew?
Permalink | Comments (37) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
Super Bowl shame recalled
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Miami — We’ll have the rest of the week to discuss Bears and Colts. Let’s spend today rolling our eyes over the last time the Super Bowl was in south Florida. To that end, I’m standing at the corner of N.E. 22nd Street and Biscayne Boulevard, right near the spot where the Falcons lost the world championship nine years ago.
Remember? The Saturday before the biggest game in franchise history, Eugene Robinson, the undisputed team leader and celebrated disciple of spirituality, made the earth spin backward. He spent that afternoon lounging around the hotel pool with his wife and two children after receiving the NFL’s highest award for moral character. He spent that evening wearing handcuffs after allegedly offering an undercover Miami policewoman $40 to perform oral sex.
Falcons 19, Broncos 34.
“Gosh, I’d never throw Eugene under the bus, because he brought such a light and energy and a positive force to our team, but that was dumbfounding, and you couldn’t think of 100 different fables from Aesop’s to explain what happened,” said Jamal Anderson, who ran and danced the Dirty Birds into fame before Robinson led them to infamy. Former Falcons wide receiver Terance Mathis still is seething, and not only because the plays called by his coaches in the red zone during the Super Bowl were from the ozone. Said Mathis, “It’s a shame that, despite all the great players, and despite all the great moments that we had to go 14-2 in the regular season, and to play one of the best games in the history of NFC championship games (a thriller in Minnesota), it was all marred by that one incident.”
Added Mathis, “Wherever you go, even to this day, when people find out that you were in that Super Bowl, the first thing that comes up is Eugene Robinson. It was an unfortunate situation that happened to a really good guy.”
Time has been kind to that really good guy who lives in Charlotte with his supportive family. When Robinson isn’t working as a color analyst for Panthers radio games, he is coaching football, track and wrestling at a local high school. He was asked over the phone if he wished to reflect on why he lost his mind on this street corner, but he punted away the chance. “I don’t want to be the center of a story with two historic black coaches (the Colts’ Tony Dungy and the Bears’ Lovie Smith) in the game,” Robinson said. “I don’t want to be a side story. I know that I probably will be, but I don’t want to add to it or anything else. They’ll just have to write without me.”
That’s what I’m doing, especially after standing at what has evolved into the antithesis of the corner that Robinson visited around 9 p.m. that Saturday night in his rented Ford Taurus. Back then, the corner was a haven for prostitutes. Run-down buildings and vacant lots were everywhere. Now the corner has Yuppies and their high-rise condominiums that start around $500,000. Just a block away, there is a store full of shiny Cadillacs. Can a Starbucks be far behind?
Even so, memories of that old corner remain with Robinson’s teammates who thought they were involved with a perverted version of Candid Camera when they first heard the news. There was a groggy Jessie Tuggle, awaken just after 7 a.m. on Super Bowl morning at the team hotel by a call from his wife, DeJuan. She told her husband to turn on his television. “It was everywhere,” said Tuggle, the former linebacker, who can chuckle about it now. He screamed back then from the middle of his bed. Said Tuggle, “I was like, ‘Oh, my God. No, no, no. Not today. I mean, of all the days, don’t let this happen on the day of the Super Bowl.’ “
Soon afterward, Tuggle rushed to Robinson’s room to find the free safety losing his battle with tears and guilt. “He looked like he hadn’t slept all night,” said Tuggle, who later saw Robinson play exactly like he looked.
So did the Robinson thing cost the Falcons the Super Bowl? “Well, there were a lot of variables, including a game plan that guys weren’t comfortable with,” Mathis said. “On the opening drive, it’s first-and-goal, and we’re inside the five. They blitz and (Chris) Chandler gets sacked, because somebody missed their assignment. We missed a field goal in the first half. We went for it on fourth-and-one when everybody knew what we were doing. We had our chances to be up 21-3 at one point.”
That said, weren’t many of those gaffes courtesy of that Robinson thing rattling around the Falcons’ subconscious? Said Anderson, “It was the first time the Falcons had ever been there, and Denver was a seasoned organization with respect to the Super Bowl, so I’m sure we didn’t need any outside distractions.”
Tuggle laughed, saying, “It’s an intangible. It’s something that didn’t affect the game, but it did affect the game.”
Permalink | Comments (76) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
No defense for underachieving Tech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
There are 41 days until Selection Sunday, and Georgia Tech has a choice: It can figure things out and grow into the force its talent insists it should be, or it can get ready to play a home game in the no-account NIT.
The team that infamously can’t win on the road suffered a serious reversal Sunday, losing to Virginia Tech here. An NCAA invitation seemed fairly assured two weeks ago when the Jackets beat Duke and Florida State, but they haven’t won since and look to be getting worse, not better.
The Hokies made 58.3 percent of their first-half shots Sunday and then, defying belief, did better in the second half. This tells us that the Jackets, for all their skill, have nobody — well, nobody except Mario West — willing and/or able to defend. This tells us that Paul Hewitt, for all his tender love, hasn’t yet reached these guys.
Hewitt tried a little motivational tack Sunday, having his players’ names struck from the backs of their jerseys. Afterward he said he’d wanted his young men “to get lost in the game,” to focus not on individual stats but the greater good. The Jackets succeeded only in getting lost on defense. Thaddeus Young, a freshman, didn’t score a basket until the 35th minute. Ra’Sean Dickey, who’s a junior and should be past such oscillations, had no points in 19 minutes.
Yes, Virginia Tech has a nice squad, but somebody has beaten the Hokies. (Five somebodies, actually, including Western Michigan, Southern Illinois, George Washington and Marshall.) Having lost their last two games by an aggregate 31 points, the Jackets should have hit the floor spitting fire. Instead they did the thing they’ve come to do best (or, more precisely, worst): They fell nine points behind in 5 1/2 minutes and wound up chasing the game.
What’s wrong? “I have no idea right now,” Young said. “I know we’re playing hard. We’re getting down and it’s hard to keep coming back.”
If the effort isn’t at fault (and that’s a big “if”), then the focus is clearly absent. How else to explain Young making a splendid move and missing a lead-pipe layup that would have cut the lead to four? How else to explain the 6-foot-3 Jamon Gordon being allowed to drive 35 feet against a presumably set defense for a dunk that put the Hokies ahead by nine inside the final three minutes? How else to explain Virginia Tech making a season-best 59.5 percent of its shots against an opponent that should have been determined if not desperate?
“You have to have a great sense of urgency,” said Hewitt, speaking of the ACC in general, but so far Tech hasn’t demonstrated one. The Jackets act as if their hype — which, once upon a time, was pronounced — will grant passage into the Big Dance, but the way they’re playing, nothing is certain.
The 2004 Jackets played for the national championship without a single man as gifted as Young or Javaris Crittenton and maybe even Mouhammad Faye, but those Jackets played and (above all) defended with a controlled fury. The nice thing about going to a Final Four is that it allows a program to sign higher-profile recruits. The trick is in getting McDonald’s All-Americans to guard people the way Isma’il Muhammad and Anthony McHenry did.
So far, Hewitt hasn’t found a way. There’s still time, but another bad week could leave the Jackets too far down to recover. And there is, sorry to say, precedent for such a fizzle: In 2002-03 a Tech team with hotshot freshmen Chris Bosh and Jarrett Jack didn’t win a road game until March and landed in the NIT.
You wouldn’t have believed such a thing could happen again so soon, but neither would you have believed this team would be 2-5 in ACC play. Even if it means taking away the Jackets’ jerseys and making them work skins against shirts, something needs to change.
Permalink | Comments (52) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Vick’s Blank check turns into a liability
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
There are times, you might imagine, that Arthur Blank must run a hand through his hair and across a furrowed brow, wondering to himself, “How did I ever get myself into this mess?” When he had a problem at Home Depot, it never got beyond his office door. It surely didn’t break out in headlines. Nor did it bring about a public exploration of thuggery, and could it be that it applies to his most valued employee? (Which strikes me as being somewhat of a stretch, but who am I to say?)
With Michael Vick, it seems there can be no peace. Six years have passed, and it seems it’s like waiting for a child to get potty-trained. The quarterback’s highs have been inevitably followed by lows, promising starts followed by slides down a slippery slope. There has even been a depression in the “Vick” jersey market, I read, something that only indicates a recession in popularity. It always has struck me as being rather juvenile to see grown men, and women, walking about with the name of some athlete across the shoulders.
When a businessman invests as much as $137 million in a commodity as fickle as a human body, the risk is clearly calculable. In Vick’s case, it has not been for lack of patronization, for Blank has done everything short of warming his bottle for him. (No intended reference here to that mysterious bottle that surfaced in Miami.) He brought in a new coach, young and personable, one who might relate better to the young and capricious nature of Vick than, say, the older Dan Reeves. Not necessarily so, as that turned out, for Vick was a more effective passer under the Reeves school of offense than Jim Mora’s.
Under Blank’s smooth hand, it all got off to such a warm and cozy start. First, into the playoffs, all the way to the conference championship game. There was a brilliance to the future. All speed ahead. Michael Vick owned the town. He owned his owner, a frequent sideline companion, sharing the sweet nectar of victory again. Where on earth a man, so successful in one business, should have felt so confident in one in which he was a neophyte that he made Vick “the franchise” still is puzzling. He surely could have had him for less. Just look at the lesson learned by the latest Home Depot regime. At least he didn’t have to deal with Bob Nardelli.
For that matter, things have not gone that swimmingly (no pun intended) for Bernie Marcus, Blank’s old partner in Home Depot. The aquarium has been the most exciting new attraction in town, a place everybody must see. But, first one of the beluga whales expired, then the biggest fish in the pond, Ralph the whale shark, took his leave. None of this involved controversy, only sadness.
So Bobby Petrino arrives on the scene just in time for the latest Vick headliner. They had barely met. First, Rich McKay and Blank had a quiet moment with their quarterback, and out of that it was established that Blank was “upset.” And why not? How many bungles can you allow a bungler to get away with? Then Petrino was next, and what else did you expect?
“Unfortunate … we decided to get past that … moving on,” and so the new man, of roughly the same age category as Mora, gets his shot at dealing with a quarterback who doesn’t have to go to class and makes about $14 million a year. Pretty big order for a young fellow just off the campus, but who, by the way, has a pretty short fuse himself. Oh, yes, we shall see, we shall see. For all of that, I doubt that you’ll be seeing the season start with Matt Schaub working behind the center, though there is a growing number of cynics out there weary of waiting for Vick to take his place in the adult nation.
Behavioral matters run in the family. Remember his brother Marcus, of Virginia Tech, kicked out of a game and out of school for stepping on a prone opponent in the Gator Bowl? The victim played for Louisville, coached by guess who? Bobby Petrino. Just a thought in passing.
Permalink | | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Furman Bisher
Dungy, Smith on verge of milestone for sports, society
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
The Question was simple, but not necessarily the answers. The Question was pondered by those ranging from a former United Nations ambassador to a legendary news anchor to the daughter of a baseball icon. The Question involved Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy, now seven days shy of becoming the first head coaches darker than Vince Lombardi to juggle X’s with O’s during a Super Bowl.
What’s the significance of this?
That was The Question.
I’ll go first. My answer begins and ends with the late Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, the NFL prognosticator and unofficial sociologist for CBS. He was fired by the network 19 years ago after his infamous television interview with a local Washington D.C. station. What you probably know is that he said blacks were bred to become great athletes courtesy of their big-boned maternal ancestors from slavery. What you probably don’t know is that he also said something else — something that was buried by the media. Something that tells you why the presence of African-Americans Smith and Dungy on the sideline next Sunday in Miami at Dolphin Stadium will have even more significance than you think.
Said Snyder in that interview on why he thought NFL teams weren’t hiring blacks as coaches: “There’s not going to be anything left for the white people. I mean, all the players are black. The only thing that the whites control is the coaching jobs.”
In other words, Snyder broke ranks with those in the shadows to expose an unspoken truth regarding discrimination: It’s mostly about power. It isn’t about believing that blacks haven’t the “necessities,” as the late Al Campanis once theorized on national television. It’s about fearing that blacks actually can do nearly anything and seeking ways through the good ol’ boy network (or beyond) to stop it.
The NFL is a microcosm of society. Take, for instance, those decades when blacks were shuffled away from the so-called thinking man’s positions up the middle of quarterback, center, middle linebacker and free safety. We’re back to fear. Fear that a Mike Singletary would join Snyder in exposing that truth by leading a defense filled with complexities to a Super Bowl rout as a middle linebacker. Fear that a Doug Williams would smash Super Bowl records along the way to winning it all with ease during the first start ever by a black quarterback in such a game. Fear that a Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts and a Smith of the Chicago Bears would sit only a victory away from a world championship on the same night.
Fear that Snyder’s predictions about the majority losing power to the minority would occur sooner than later.
‘This makes it normal’ Said Martha Burk, whose women’s group sought and failed to force Augusta National to change its men’s only stance, “I have a very good friend who is an African-American woman, and what she said to me is so true, and it applies to this. She said, ‘On the one hand, we’re too lazy to work, and on the other hand, we’re taking all of the jobs. Now which is it?’?”
Burk laughed, before she gave her answer to The Question on the significance of Dungy and Smith in the Super Bowl. “First of all, it’s astounding that we’re in 2007, and this is just now happening. This makes it normal for African-Americans to be in this situation, because you can’t be a thing until you can imagine it. Secondly, I don’t think the white-male supremacy in this country is in much danger, just because two guys who happen to be black are coaching in the Super Bowl. Still, you have those who are afraid of it all.”
Such fear wasn’t in Dan Rooney, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, when he inspired an NFL rule five years ago that requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching vacancies. There were a record seven black head coaches in the league last season. After two firings and a hiring, the number dropped to six. You can attribute that hiring to Rooney matching his actions with his words by acquiring Mike Tomlin, the former defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings.
So who better than Rooney to answer The Question?
“The significance of this is that it’s a good sign that you have two African-American coaches in the Super Bowl, but in reality, once African-Americans got this opportunity, which was inevitable that it would take place, they would be looked at as just coaches,” said Rooney, who made Tomlin only the Steelers’ third coach in 38 years. “What is happening here with Tony and Lovie — and I personally know them both as great people — goes beyond the sports world. There is no question that what happens in sports is a motivator for young people. I hate to use the word ‘role model,’ because it’s unfair to the kids and to the adults. But this is a situation where people are being looked up to. And it’s like saying, ‘Our people made it.’?”
There is Michale Adams, for instance, spending his senior year at Mays High School as the vice president of the student government association with a 3.8-grade-point average. He spoke of how watching Super Bowl XLI will encourage him in his goal of becoming an obstetrician gynecologist by way of the University of Georgia.
With emotion coming from his 17-year-old tongue, Adams gave his answer to The Question: “Having [Dungy and Smith] in the Super Bowl makes me want to strive even harder in school, because it proves that blacks can achieve as well as whites at high levels. … But when I see this, it just gives me a bigger reason to knock away all of the nonsense that I hear.”
Nobody experienced more mindless chatter than Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodgers legend who broke baseball’s color barrier 60 years ago. He survived all of the death threats, all of the name-calling and all of the physical abuse with the same inner strengths attributed to Dungy and Smith. Too bad Robinson isn’t around to see the latest offsprings of his legacy. He died in 1972 at 53 after making the transition from quiet dignity to outspoken social activist. Among other things, he blasted baseball for keeping blacks out of the power positions in that sport.
Just like the NFL used to do before Ozzie Newsome became its first black general manager with the Baltimore Ravens in 2002. Four years later, the New York Giants hired Jerry Reese as the league’s second black general manger. That was just before the black mentor (Dungy) and his black pupil (Smith) did much to push their teams into this Super Bowl with a Robinson-like combination of skill and character.
“Oh, if he were still alive, he’d want to be right there at the Super Bowl just cheering them on, you know?” said Sharon Robinson, chuckling at the thought. She is Jackie’s daughter and an educational consultant for the baseball commissioner’s office when she isn’t writing books for youth. “Believe me, if my father wasn’t at the Super Bowl, he’d be with my mother and I, sitting around the television set and being proud that both of these coaches are such great leaders away from the sports arena.”
And Sharon Robinson’s answer to The Question? “This is significant, because forever, the NFL has had a large percentage of African-American players, but to have two men that have moved beyond the playing field and who are in leadership positions and who have taken their teams to the highest level you can go, it’s very inspirational,” said Robinson, whose father once caused an 8-year-old white kid from South Dakota named Tom Brokaw to become his disciple forever.
‘We’ve gotten a long way’ Brokaw laughed, and then the former anchor of the NBC Nightly News added, “As soon as the Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson, my grandfather told me at that age, ‘We’re going to cheer for the Dodgers from now on,’ and that changed my whole life. He was my first really big sports hero, and I knew everything about him until the day that he died. I thought he was a critical part of changing attitudes in this country about race. We’re still a long way from home, but we’ve gotten a long way down the road.”
So, for Brokaw, what’s the significance of this upcoming Super Bowl? “I do think it’s an important signal. The NFL has done a pretty good job — when you look at the other sports — finding talented people who happen to be black,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of documentaries on race, and it’s been one of the two or three most important interests I’ve had throughout my entire professional career. Consider that you cannot over estimate the number of black faces we now see in commercials in America. They’re portrayed as executives or as upper-middle-class consumers or as participants in integrated social situations. All of those types of things help change the overall portrait of America.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a master painter of the portrait, and he had helpers such as Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor and U.N. Ambassador.
To Young, the answer to The Question is as simple as this: “We are so racially influenced in this country, and some of us have been overlooked for so many things because of color that when somebody achieves such as this, everybody who ever has been discriminated against for any reason sort of takes a certain pride in a sense of redemption. You have to say that this is a significant event, because we’re still in a world where things like this are always going to be important.
“It even comes down to such fine tuning as that, as much as I love Tony Dungy, when Indianapolis wins, they give the credit to Peyton Manning. Lovie Smith was harassed and everything else for sticking with Rex Grossman. He could have found another quarterback, but he stuck with this kid, and look where Lovie and Tony are.”
Lovie and Tony are in the Super Bowl, helping to prove that Jimmy “The Greek” was right.
Permalink | | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Bush hit jackpot, Trojans take hit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
It was last April when EA Sports announced that Reggie Bush would be on the cover of its new video game, “NCAA football ‘07.”
The concept of a money-making video game about “amateur” athletes really wasn’t all that outrageous. Besides, three days before the game’s unveiling, a report broke that Bush’s parents may have been living in a home rent-free in San Diego. You might say it was Reggie’s own little Trojan horse.
Here’s an idea for a new video game: “Take The Money And Run,” the story of college athletes who auction themselves off between classes, then bolt before investigators arrive, when a program spontaneously combusts in the rearview mirror.
Chris Webber, a gifted basketball player at Michigan, with charm, grace and a Pepsodent smile, was convicted in 2002 of lying to a grand jury about payments he received from a booster while in school. Other than public scorn, the penalties to Webber were minimal. His career earnings in the NBA had long since surpassed nine digits and, as a bonus, he dated Tyra Banks.
But Michigan? It forfeited 113 wins. It took down postseason banners. It accepted a one-year tournament ban and was placed on 3 1/2 years probation.
That seems balanced, doesn’t it?
Bush might want to familiarize himself with the Webber case. Or not. (Probably not.) A similar story could be played out at USC. The Trojans reportedly are central to investigations by the NCAA, the Pacific 10 and, oh yeah, the feds.
Like Webber, Bush has talent, charm and a smile. He is coming off a terrific rookie season with the New Orleans Saints, the NFL’s feel-good story of the season. But that is as far back as Bush would prefer to look. It gets ugly before that.
Since April, more details have broken about benefits Bush and his family are alleged to have received while he was in school. The Web site Yahoo reports federal agents have secured tapes of recorded conversations between Bush, his family and an investor in a sports marketing company indicating that he received benefits totaling $280,000.
I realize a coach and a program are culpable in situations like these. But there’s a pretty good chance that USC is going to end up taking a far bigger hit than it deserves for the actions of one kid. If the Trojans are put on probation, current players — not Bush — will take the hit.
Should federal agents, the NCAA and Pac-10 find wrongdoing, Bush may be asked to return his Heisman Trophy. I’m guessing he will be allowed to keep his $51 million contract, and his endorsement deals with Pepsi, Adidas, Hummer, Subway, EA Sports and a cologne company.
Bush just purchased a $5 million home in the Hollywood Hills. It sits above the Sunset Strip, with views of Malibu. Bush will live there only during the offseason.
I guess USC players or their parents can sleep there during the season, if Bush wants to branch out into the agent business.
One sensed USC was distancing itself from Bush when it wouldn’t give him a sideline pass for the Rose Bowl (as the school provided for Marcus Allen, Ronnie Lott and Charles White). But there’s only so much distancing a school can do.
USC has been as dominating a college football factory as we’ve seen for some time. Its record since 2002: 59-6. The Trojans were 37-35 in the previous six years. With no NFL team, they have been L.A.’s biggest show.
But coach Pete Carroll might want to reconsider an NFL job now. At the least, sanctions could force the school to vacate wins from the time Bush was deemed ineligible. At worst, there’s probation. That depends on how responsible the NCAA believes USC to be.
But Bush can’t be touched.
A year ago this month, Bush announced he was turning pro. Asked at the news conference about likely becoming a millionaire, he said: “It hasn’t sunk in yet. I don’t think it will until I get that first check.”
We would like to think that’s the order of things. History and probation tell us otherwise.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Jeff Schultz
Thrashers realize goal’s still far away
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
As omens go, the Thrashers would just as soon take it as a positive Thursday when a Zamboni broke down at their Duluth practice rink, forcing them to move to the public sheet of ice.
At least this breakdown didn’t involve a goalie. Or a defenseman. Or a coaching staff.
Fifty games in, and they are still in first place. A maiden playoff berth has advanced far beyond the prayer stage.
Just think: a Thrasher playoff game … in postseason-starved Philips Arena … under the roof of the Atlanta Spirit. It’s kind of like that whole Forrest Gump thing when all of a sudden he found himself with a boatful of shrimp.
The Thrashers have issues. But so does every team. The difference this season is, their issues are accompanied by a winning record at the All-Star break (27-15-8) for the first time in franchise history. For once, a home stretch that’s not a mere countdown to vacation.
Bobby Holik was asked if he could sense a team’s impending sigh of relief. He didn’t bite.
“I don’t want to even get into that,” he said. “One thing I’ve learned in my career is when you start focusing on the goal, you forget what it’s going to take to get you there. Don’t ask me that question again until the time is appropriate.”
See, you learn quickly when you’re a Thrasher not to assume anything. Not even a working Zamboni in January.
A year ago, they emerged from a lockout stuffed with talent. But they tripped out of the gate with goalie injuries, then recovered but suffered too many hiccups and fell two points (one win) short of a playoff spot.
Holik: “Last year we played catch-up from game one to game 82.”
The picture at the break was different this time.
So will the picture at the end.
The Thrashers have two significant needs: a play-making center and a point man on the power play. Regardless, they have shown the resilience to avoid collapse. Two five-game losing streaks have been followed by winning streaks.
Also, there is the reminder of what happened a year ago, which could be a benefit. Slava Kozlov believes the mindset of some players changed.
“I think the difference this year is we have a better locker room,” said Kozlov, who played on two Stanley Cup teams in Detroit. “We play for each other. Last year I think some guys were just worried about personal stats. This year, it’s all about team. At the end of the season, it doesn’t matter how many goals and how many points you have. If we don’t make the playoffs, we’re all in the same boat.”
Their boat is six points ahead of Carolina’s boat in the Southeastern Division. But in the race that matters most, the Thrashers’ 62 points are 12 more than the current best non-playoff team (New York Rangers) in the Eastern Conference. That’s hardly insurmountable.
“You lose five games in a row and things are close again,” Kozlov said.
They could use another piece, if not for the regular season then for the playoffs. General manager Don Waddell has enough salary cap room to add at least one player before the Feb. 27 trade deadline, a center to slide between Kozlov and Marian Hossa or a pointman to set up Ilya Kovalchuk on the power play.
“Sometimes when you bring in new blood to a team it works very well,” Kozlov said. “But I saw so many times in Detroit where we picked up a few players with [big] names and they didn’t do much. It’s always risky.”
At least they have put themselves in the position to take that risk. They don’t need to scramble to get into the race. They’re there, ahead of most. Even their hard-driving coach, Bob Hartley, has been smiling. Sort of.
“We’ve just put him in a better mood, more often than not,” Holik said. “I didn’t say a good mood. Just a better mood. With him, certain things can only get better or worse, but they never really get good.”
Relatively speaking, they’re way ahead of the Zamboni.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
Jackets badly in need of road victory
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
March 3, 2004: Georgia Tech won at Duke and lit the fuse that would burn into an improbable run to the 2004 national championship game. The doings of that March (and early April) seemed to prove the Jackets had risen to a new and rarefied level, but the giddy feeling hasn’t held.
How can we tell? By this: Three years ago, Tech was good enough to beat a superb Duke team in its ballyhooed bandbox. Today the Jackets can’t win an ACC game anywhere but here.
Tech is 3-17 in conference road games since prevailing at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Its last victory on any opponent’s home court was Feb. 26, 2005, at Miami. That’s nearly two calendar years, folks, and there is simply no reason for such a thing to have befallen a program of such conspicuous resources.
Yes, winning on the road is hard, but other teams find ways. Georgia won at Arkansas. Virginia Tech won at Duke. Wisconsin won at Georgia and Illinois. Oregon won at Arizona. Vanderbilt won at Kentucky and at LSU in the span of five days. Tech is way too good — I maintain that these Jackets are among the 10 most talented teams in the land — to keep flailing like this. But somehow they do.
They trailed North Carolina by 11 at halftime in Chapel Hill on Saturday. They trailed Maryland by 17 at halftime in College Park on Wednesday. That’s not just the way to keep losing. That’s the way to ensure you won’t even have a chance to win. As Jeremis Smith told Matt Winkeljohn: “We’re notorious for falling behind by 20 points.”
And that’s the proper adjective. There was a time when this looked to be the fastest-rising program in the ACC if not the whole wide US of A. Now it just seems one of those programs that can’t get out of its own way. There’s still time to make something of this season, but first the Jackets have to prove they can win one crummy game on somebody else’s floor. And if the proving doesn’t come next Tuesday at woebegone Wake Forest, I don’t know when or where it ever will.
Permalink | Comments (39) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Win gives Dogs reason to believe
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens — The feeling has persisted these past two months: For as many strides as Georgia had made, the Bulldogs hadn’t yet grasped how good they can be. They should know a bit more about themselves today. They should know that their pulsating overtime defeat of the nation’s winningest program wasn’t a home-court fluke but an accurate measure of these teams in the year 2007.
Kentucky is still pretty good.
The Bulldogs are simply better.
The Bulldogs shouldn’t be satisfied with winning the occasional big game. They have it within themselves to win games in March. When Georgia topples some towering seed in Round 2 of the Big Dance, don’t say you weren’t warned.
Owing to post-Harrick sanctions and the general disinterest toward Georgia basketball that exists even in the best of times, the Bulldogs have built a good-looking roster without benefit — indeed, perhaps due to the lack — of fanfare. “We’ve got the team,” Sundiata Gaines said. “We’ve got every player. We know we’re under the radar right now, but if we keep doing what we do, we’re going to win a lot of games.”
If not for a second-half lapse in Tuscaloosa, Georgia would have beaten Arkansas, Alabama and Kentucky in the span of eight days. The Bulldogs were unlucky at the end against the Tide, but such a loss, however poorly adjudicated, is often a reflection of a low-profile team that still isn’t sure it deserves to beat a high-falutin’ opponent. Wednesday’s second half and overtime should help disabuse Georgia of that notion.
The Bulldogs yielded 43 points in the first 17 1/2 minutes. (“The worst basketball we’ve played in a long time,” said Dennis Felton, the Georgia coach.) And then, for no reason other than that these Bulldogs are too talented to do so little for much longer, they turned the game and left the proud Big Blue looking outclassed.
Kentucky managed but 26 points over the final 27 1/2 minutes. The Wildcats could find no one other than Joe Crawford to score, while Georgia found all manner of playmakers. Gaines was terrific all game — there’s no SEC point guard, not even Florida’s Taurean Green, who ranks as his superior — and Takais Brown overwhelmed all the big ‘Cats, Randolph Morris included, down low. Terrance Woodbury made four massive baskets down the stretch. Mike Mercer shot poorly but did everything else nicely.
Georgia trailed only once in the final 10:48, and the Wildcats were thankful just to reach OT. (Gaines missed two free throws and a contested shot at the shank of regulation.) Anyone following this lopsided series — the Wildcats had won 30 of the past 35 games — would have been excused for thinking the teams had switched jerseys, that there was no way the callow Bulldogs should have been the ones with the better and more resourceful players, but that’s the new reality.
And maybe this will be the game that finally alerts Georgia to its vast potential. It’s a hard sell for any coach, persuading some of the same guys who were 8-20 only two seasons ago that they’re now capable of standing toe-to-toe with the sport’s giants. “It’s part of our progress,” Felton said, “convincing them that we’re good enough and that what we do is good enough, persuading them to stay with what we do and to stay in character.”
Georgia didn’t have to soar above and beyond to beat Kentucky. Georgia had only to trust itself and its talent. Felton again: “We haven’t been in position to impose our will [the last few years]. We were competing really hard just for self-respect. But we’re working at turning the corner, at not just competing but expecting to be successful.”
The job isn’t anywhere finished. The job has only just begun. LSU comes to town Sunday, and mighty Florida arrives Feb. 7. But the feeling here — actually, the conviction — is that Wednesday was no one-off moment. It was, on the contrary, the first of many.
Permalink | Comments (37) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
“Pressure’s on” big-time college coaches
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Just like that, the pressure is on Mike Krzyzewski.
And Bob Knight.
And Lute Olson.
And Rick Pitino.
And Paul Hewitt.
They have Bruce Pearl to blame, especially after the men’s basketball coach at Tennessee exchanged his sweaty sports coat for a painted chest to support the women’s basketball team during a home game.
This was refreshing. There was Pearl, jumping and screaming in the student section with a chest painted orange and with the letter “V” for Volunteers on it. Several of his players followed suit with enough painted chests to spell out “Go Vols.” They were supporting the Tennessee women against No. 1-ranked Duke.
Tennessee lost, but so what? Bruce brought the old Beach Boys’ edict to “be true to your school” to a new level.
A fun level.
Permalink | Comments (36) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Parcells unfairly blamed in Dallas
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH: Bill Parcells bears the brunt of the Dallas Cowboys’ blowout, just as Peyton Manning was blamed for the Indianapolis Colts falling short in the AFC divisional playoffs a year ago. Unfair in both cases. Manning delivered the Colts to the perfect position for a tying field goal. Mike Vanderjagt, the NFL’s most accurate, missed it. The Cowboys had the ball poised for the winning kick in these playoffs, but Tony Romo fumbled the snap, tried to run the ball in and fell a foot short. Neither had a hand on the ball, but both Parcells and Manning were saddled with the losses. … And whatever became of Jackie Smith (you know, the Cowboys’ touchdown dropper)?
— So, the substance in Michael Vick’s water bottle is said to be unidentified, but surely it can’t be “unknown.” It’s not joy weed, they say, but it surely has to be something. Then what? Dirt? Rust? If it were a bottle of innocence, why was Vick so insistent at keeping it in hand? Maybe he needs a baby sitter after all. He attracts trouble like a magnet, and it must have Arthur Blank chewing his nails.
— Jimmie Johnson (the race car driver, not the football coach turned TV performer) collected $8.9 million driving NASCAR races last year. Look, Richard Petty had to race 13 years before his earnings came to $1 million.
— Seve Ballesteros has committed to the Champions Tour once he turns 50, just after the Masters. He’ll play a few PGA Tour events before the Masters, they say, but you wonder how far his senior career will last if his game is as ragged as it was since he last put it on display.
— Cris Collinsworth’s view on Tiki Barber’s retirement, as one who went the same route: “He wants to go into television, and I can tell him, it’s not as exciting as what he’s doing right now.”
— Tiger Woods will pick up where he left off on the PGA Tour this week, and the story line will be: his streak of six straight victories. On the U.S. tour, yes, but he was beaten twice in tournaments in Asia.
— It was nerve-racking to watch Arnold Palmer joining up with Muhammad Ali for the coin toss at the Orange Bowl. Arnie represented Wake Forest, Ali his hometown University of Louisville. They shook hands and Arnie smiled through it, but I’m not certain that Ali was sure what was taking place, suffering as he is from Parkinson’s disease.
— The price of stadium naming is going up, and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ home is one on which the price is expected to get a big bump-up. The Jaguars signed on for $640,000 a season with Alltel in 1997. Now an expert in the field expects the price to be no lower than $4 million a year, which the Jags will share with the city. Alltel isn’t expected to renew. Here in Atlanta, you wonder how long it will be before Blank will want to add a partner’s name to the Georgia Dome.
— Give you an idea of just how small Bobby Petrino’s alma mater is: The men’s soccer and tennis coach at Carroll College (in Montana) is also the sports information director.
— Hooray for Glynn County: Both Golf Digest and Travel & Leisure magazines rate Sea Island the top golfing destination in the country. Palmetto Bluff, in South Carolina, comes in second, Kiawah Island fifth.
— Stan Musial turned 86 in November, and his daughter, reporting on his state of life, said: “He has health issues. Maybe he slid into third base too many times. Now he wishes he’d hit more home runs.” … Selah.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: Furman Bisher
Falcons silent amid murky Vick case
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
When you go from incident to police report to public condemnation to information blackout to a statement saying, “Nothing to see here, move along” in roughly seven minutes, there are bound to be lingering questions. The nature and number of those questions might depend on your affinity for conspiracy theories.
For me, Michael Vick AquaGate boils down to two possibilities: Either he was guilty of carrying a fake water bottle with traces of marijuana on it and what followed was some sort of expert NFL disinformation campaign. Or, Vick was completely innocent in this matter, has been unjustly vilified — and therefore should be upset about being hung out to dry by his employer.
Let’s restate one fact because it deserves to be restated: Vick has been cleared.
End of story.
Well, not really.
This has been the strangest of cases, if for no other reason than a man has been exonerated before he ever publicly declared his innocence. That’s not something you see every day, if ever.
There is nothing worse in this country than someone being unjustly accused of something. I would tell Vick that I really believe that, assuming I could find him.
It’s like somebody turned on the lights and everybody scattered. From the time this mess started, nobody — not Vick, not anybody who works for him or anybody he works for — has said, “He’s innocent.” If anything, Falcons president and general manger Rich McKay led everybody to believe just the opposite.
People believe the media needs to apologize to Vick. I’m sorry, but the media reported the incident, the police report and the lack of any denial by anybody involved.
Tell me where this jumped the tracks because I’d love to know.
This started out with Vick looking bad. Given the way the Falcons have handled this, the whole franchise looks bad. They allowed it to become monologue material for Jay Leno and a skit on a Saturday Night Live. And they’re allowing it to linger now.
This started last Wednesday. It ended Monday. Still silence.
Vick still hasn’t said a word.
Bobby Petrino, the new coach, hasn’t said a word.
Arthur Blank, one of the most high-profile and accessible owners in professional sports, has neither said a word nor as much as typed a word on a statement.
McKay hasn’t said a word since, well, at least since he said these words: “… Coach Petrino and I met with Michael this morning and expressed our displeasure. I think Michael is sorry and feels bad that you are standing here.”
And these words: “I will tell you that internally we will deal with this issue.”
And these words: “I think he understands how upset we all are that this situation occurred.”
And these words: “He knows he let a lot of people down.”
I’m sorry. I’m ignorant. But why did McKay and Petrino express displeasure? What was the issue again? Why be upset? How did Vick let people down?
If a man proclaims his innocence, as we presume Vick must have in a closed-door meeting with team officials because, well, he was cleared, why would McKay say those things?
If I’m Michael Vick, and I’ve just been exonerated, shouldn’t I be upset that my team has not retracted any of those comments? Or for that matter, shown much in the way of public support?
Is this the part where I’m supposed to feel like I did something wrong?
I questioned Vick’s leadership last week. I still do. If all this serves as some wake-up call and he evolves into the mature quarterback the Falcons need him to be, it will be for the better.
This is not about pot. It has never been about pot. Even in the worst-case scenario, Vick would’ve been charged with a misdemeanor and fined. End of legal story.
This is about his personal growth and perception, both in the locker room and the public.
The lab report stated: “No drugs found.” It never indicated what was found. It never indicated why the testing was done so quickly when an official had said it would take months. By the way, why did Vick need a secret water bottle again?
So many questions.
So much silence.
Seems like a strange way to celebrate innocence.
(Editor’s Note: Please return to ajc.com starting at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday to comment on this column.)
Permalink | Comments (420) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Squash the Randy Moss talk
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
THE TUESDAY COUNTDOWN…
10: I don’t know if Michael Vick eventually will be traded or not. (This year, likely not.) I do know that if he is ever traded, it won’t be in a deal that brings Randy Moss to Atlanta (the Internet rumor of the day). So let’s just douse that one now, shall we?
9: Last note on Vick because I’ll have a column posted on this subject later (cross-promotion). It’s the first time in history I’ve ever seen a lab test exonerate somebody before he (or a representative) claimed innocence.
8: OK, not quite the last note. The fake water bottle got me wondering about other similar products with secret compartments on the market, specifically: a Nacho Cheese Doritos bag. I mean, it seems to me that if you’re going to hide a mysterious substance in something, what better place than in something representing the only munchie endorsed by “Norml.” Makes for easy packing to the next outdoor concert. Alas: the closest available product is a fake can of sour cream and onion Pringles. (Not bad.)
7: I absolutely am not making this up. Walking down Michigan Ave. in Chicago Saturday, a homeless guy asked me for money, then added this: “Unless you’re a Saints’ fan — then your money’s no good here.”
6: The only difference between Josh Smith’s middle finger salute to fans and Vick’s similar action is Smith did it during a road game - because, like, what’s the point in flipping off an empty section at Philips Arena?
5: Now if we can just get a Thrasher, a Brave and, I dunno, a Bulldog to simultaneously give the finger with Smith and Vick, the Atlanta Sports Council can put together a “High Five” billboard off the interstate to greet visitors.
4: Paul McCartney will reportedly pay Heather Mills $63 million and give her two homes valued at $20 million as part of their divorce settlement. Ringo has contested the agreement, based on the fact Paul didn’t give him even half that when the Beatles broke up.
3: ESPN now has two “reality shows” that basically depict guys playing video games. There are some days I feel old. Then there are some days I just think I’m on the wrong planet.
2: Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson is awaiting trial on felony gun charges. But a judge said Tuesday he can go to the Super Bowl, I guess the thinking being that the game is in Miami and he can’t possibly get into trouble there.
1: So if you’re Washington head coach Ty Willingham, are you throwing a Jim Mora a welcome-to-the-neighborhood party in Seattle?
Permalink | Comments (77) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Friendly advice for Mike Vick
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
I’m putting this out for public consumption, but it’s really directed toward one man. I’m saying this to you, Michael, and I’m saying this not as your agent or your publicist but as someone who knows a little about sports and, having hung around Flowery Branch since the day you were drafted, a little about you.
You need to take control of your life. You need to harness every molecule and minute and make this your most productive offseason. You need to give yourself the chance to experience, 12 or 24 months from now, your own Peyton Manning Moment. You need to work harder than you’ve ever worked to show everyone who’s saying you can’t take a team to the Super Bowl that you can.
This isn’t so much about the infamous water bottle and what might or might not have happened in Miami. This is about the bigger picture. From being hailed as the Michael Jordan of your sport, you’re now viewed in ever-expanding circles as a coach-killer or worse. Your wildly lucrative (and once carefully cultivated) career is being cheapened with every headline. When you entered the league you worked hard to say and do the right things, but increasingly you’ve become entangled in bizarre incidents that don’t reflect well on you or your employer.
As the saying goes: You can’t be framed if you don’t put yourself in the picture. I’m fairly certain Tom Brady — likewise single and good-looking — enjoys his social life, but I’ve never heard of Brady getting into a scrape in an airport security line. (For you, this makes twice.) You need to step back and remember your place in the sporting firmament, to recall who you are and what you represent. You once made it easy to believe in Michael Vick. You need to stop making it hard.
For all that, you still have a grand opportunity. This head coach arrives with the express mission of making you better. When Bobby Petrino was with Jacksonville, he’d sit with fellow assistant Dom Capers, ticketed to be the first coach of the expansion Texans, on charter flights and they’d talk about how it would be to have the draft’s No. 1 pick and for that No. 1 pick to be you. Way back then, Petrino was thinking of the plays he’d draw up to utilize your skill set. Lo and behold, here he is.
And what was your first face-to-face encounter with the new man? A “stressful” (Rich McKay’s word) meeting regarding the water bottle. Even the usually understanding front office sounds as if it has lost patience: The Falcons’ three-sentence release Monday didn’t mention you by name. And still missing from all the water-bottle blather is any explanation from you.
For someone so famous, it isn’t enough to be technically innocent. You have to be above suspicion. From this day forward, you need to do everything within your power — and ultimately everything remains within your power — to preclude external stress. If that means staying home six nights out of seven, then stay home. While you’re there, try watching game film. Better yet, call Petrino and ask if he’ll watch with you. I bet he’ll even spring for the pizza.
You’re 26, about to enter your seventh NFL season, and you’ve arrived at a crossroads. You can continue to be the uncertain player you became under Mora/Knapp, a runner one week and a thrower the next, and soon you’ll be 31 and looking to resurrect yourself the way all last-chances do - as an Oakland Raider. Or you can work with this clever coach and immerse yourself in detail and bring your fundamentals to the level of your immense gifts, and then (assuming the rest of the roster holds up its end) you’ll be what you’ve said you dream of being: A great quarterback, a Super Bowl quarterback.
You have the time. You have, goodness knows, the talent. You can get where Peyton Manning is going, but you have to apply yourself. These last few months have made us wonder if you’re as serious about your job as you need to be. Show us you are. Shut us all up. Take this team to the Super Bowl.
Permalink | Comments (66) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Manning makes amends for chokes in college, NFL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Indianapolis — He almost isn’t a loser anymore. You become a complete winner with a Super Bowl ring. Still, courtesy of Peyton Manning conquering the New England Patriots, an 18-point deficit and himself on Sunday at the RCA Dome, this was for all of those times (four, to be exact) that he kept throwing with one hand while using the other to clutch his throat at the sight of a Gator.
This was for all of those times that Manning couldn’t do what his successor, Tee Martin, did in a hurry. That is, the guy without the Knoxville street named after him actually beat Florida along the way to actually winning a national championship for the Rocky Top people.
This was for all of those times that Manning went from operating as an absolutely magnificent quarterback during the NFL regular season to an absolutely miserable one during the playoffs, especially when his pro version of a Gator was a Patriot.
This was the Manning that you never see, because this was the Manning that we’ve never seen. Not at Tennessee, not in Indianapolis, not ever.
“I’m so proud of the way our guys fought, but I’m really happy for Peyton,” said coach Tony Dungy after his suddenly clutch quarterback did the most to push the Colts to an improbable 38-34 victory. “He was very, very calm. He had to bring us from behind three or four times, and he had that great drive at the end. It was just fitting.”
Fitting because in order for Manning to prove that he really is great, he had to do something in a situation that calls for greatness. So here were his Colts, starting at their own 20-yard line, and trailing the mighty Tom Brady and his three Super Bowl rings 34-31 with barely two minutes left, and Manning forgot all of those ugly numbers. There was “5-6,” his record during the playoffs despite going “92-52” in the regular season. There was “5” and “1,” representing the interceptions to touchdowns he had accumulated during playoff games against the Patriots despite ranking as one of the most accurate passers of all-time. There was “0-2,” his record against those same Patriots.
There also was the horror of the Colts’ previous offensive series. Again, they began at their 20 with a four-point deficit, and, again, the bad Manning showed up. His first pass landed at his receiver’s feet. His second pass went left when his receiver went right. His third pass was so soft and wobbly that it was knocked away with ease.
The Colts punted. Not only the ball, but maybe a chance to capture the American Football Conference. That was before their defense gave Manning another chance with barely two minutes remaining.
This time, the good Manning was completing an 11-yard pass, and then another one for 32 yards. Before long, Joseph Addai was giving the Colts their four-point lead with 60 seconds left and with the undisputed comeback king of this era taking the field for the Patriots. As Brady moved his team from its 21 to the Colts’ 45 in search of a miracle, Manning sat on the sideline with his head buried in his hands. He was attempting to keep divine guidance wearing a horseshoe.
“Yeah, I said a little prayer,” said Manning, chuckling about his fib. All you need to know is that his prayer nearly was as long as Ben Hur. He chuckled some more, adding, “I don’t know if you’re supposed to pray for things like that.”
You’re Manning, though, and you’re desperate. You spent the early part of the night embarrassing yourself by becoming the anti-Brady by doing much to help your team trail 21-3. You had that interception that was returned for a touchdown, and you kept looking as if you’d rather be in a bathrobe doing another MasterCard commercial or something.
Then, in a flash, you begin shocking reality by playing out of your mind with brutal thoughts of the Patriots sprinting toward Miami instead of your Colts.
Reality says that Manning always, well, chokes in these situations. Reality lost this time, along with the Patriots.
Permalink | Comments (91) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Bears glad Falcons weren’t impressed by Smith
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Chicago — Once you eliminate the window dressing of injuries, luck and the occasional water bottle with a secret compartment, the difference between winning and losing really comes down to this: choices.
The Chicago Bears are going to the Super Bowl in two weeks, at least partly because of what happened three years ago. They chose right, after the Falcons chose wrong.
They chose Lovie Smith.
“That was a long time ago,” Smith said Sunday about the Falcons after stepping away from a podium. “I can’t remember back that far.”
And then he smiled. Because, like, duh, of course he can remember back that far. But there was no need to stoke an unpleasant memory on the same day of a crowning achievement.
When Chicago dumped the Saints, America’s heartthrob, 39-14 Sunday at Soldier Field, it secured the Bears’ first Super Bowl berth in 21 seasons and secured Smith’s place in history as the first African-American to coach in the title game.
“I feel blessed to be in that position,” Smith said. “I’ll feel even better to be the first black coach to hold up the world championship trophy.”
Smith is the lowest-paid coach in the NFL. His annual salary of $1.3 million is dwarfed by the $4.8 million the Falcons just gave Bobby Petrino, who hasn’t coached an NFL game yet. The Bears, a notoriously cheap outfit, might want to do something about this before Smith comes down from his emotional high.
What Smith has done in three seasons with the Bears qualifies as one of the most remarkable coaching jobs in history, if for no other reason than this: He just guided a team to the Super Bowl with Rex Grossman at quarterback. The only guy happier about this than Grossman is Trent Dilfer, who can relinquish his title as “worst quarterback in a title game.”
Grossman completed four straight passes for 78 yards, including a 33-yard touchdown pass to Bernard Berrian, in a key second-half possession that expanded the Bears’ lead to 25-14. Up to that point, he had been 5-for-20 for 64 yards.
Chicago hasn’t gone to the Super Bowl because of Grossman so much as they have gone in spite of him. In previous games this regular season, he had quarterback efficiency ratings of 36.8, 23.7, 1.3 and the Delta House-sponsored 0.0.
So it follows that Grossman has taken some heat despite going 13-3 during the regular season. But Smith has stuck by him, and the Bears keep winning. The two embraced after the game.
“Coach Smith is the best coach in the league,” Grossman said. “We just kind of had a special moment. I know what he’s been through and the way he’s changed our program. Everyone’s bought into it. It’s just fun to see good people like that accomplish great things.”
Smith, formerly St. Louis’ defensive coordinator and a Tampa Bay assistant, was a popular coaching candidate in 2003. He interviewed with the Falcons during the playoffs after the firing of coach Dan Reeves but apparently did not wow anybody during the process. The Falcons hired Jim Mora. Smith fell to the Bears.
Success wasn’t immediate. Chicago went only 5-11 in Smith’s first season and started last year 1-3. But since that 6-14 start, the Bears are 25-6 (including playoffs). He has built the kind of team this city loves to wrap its arms around: a defense that is physical and forces turnovers and an offense that pounds the ball.
“You could not have asked for a more perfect situation for us, to win an NFC title game like this at home,” said running back Thomas Jones, who rushed for 123 yards and two touchdowns.
Middle linebacker Brian Urlacher, who played on only one winning team in his first five seasons, said of Smith: “The guy’s amazing. Every game people find something wrong with our team. Either it’s our defense or our quarterback. We’ve taken on his attitude. He never gets too high or too low. He never really shows too much emotion.
“Well, he might be now.”
Yes, he got emotional. Smith spoke for a couple of minutes in the interview room before taking a question. After fondly recalling handing the George Halas Trophy to Virginia McCaskey — the eldest daughter of the legendary Bears owner — after the game, Smith said: “I’m just rambling away here.”
He’ll have two weeks to cherish that moment. The Falcons have longer to think about one that got away.
Permalink | Comments (229) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
LaRoche’s trade a loss to club, fans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
After seasons of patchwork first basemen — remember Robert Fick, the elderly Julio Franco, even a tryout of Chipper Jones — the Braves had finally found their man. Adam LaRoche had taken a solid grip on the job, a position looked to for power and run production, and he had fulfilled on all counts. A classic swing, sound defense — how does a .996 average read to you? — long ball and run production, 32 home runs and 90 RBIs, all packaged in a .285 batting average. We had our man at last, and still in his 20s.
Or, we had.
Well, he’s gone, for one of those one-inning whizzes, Mike Gonzalez, who comes to you by way of Pittsburgh. Got in 54 games, pitched 54 innings and became celebrated as one of those “closers.” The roadside is littered with the wreckage of a lot of those guys who gleamed, then dimmed out. Another one came from Seattle, Rafael Soriano, in exchange for Horacio Ramirez, a winner as a starter. Already in stock was Bob Wickman, who has one of the most impressive bellies in the major leagues, and an equally impressive “closing” record to go with it. But what do you do with three “closers”?
John Schuerholz has applied the wrecking ball to the right side of the infield as we knew it. Marcus Giles was set adrift, a guy with fire in his belly. He might have cost $5 million for the season. Maybe not. He went home to San Diego. Now, it’s LaRoche, whose departure should be a lesson to any salaried observer who becomes heartily attached to any athlete. It was just that I thought the Braves at last had a first baseman to be lived with for seasons ahead.
Money is the culprit, if I read it right. LaRoche probably would have cost the Braves $3 million, so I’ve read. In his place, they picked up a free agent, Craig Wilson, a former Pirate and a sort of utilityman who’ll cost $2 million. In other words, for a million more they could have had LaRoche, who had a fan base. Instead, you could see Wilson platooning at first base with Scott Thorman, who hit .234 his rookie season. (A year ago, James Jurries was a glint in the eye, a good hitter but still schooling with the glove, and I don’t know if he has fallen from grace.)
On the subject of money, we are to understand that the Braves’ payroll limit is $80 million. That being the case, then over half of that will be tied up in Mike Hampton, Andruw Jones and Chipper Jones, and just below them comes Tim Hudson, in whom $8 million will be invested this year, and it’s about time he produced. John Smoltz is on the same level, but he’s worth every bit of it. Hampton has been a drag on the payroll while he recovers from arm surgery, and that means the Braves have to face a dilemma next season: How could they possibly afford Andruw Jones at $14 million, if it’s possible to reel him in for that?
Just recently, Schuerholz was quoted in Sports Weekly as saying, “I think our rotation will be one of our strengths.” Which begs the question then, of why overload on the bullpen at the expense of unloading LaRoche? Behind the three “closers,” they have Oscar Villarreal, Macay McBride, Tyler Yates, Chad Paronto, Joey Devine, Lance Cormier and Blaine Boyer. Somewhere among them might there not have been an undiscovered gem as an alternative to sacrificing a homebred, as they say in horse racing, such as LaRoche?
As you can plainly see, this squandering of an attractive talent disturbs me to no end. Surely I have no license to be so disturbed, but from the first time I saw Adam LaRoche’s swing, I saw a major league star on the way. Of course, I felt the same way when I first saw Adrian Garrett’s swing. “Ah, another Ted Williams,” I chortled. But that’s another story, and very ancient history.
Permalink | Comments (69) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Vick and Petrino must step forward
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Instead of where’s Waldo, where’s the coach and where’s the player?
Courtesy of another absolutely ludicrous incident involving Michael Vick, quickly becoming the Atlanta quarterback of the past instead of the future or even the present, the Falcons continue to show a lack of public relations savvy.
The coach has to say something sooner than later about this latest Vick Thing that occurred at Miami International Airport, and so does the quarterback.
They’ve said nothing.
According to Falcons spokesperson Reggie Roberts, it was “an organizational decision” to have only team guru Rich McKay address this latest Vick Thing, which means the Falcons still don’t get it. Earlier this season, after Vick flashed his one-fingered salute in anger at those jeering in the home crowd, he apologized quickly and often to anybody who’d listen. That was good.
This wasn’t: Former Falcons coach Jim Mora was the only coach, management or ownership type to speak on the issue. Since Vick is the face of the franchise (for better or worse), these Vick Things should produce an immediate response from all of those with a fancy office in Flowery Branch, along with Vick himself.
That is, until the Falcons get tired of these Vick Things and tell him to sprint left while they sprint right.
Although Bobby Petrino has spent less than two weeks with the Falcons, you can’t have a rookie or veteran NFL coach sitting in the shadows when his starting quarterback is under investigation for stuff like this: TSA agents said Vick allegedly tried to stroll by security at the Miami International Airport with a water bottle containing a secret compartment that held an undetermined trace substance and smelled of marijuana. The coach has to tell us his overall thoughts on the matter, along with his answers to the following: Since you have a no-nonsense reputation, how sizzling was your tongue during your first meeting with Vick on Thursday? Is he still your undisputed starter, or does this bring backup Matt Schaub into the picture?
Are you thinking about returning to Louisville?
Mostly, the quarterback has to tell his thoughts on everything. Vick hasn’t a choice for so many reasons, and let’s start with this: He has become the worst nightmare for a franchise that has been obsessed with its image for five seasons under owner Arthur Blank. You had that Vick Thing involving the disappearance of a security screener’s watch at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. You had that Vick Thing involving his alleged use of the alias Ron Mexico for a lawsuit that accused Vick of giving a woman genital herpes. You also had those other Vick Things — ranging from an Internet picture describing Vick as holding a marijuana “blunt”, to a $45 million lawsuit by a sports agent claiming that Vick reneged on an endorsement deal.
Vick has to speak about this latest Vick Thing because of all of those other Vick Things.
Then there is that leadership question: Is Vick one? He likes to claim as much. If so, he has to speak to show as much. Consider that quarterbacks traditionally are the kings of their locker rooms, and they stay visible no matter what their plight. Just look at the NFL’s Final Four this weekend of the New Orleans Saints (Drew Brees), Chicago Bears (Rex Grossman), New England Patriots (Tom Brady) and Indianapolis Colts (Peyton Manning). Only the erratic Grossman isn’t the clear leader of his team. Such a distinction comes from what quarterbacks do on and off the field, especially in adversity.
Adversity such as Brady continuing his magic despite new receivers. Adversity such as Brees overcoming career-threatening shoulder surgery to join the elite passers. Adversity such as Manning trying to win the Big One. Adversity such as Grossman trying to overcome himself.
All of that is in contrast to Vick’s self-imposed adversity, which needs to be discussed. By everybody, including the coach and the player.
Permalink | | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
It’s time to let Vick go
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Say goodbye.
Forget about the unparalleled athletic ability. Forget about the Green Bay game and the Minnesota game and all of the other games we’ve imagined in Fantasyland. Forget the gut shot the team is going to feel when the salary cap is obliterated. Forget marketing ventures, jersey sales and ticket sales.
The diminishing potential of Michael Vick tomorrow is no longer worth the reality of Michael Vick today.
Say goodbye.
Now.
Arthur Blank talks about a “Falcon filter” that his players must pass through. Well, Mr. Blank, filter this: Your quarterback is no more ready to lead a football team to a Super Bowl than Jeff Spicoli was to lead the Ridgemont High debate team.
Vick has a $130 million contract. He has lucrative endorsement deals (pending) that alone could feed and clothe small countries. Yet, he tried to sneak a fake water bottle that appeared to have been used to conceal marijuana past airport security.
Let’s put the debate on pot usage aside for a minute. What, Michael Vick couldn’t afford another secret spy bottle and dime bag when he got back home? (Quoting Spicoli as he smacked his head with a shoe: “That was my skull! I’m so wasted!”)
It’s never pretty when arrogance and stupidity collide. With Vick, it has collided too often.
This isn’t about the revelation that one pro athlete possibly likes to get high. Here’s a news flash for you: A lot of people like to get high. Quarterbacks. Plumbers. Your precious angel who just got his college acceptance letter.
Rather, this is about all of the crucial things that Vick lacks after six NFL seasons, and 26 years on earth, and endless reminders about his visibility from the most image-conscious owner in sports: Maturity. Leadership. Common friggin’ sense.
There is a point at which you say, “Enough.” Vick just stumbled right past that point, while trying to get through Miami airport security on his way to a free Air Tran flight (a company that slaps him on billboards).
This comes after a 7-9 season, during which Vick seldom took any responsibility for the ills of the team. He took criticism so well that he gave the finger to home fans.
He ducked several opportunities to defend coach Jim Mora after the season-ending loss in Philadelphia — and whether you believe Mora deserved to be defended or not is beside the point. Leaders step to the forefront. Leaders take the hit.
The file has become too thick. Vick should be trying to impress a new coach, Bobby Petrino. Given the way the last two seasons unraveled, he should be more worried about how to evolve, not how to escape. Taken separately, incidents can be minimized. Collectively, they’re like falling bricks. Training camp this season opened with a Web site running a picture borrowed from the “MySpace” page of Vick’s girlfriend. It showed Vick sitting in a limo, holding what was alleged to be a joint. Vick said it was a small cigar. If he got the benefit of the doubt then, he doesn’t deserve it now.
A woman claimed Vick gave her a sexually transmitted disease. She sued. Vick claimed innocence, but he settled out of court. His legacy? A video game company, Midway Games, liked his clinic alias, “Ron Mexico,” so much that it has a left-handed quarterback playing for the “Washington Redhawks” named “Mike Mexico” on its football game.
There have been guilt by association incidents, most notably when a member of Vick’s traveling party was caught taking a watch from an airport security checkpoint.
Tired of it all? Imagine if you were writing the checks.
Charges have not been filed against Vick. It shouldn’t matter. Vick hasn’t grown up and there’s no reason to believe he ever will. He has had enough time.
When critics pointed to his stats, Vick used to point to his record as a starter. That was the correct thing to do. He was 23-12-1 through 2004.
This year when things fell apart, Vick pointed to his rushing record and increased touchdown passes. Excuse me? His record as a starter the last two years: 15-16.
Vick has talent. But that’s not what his position is about. Quarterback is about all of those intangibles that you can’t measure at the scouting combine.
If Vick has those intangibles, they’re hiding in a mysterious cloud of smoke.
I’m tired of waiting.
The Falcons should be tired of waiting.
Say goodbye.
Permalink | Comments (532) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
NFL sees Gailey’s potential
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
There is more evidence that says Chan Gailey should go than stay as Georgia Tech head football coach. Even so, this increasing amount of bashing directed toward a famously decent guy is a bit much.
Make that too much.
Here’s a question for the slew of those around the Tech Nation cheering for a self-imposed vacancy at head coach in their football program: If Gailey is that bad, why have so many NFL people flirted with hiring him?
“He’s a straight shooter, man, and beyond the things he has done as a coach, he’s a good, good person at heart, with no playing around and no gray area, because you know where you stand,” said Darren Woodson, an NFL analyst for ESPN who was a five-time Pro Bowl safety with the Dallas Cowboys.
During the late 1990s, Woodson spent two of his 13 seasons in Dallas watching Gailey bite his tongue to keep from flapping it at Jerry Jones, the Cowboys’ demanding and suffocating owner.
“[Gailey’s] departure from the Cowboys was more so on his part, because with the way Jerry runs the team, [Gailey] couldn’t do much,” Woodson said. “He didn’t have his say in assistants, and I don’t think his relationship with [quarterback] Troy Aikman was ever that strong. Troy always wanted Norv Turner to come back to be his head coach.”
Now Gailey has NFL people wanting him, period. Just two teams have interviewed the 55-year-old veteran of 17 college seasons and 16 more in the pros, but take the accomplished Mike Martz, for instance. He led the St. Louis Rams to the playoffs in four of his six years as head coach. There even was a Super Bowl trip following the 2001 season. Despite all of that and a prolific stint this season as offensive coordinator with the sorry Detroit Lions, Martz has been interviewed only once for an NFL top job during this offseason that featured five openings.
In contrast, Gailey hasn’t drawn an X or an O in the pros in six years, but he nearly made the final cut with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He also joins former Falcons coach Jim Mora among the final three with the Miami Dolphins. Said Woodson, “Chan has the demeanor to be a pro coach, and that’s why I was surprised when he went to Georgia Tech [five seasons ago]. Then, after a while, I begin to think about how good he is with kids and young guys.”
Which bring me to this: If Gailey is that bad, why do “kids and young guys” wish to play for him in nearly unprecedented numbers by the Jackets’ standards? They have 19 recruits slated to sign next month and Tech has the nation’s No. 13 class and the ACC’s best, according to Rivals.com. Gailey also has done the unfathomable by hiring a staff that has convinced high school football studs around the state to become Jackets instead of Bulldogs.
So the answer to those questions?
Gailey isn’t that bad.
The problem for Gailey with the Jackets is that he hasn’t been that great. Try slightly better than average. He was king of the seven-victory finish until Tech reached nine this time around. It’s just that those nine victories for the Jackets should have been 12 or 13. They should have kept throwing to the incomparable Calvin Johnson in the second half against Notre Dame. They should have beaten vulnerable Georgia for the first time ever under Gailey. They should have scored at least a touchdown in their 9-6 loss to Wake Forest in the ACC championship game. They should have kept from losing that 18-point lead in the second half of the Gator Bowl.
They also should have avoided more academic silliness under Gailey. A season after the NCAA punished Tech for using 17 academically ineligible athletes (including 11 in football), starting quarterback Reggie Ball and top cover cornerback Kenny Scott were kept out of the Gator Bowl for academic reasons.
As an NFL coach, Gailey wouldn’t have to worry about somebody passing or failing thermodynamics. Well, that, and he could avoid having boosters claim that Buzz could run the program better than him.
Permalink | Comments (43) | Categories: Terence Moore
Parity marks NFL Final Four
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
And the winner is …
Who knows?
Somewhere in The Great Beyond, former NFL commissioner Pete (Parity) Rozelle is smiling over the league’s latest version of the Final Four.
New England. Indianapolis. New Orleans. Chicago. Every one of those teams in the conference championship games this weekend has close to an even chance of winning, and every one of those teams has a wonderful storyline.
What this does is save the NFL from itself after a regular season filled with mediocrity, especially near the end. During the last weekend, for instance, five 7-8 teams (including the significantly flawed Falcons) had a chance to make the playoffs.
Not good. What’s going on right now in the league - with the Super Bowl one victory away - is great.
Permalink | Comments (19) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
‘Lovesick’ Beck happily took Dodd’s advice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
This gets somewhat personal at times, begging your pardon. But it is a storybook romance that I saw develop almost from the beginning. Mostly from afar, but at times close up, close enough to realize that this was the perfect match.
Both central characters were handsome enough to cause traffic to stop and gawk. He was a football player, she a songstress who sang with Albert Coleman’s band that played in a place called The Owl Room, downstairs at the old Dinkler Plaza Hotel. She had a day job, but at night she sang, and she was tall, lissome and beautiful in a brunette sort of way. When and how they met, I never knew, but it took, as they say. He was Ray, she was Claire.
Playing football and keeping his head above academic waters at Georgia Tech was no breeze. The season of 1949, Ray Beck’s junior year, was not a good one. Georgia Tech lost more games than it won, and only by upsetting Georgia in a brutal closing game, with only a third-string quarterback left standing, was the pressure relaxed on the coach, Bobby Dodd. One of the reasons for the painful season, Dodd said later, was a serious case of “lovesickness.”
Often at night the football player could be found seated in the shadow of a back table at the Owl Room. He’d sneak away from his dorm to hear the brunette beauty sing, but mainly just to see her. Meantime, Tech’s football season was suffering, and so was Dodd, and he called his “lovesick” player in for a piece of advice.
“Why don’t you just get married,” he said. “You’re not playing the kind of football you can, and that’s got to be the reason. Do you love the girl, and does she love you? Then marry her.” Or words to that effect, I was told.
Married football players were not the norm in those times, but Georgia Tech made provisions for those who were wed. I don’t have details about how the football player and the beautiful brunette came to be wed, but they were, and in truth, lived happily ever after, as they say. A boy child arrived, and the football player had the season of his life in 1951. So did Georgia Tech, rising from the ashes of a 5-6 season to 11-0-1 and the added dollop of victory in the Orange Bowl, then one of four major bowls when a bowl game was a bowl game. It was Ray who picked up a blocked punt and returned it for a touchdown that preserved a tie with Duke. He was the key figure on this team, George Morris said, that laid the groundwork for the national championship that Georgia Tech shared with Michigan State the next season.
He was voted lineman of the year in the Southeastern Conference. On the way to the presentation dinner in Birmingham, I held their baby boy in my lap. (Newspapers didn’t throw travel money around loosely in those times, so I hitched a ride.) The New York Giants picked him second in the draft, but that career came to a two-year halt while he did time as a lieutenant in the Army, some of it spent in Korea.
Back from the war, Ray rode the high life with the Giants, who won the NFL championship in 1956, wiping out the Chicago Bears 47-7 in the title game. After four seasons it fell upon him to leave the Giants to come home and take over the family trucking business, but he left a legacy. He had come down with a broken ankle, and in his absence the Giants inserted a rookie from West Virginia who became historic as a linebacker. Remember the TV film, “The Violent World of Sam Huff”?
By that time, Ray was back home becoming a leading citizen in pleasant, leafy, casual Cedartown, a far cry from the bustle of New York. He served on hospital boards, a bank board, as president of the Chamber of Commerce and the country club, and together with his friend Doc Ayers created a golf tournament that contributed much to Cedartown charities. Life could not have been more rewarding, both to him and his hometown, and rare is the man who so turned a case of “lovesickness” into such a beautiful story. “The golden couple,” we called them.
Oh, and football never forgot him. A few years later, Ray was voted into the College Football Hall of Fame. He was 75 when he died last week. He was, as one teammate said, “a heckuva football player and an even finer human being.”
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
Chan’s double-talk, Vick’s silence
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
THE TUESDAY COUNTDOWN…
10: Four hours later and Jack is STILL alive! I just can’t believe it.
9: Jim Mora is fired and Chan Gailey is merely unpopular. So how is it these guys are/were candidates for two of the NFL’s premier coaching jobs (Miami and Pittsburgh).
8: I’m not going to dump on Mora. I believe he is a pretty decent head coach who can be a very good one some day, when he grows up a little. But the fact that he and Gailey (whose team started fast, then imploded again) are being pursued speaks to the dearth of candidates out there.
7: And when Bill Cowher comes back, he might as well slap himself on eBay and watch the bidding go up.
6: Jack Bauer would not make a very good head coach. But who better to call plays in a two-minute drill - with that INCESSANT TICKING sound in his ear all the time.
5: Didn’t watch the Golden Globes Monday night. But I did go online to check out the, um, dresses, yeah, dresses, on the red carpet, largely because I have no life and my wife is at work and I didn’t have to pay $29.95 for a one-month pass. The final BCS rankings: 1. Salma Hayek (duh); 2. Sofia Milos (double duh); 3. Katherine Heigl; 4. Penelope Cruz; 5. Beyonce Knowles. (Never thought Eva Longoria and Angelina Jolie would miss the cut.)
4: Chan Gailey - not red carpet material. But more importantly: For him to suggest that he was only interested in the Dolphins or Steelers jobs because they are “special” is disingenuous. There’s one important thing to remember: Gailey was hired by Dave Braine, not Radakovich. As a general rule, that creates an uncomfortable feeling for a college head coach, even a highly successful one - which Gailey isn’t. So of course he wants out.
3: I believe Marty Schottenheimer’s reputation for always losing big games is well-deserved. I also believe that if San Diego fires him after a 14-2 season, it would rank as the most absurd firing in the history of professional sports.
- The executive parts of the Atlanta Spirit are very upset with me for perceived overly negative/cheapshot coverage (who, me?) of their ownership group and their teams. Funny. I wrote a glowing column about Thrashers coach Bob Hartley the other day, and I didn’t hear word one from them. Must’ve been an oversight.
1: We’ve heard from a lot of people about why Michael Vick will succeed or fail in Bobby Petrino’s offense, or any offense. So when do we get to hear from Michael Vick?
Permalink | Comments (132) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Belichick-Brady among NFL’s top duos
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
In the moments following San Francisco’s first Super Bowl 25 years ago, coach Bill Walsh said of Joe Montana, “[He] will be the great quarterback of the future.”
As prophetic as that proved to be, it would have been even more accurate to project Walsh-Montana as the greatest coach-quarterback combination the NFL would ever see. Walsh’s scheme and Montana’s cool were the perfect marriage. They won three Super Bowls together over an eight-season span with different supporting casts. And their greatness was balanced by a seeming dependence on each other.
Nobody could match them. Until now.
New England is in the NFL’s final four again. That’s because of coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady, and only Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. They already have won three titles. They are 12-1 in playoff games.
A fourth Super Bowl would be the most improbable of all. The Patriots’ defense is largely a continually mutating collection of spare parts. Their offense is a 15-watt bulb on the Las Vegas strip. Win it again, and Walsh and Montana fall into second place.
The problem with Belichick and Brady is they render every excuse meaningless. Other coaches lament injuries or players lost to free agency. OK. So how does Belichick do it? No team has been dented more than the Patriots over the past six seasons.
Other quarterbacks complain about junk-pile receiving corps, or losing a longtime offensive coordinator (like, say, to Notre Dame). OK. So how does Brady do it? He is throwing to Reche Caldwell, Troy Brown and Jabar Gaffney. Jabar Gaffney?
As scientific improbabilities go, how does Gaffney going from being dumped by the Houston Texans to 18 receptions, 207 yards and a touchdown in two playoff games with the Pats rank?
Having covered Walsh and Montana up close in the 1980s, I never believed the two would be matched. Neither did Randy Cross, who played for one and blocked for the other.
“You would have to say they compare favorably,” Cross, now a commentator with CBS, said of Belichick and Brady. “I’m still sort of prejudiced. But I never thought I would see another quarterback that was as money and solid [as Montana]. Now I have. It’s not about stats and that other stuff.”
It’s just about winning. The San Diego Chargers had a better offense this season. They had a better defense. They had the home field Sunday. They had nine players going to the Pro Bowl (to the Patriots’ one: Richard Seymour).
They had the best player in football (LaDainian Tomlinson).
But you looked at Belichick-Brady vs. Marty Schottenheimer-Philip Rivers, and thought, “Hmmm.”
Teams are a reflection of their leaders. The Falcons were inconsistent and prone to emotional ups and downs this season in part because of Jim Mora and Michael Vick.
The Patriots are Belichick and Brady. They are physically and mentally tough. They don’t waver. They are clutch. They are mirror images of their leaders, much like the 49ers were precision and cool with Walsh and Montana.
New England has been like this since early in the 2001 season, when Drew Bledsoe suffered internal bleeding following a hit against the New York Jets and had to be replaced. Belichick, in his second year, called on Brady, an obscure sixth-round pick from the Bay Area. He attended the 1981 NFC title game between San Francisco and Dallas that jump-started Montana’s legacy.
The 49ers won their first Super Bowl with a roster of relative no-names. Most of the stars, particularly on offense, came later. Conversely, the Patriots have lost many of their top players: Ty Law, Lawyer Milloy, Willie McGinest, Deion Branch, Adam Vinatieri, et al. What Belichick and Brady have accomplished in the salary-cap era is remarkable.
Brady wasn’t great in San Diego — only when he had to be. He threw a game-tying touchdown with less than five minutes left. On New England’s next possession, Brady and Belichick noticed the Chargers were in “press” coverage and, on third-and-10, Brady hit Caldwell down the right sideline for 49 yards, setting up the winning field goal.
Now the Patriots travel to Indianapolis. They are three-point underdogs. The Colts have five Pro Bowl players on offense.
But coach Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning have reached the AFC title game only once. That was three years ago, and they lost to New England.
So whom do you like?
TWO GOOD Columnist Jeff Schultz ranks the five best coach-quarterback combos in NFL history:
1. (tie) Bill Walsh-Joe Montana (San Francisco). There has never been a more perfect match between a coach’s offensive system and a quarterback. They won three Super Bowls in eight seasons (1981, ‘84, ‘88) with a varying cast.
1. (tie) Bill Belichick-Tom Brady (New England). Their specialties are on opposite sides of the ball. But their intelligence, toughness and resolve have been unequaled over the past six seasons.
3. Tom Landry-Roger Staubach (Dallas). Like the duos above them, they couldn’t be shaken by any situation or opponent. They went to four Super Bowls over eight years and won two, in an era that was otherwise dominated by the Steelers and Dolphins.
4. Chuck Noll-Terry Bradshaw (Pittsburgh). The blue-collar answer to Landry-Staubach. The Steelers had great defenses, but they needed somebody to run the show — and somebody to throw to John Stallworth and Lynn Swann.
5. Vince Lombardi-Bart Starr (Green Bay). They won the first two Super Bowls and five NFL titles together. The Packers built a machine when others were playing with Legos.
Permalink | Comments (30) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Gailey never embraced at Tech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Their football coach has just interviewed for two NFL jobs, and unless my hearing has betrayed me I’ve noted no groundswell of fear/outrage from Georgia Tech fans. This, I submit, leads to an obvious conclusion:
A lot of Tech fans hope Chan Gailey leaves.
Gailey is, as has been noted, an odd case. He’s respected enough as a football man to be viewed as a viable head-coaching candidate by not one but two of the NFL’s proudest franchises, and yet he has worked here five years — never having a losing season, never failing to grace a bowl — without having won over his constituency. And if, having just completed the best of the five seasons, he hasn’t done it by now, there’s little chance he will.
There is about Gailey something that calls to mind the Al Capp cartoon character Joe Bftsplk, who walked under his own black cloud. Even in a year in which Tech won the ACC Coastal title, the achievement was diluted by wretched end-of-season losses to Georgia (again!) and Wake Forest. Even when the Jackets gave West Virginia a tougher time than anyone anticipated in the Gator Bowl, more than a few folks were left wondering why, if Taylor Bennett was capable of throwing for 326 yards against a stout opponent, Gailey hadn’t turned to him when Reggie Ball was having one of his many dreadful days.
For as much as Gailey has won at Tech, he can’t really win for losing. His detractors — the former letterman Taz Anderson proudly leads the choir — are as impassioned as Jim Donnan’s ever were, and Donnan wound up getting fired at Georgia after four consecutive winning seasons (but three consecutive losses to Tech). Gailey is 0-5 against the Bulldogs, and the Jackets’ best chance to break the drought just went begging.
It has long been a source of astonishment that a man so bland could engender such strong dislike, but somehow Gailey has. He replaced the wildly popular George O’Leary and hasn’t worked overly hard to endear himself to Tech’s moneyed Old Guard, a body that likes (and expects) to be embraced. He lost to Georgia 51-7 in his first season and, for both better and worse, hitched himself to Ball’s wagon at the beginning of Year 2. And then, just as it appeared the Jackets had finally broken through, they lost to Georgia and Wake and West Virginia and set their backers’ teeth to gnashing anew.
“As fan bases go, coaches will always have their supporters and will always have their detractors, and that’s the case with coach Gailey,” said athletics director Dan Radakovich, whose stated position is that he hopes Gailey stays and is proud to employ a coach who’s a desired commodity. But the cynic in me wonders: Wouldn’t a part of Radakovich, who arrived from LSU just after Dave Braine’s flashpoint extension of Gailey’s contract, welcome the chance to hire his own man? (And wouldn’t his first call be to Jimbo Fisher, the LSU offensive coordinator who just moved to Florida State?)
The belief here is that it would be best for both Tech and Gailey if one of these NFL jobs comes through. (It’s thought he has a very good chance with Miami, where his competition is thought to be Jim Mora, of whom you’ve also heard, and a lesser one in Pittsburgh.) Gailey could leave honorably, having given Tech five winning seasons but never a Top 25 finish, and Radakovich would be free to find the man to take the Jackets onward and upward.
And maybe Gailey feels it’s time to go. Otherwise, why spend the last week shuttling between high-profile interviews? Why not tell the Dolphins and the Steelers, “Sorry, but I’m happy where I am”? Maybe — surely — Gailey grasps what has become increasingly apparent: That a significant number of Tech backers won’t be happy until he’s gone.
Permalink | Comments (174) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Jackets absorb Morrow’s message
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
In case you haven’t been paying attention, there are many reasons why Georgia Tech is drifting closer to dribbling in early April from this side of North Avenue to the Final Four at the Georgia Dome. Here’s the latest: The previously taciturn Anthony Morrow speaks, and everybody within his Yellow Jacket world listens.
Eighty-one seconds.
That’s the amount of time it took after the opening tipoff on Saturday night against Florida State for Tech coach Paul Hewitt to realize his team was blowing it. Just like that, Achilles’ Heel No. 1 for the Jackets jumped from the shadows of Alexander Memorial Coliseum. We’re talking about turnovers. There was one, and then there was another. Then Florida State was quieting the noisy packed house with what Hewitt was suggesting with a lickety-split timeout was the largest 4-0 deficit in the history of college basketball.
During the subsequent huddle, the coach who can yell with the best of them said … nothing.
“Let me put it this way: I didn’t have to say anything, because I could hear Morrow’s voice really getting on the guys,” Hewitt said of the 6-foot-5 junior who mostly keeps his high-scoring ways on the bench these days. You can blame Morrow’s lacking a start this season on the combination of a creaky back that only now is nearly fully recovered and a slew of gifted teammates who make him only a valuable reserve. Still, the guy who rarely spoke last season while leading the Jackets in scoring and the ACC in 3-point field goal percentage wouldn’t shut up in the huddle after that opening timeout, with Tech showing signs of Duke-itis.
What did you say, Anthony, and were you surprised it helped spur Tech to its seventh victory in eight games?
“I said a lot of stuff today,” Morrow said, laughing, referring to his endless chatter along the way to the Jackets’ 88-80 triumph. “That time, I just told the guys that we need to be patient on offense and we’ll be OK. I told everybody that we really have to lock down on defense. Do better in transition, and really, really do the little things to get us back in the game.”
Little things such as Javaris Crittenton continuing his maturation as a super freshman with steady play on both ends of the court. Little things such as Thaddeus Young continuing his maturation as a super freshman by adding at least decent defense to his already explosive offensive game. Little things such as Mario West continuing as the ultimate defensive terror and glue guy. Little things such as Zach Peacock showing the versatility of Tech’s roster by sinking the easiest of 3-point shots, and he is a backup center.
There also was something else to help the Jackets slay the Seminoles: Talent. Lots of it throughout Tech’s roster. Enough to help the Jackets recover from those early blahs that came in the aftermath of Wednesday’s upset of 11th-ranked Duke.
It’s one thing for the Jackets to do what had been the impossible for them by conquering Duke at home for the first time in 11 years. It’s another to have the Jackets show that the Duke thing wasn’t a fluke by spending another game turning potential into reality. Which brings us to Achilles’ Heel No. 2, or shall we say what used to be as much for the Jackets: Defense. They actually have one after their horrors earlier in the season. What followed for Tech players was a grueling stay at Camp Hewitt during the subsequent Christmas break, and you know the rest.
So do the Jackets’ last eight opponents, all smothered by an improving Tech defense, with Morrow among its leaders. “Just like in this game, it really wasn’t about making shots to me,” Morrow said. “I wanted to get out there and be in better position as a defender, and I know I have a long ways to go. I really want to get better at it.”
He has. We’re referring to his defense and to the use of his tongue.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Petrino better think about defense
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Football coaches are a gypsy lot. Bags packed, will travel. Take the itinerary of Dennis Erickson, who has been in and out, up and down, here and there more than any coach who comes to mind. Idaho, Wyoming, Washington State, Miami, (Seattle Seahawks), Oregon State, (San Francisco 49ers), back to Idaho, and now Arizona State, a team which can be described as a “bowl team” by its press genius. Won seven games, then became Hawaii’s sacrificial victim.
What’s Dennis Erickson got to do with anything? Nothing. It’s just that he has had nine head coaching jobs and he’s still looking for Camelot.
I don’t bring this up to indicate that Bobby Petrino - wonder if he would consider shortening it to Bob, to indicate maturity? - is one of those moving company’s poster boy. When you’re hot, you’re hot, and Bobby Petrino is hot. It was just a matter of time. When the president of a university with a major football background makes a flight to a secret meeting place in a Big Ten state to woo him, and it leaks out, and it gets said president fired, as well as his athletics director - who was an unwilling passenger - that means you are indeed hot.
Dealing with the pros, such subterfuge is not required. Anything goes. While Arthur Blank and Rich McKay were doing whirlwind time making duty interview calls in Chicago and San Diego, Bobby Petrino was already in pocket. I’m a little late getting to the party, but that has no bearing on the case. One severe critic has already turned tail. Two others have worn their palms thin with applause.
Me, I haven’t the foggiest notion what to expect. Based on backstage conversation, I’d say it might be a good idea that Petrino tighten his seat belt and get ready to play some defense. That has not been one of his strong suits. Offense is his game, and he takes no chances there. We’ll see how that goes when he does his own play-calling with the Falcons.
One former associate said, “He has a great grasp on offense, but he never seemed to get it right on defense. He needs a good defensive mind in his corner.”
That’s what assistants are for, and Petrino doesn’t have to be taken to school on that score. He can surely benefit by studying the blunders of his predecessor. Jim Mora had never been head coach of anything. In England he would have been operating with an “L” on his bumper. He came equipped with a ready smile, a biting sense of humor, but unseasoned as a commander-in-chief. One month he is celebrated as a “Hometown Hero,” a few months later he’s out of work.
If any of us had any doubt that he was gone after that delirious radio interview on a Seattle station, we were blind and dumb to reason. There was no way back. Up to the week when Arthur Blank fired him he was still trying to brush it off as a clumsy attempt at humor with coddling interviewers. Even if there had been an ounce of truth in it, no coach with his head on straight would have played that card.
We’ve all been witness to a battery of Falcons firings, and in only one case was the coach gored. Leeman Bennett was sabotaged in the strike season of 1982, when Steve Bartkowski was seated in the playoff game at Minnesota in favor of Mike Moroski, and Rankin Smith Jr. blew a gasket and lost his head at the same time. Mora claimed to have the only winning record, but Bennett had three winning regular seasons and put the best Falcons teams on the field until Dan Reeves came along.
But, I drag my feet through the mire of some ugly history, and we leave it that. The Bobby Petrino Era is here. See what kind of hand he deals you.
(PS: “L” in England stands for “learner.”)
Permalink | Comments (61) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Furman Bisher
One win doesn’t change state of Hawks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
They are not a bad basketball team anymore. They’re a good cartoon.
They make you think, “Remember that time when Wily E. Coyote strapped himself to a rocket so he could catch the Road Runner? That could really happen. But the Hawks? Dude, that never could happen.”
How many professional (work with me here) sports franchises have a general manager who responds to a question the morning of a game with, “I don’t talk during the season”? (Then again, maybe Billy Knight was being truthful. He confirmed suspicions the Hawks haven’t started the season, yet.)
How many franchises have an owner in the locker room before the game, taking pictures of the players and kids, as if this was Wally World? (That was Bruce Levenson and his digital camera roaming the Hawks’ room Friday.)
How many franchises have the father of an owner phone a newspaper columnist two hours before tipoff, in hopes of dissuading him from writing something negative about the head coach? (That would be Mike Gearon Sr., who, as it turns out, has my cellphone number.)
Well, I’m going to give Gearon some credit. He might be right when he said Mike Woodson shouldn’t be the scapegoat for this Hawks season. I never thought I would have sympathy for a coach who is 98 games under .500 less than two and half seasons into his tenure. But maybe Woodson doesn’t deserve to get fired. Maybe he just deserves more mental-health coverage. ] I hate to bring you this after such a glorious evening. The Hawks upset the Detroit Pistons, 99-93. But this is about a season, not one game. At 11-23, the Hawks are far closer to a lottery pick than the playoffs. If this win sparks a turnaround, I’ll eat my Billy Knight quotes. If I have any.
With the victory, Woodson (50-148) avoids dropping 100 games below .500. But there is time. With this franchise, there is always time.
“If you’re looking for a scapegoat,” Gearon said, “it might be the owners and it might be the GM. But it’s not the coach.”
Actually, it’s everybody.
Injuries or not, it’s impossible to defend a coach with so many losses, even when you’re forced to start a game with Lorenzen Wright (although, it’s close).
As for Knight, I’m not sure what’s scarier: That he might not really have a plan, or that he does — and this is it.
The Thrashers have managed to mostly succeed this season, in spite of the ownership. The Hawks — who required far more work — are largely a joke because of them. The biggest thing they have had to cheer about the past few seasons is salary-cap space (unless you count the fact Levenson also snapped pictures of “Bow Wow” on Friday).
And here’s the biggest problem: The fortunes of this team are not going to change for a long time.
The fractured Atlanta Spirit ownership group is tied up in litigation. It is bleeding red ink. It doesn’t want to fire a coach because that would mean having to pay money to another one. That’s not going to happen — even assuming you could get everybody to agree on a candidate.
They need a new architect. They need a general manager who not only knows what he’s doing but is willing to take the heat when things aren’t going well. (For the record, Knight actually has spoken to the media this season, as recently as three days ago. “I try not to,” he said.)
Knight’s not getting fired for the same reason Woodson’s not getting fired: money to lure a new one. Besides, if you were an NBA general manager, would you take this job under current owners?
Prior to Friday’s win, the Hawks had lost 14 of their previous 16 games. They have lost to four current last-place teams — Seattle (twice), Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Sacramento. They have lost by double digits 16 times. Their past seven losses have come by 27, 13, 26, 14, 13, 19 and 19.
They managed to rebound off a horrendous home performance Wednesday, losing to a New Orleans team that was missing four of its top six players (including Chris Paul) and had dropped 19 of 23. A spin-free analysis from Salim Stoudamire: “It was embarrassing, losing to a third-string team by 20 points. It just seems like we have no chemistry.”
For one game Friday, there was no lab explosion. But one game means nothing. This team is stuck in ToonTown.
Permalink | Comments (29) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Jeff Schultz
McKay confident Petrino can make jump
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Flowery Branch — College football head coaches often crash and burn in the NFL. The Falcons put on their fireproof suits and hired Louisville’s Bobby Petrino anyway.
Then again, Falcons guru Rich McKay knows something the rest of us don’t when it comes to quenching flames in this situation.
It begins and ends with this: McKay spent years in the same house with a college football head coach used to winning championships who crashed and burned in the pros before rising from the ashes to reach the NFC championship game and more playoff appearances after that. The team was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Their first head coach was the late John McKay, who happened to be Rich’s father, in addition to the college legend who took Southern Cal to four national championships.
“You’ve got to remember that a lot of [college coaches] that get hired in our league come to teams that aren’t very good, and in my dad’s case, he didn’t come to a team that wasn’t very good. He came to a team that was awful,” said Rich McKay, referring to a Buccaneers group that was winless in 1976 during its first season. It also lost its opening 12 games that next season. Then came the drafting of stellar quarterback Doug Williams in 1978, and the year after that, the Buccaneers fell just 10 points shy of reaching the Super Bowl.
Even so, the older McKay’s pro experience was as ugly as his collegiate days were pretty. He resigned when the Buccaneers became the Buccaneers again in the mid-1980s. Since then, whether you’re talking about Dennis Erickson, Steve Spurrier, Butch Davis or Nick Saban, few college coaches come within a clue of placing a Super Bowl ring next to a college national championship one.
Said Rich McKay, “I think that what happens is that it is a shock to those coaches that they’re not winning games. They went from losing one game a year to losing 10, and sometimes that’s really hard for them to be able to survive that.”
Which means what for the Falcons? After a splendid four-year run at Louisville that produced a 41-9 record and two finishes in the top six during the past three seasons, Petrino is inheriting a flawed team. He has everything from a quarterback (Michael Vick) who still is considered a project after six years in the league to a defense that continues to creak despite the Falcons spending millions to get it right.
This also is a franchise that never has managed back-to-back winning seasons since its birth during the middle of the LBJ administration. In fact, the Falcons just ended with back-to-back non-winning seasons. Sounds like a formula for disaster for a guy who spent 18 of his 21 years in coaching on the college level.
“Every case [of a college guy taking a pro job] is different, and in our case, what I did like was Bobby’s experience in Jacksonville,” McKay said of Petrino’s three years as a Jaguars assistant, including one as offensive coordinator. “He was very successful, and they were really a good football team. I also like what he has to say about building a staff. My dad always looked back and said, ‘You know, the biggest mistake I made [at Tampa] was that I didn’t get enough NFL coaches. I really went with a college staff. I thought that these were my guys.’ I think Bobby’s feeling is that, ‘I’m going to have my guys. But I’m also going to blend in some guys who have been there, done that.’ “
Five of Petrino’s initial hires, for instance, were NFL assistants. That’s an encouraging start.
Permalink | Comments (50) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
No defense for the BCS system
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The worst argument against a Division I-A playoff — and all the arguments are bad — is that it would cause student-athletes to miss class. The BCS title game was played on Jan. 8. Classes began at Ohio State on Jan. 3, at Florida on Jan. 7. Feel free to laugh out loud.
The BCS has always been, and will forever continue to be, a transparent way to mollify those who demand a playoff while still (and above all) protecting the bowls. And the more insiders are exposed to the money inherent in the bowls — the payout to each BCS title game participant was $17 million — the less inclined they are to protest.
Remember Urban Meyer’s claim that the system needed to scrapped? Well, on the morning after Florida banked its championship and its money, the Gator coach sounded as if he might be re-thinking things. That’s the way of the world: When you become an insider, you want to stay inside.
And the trouble with the BCS is that it makes it tough on the outsiders. Boise State landed a berth in the Fiesta Bowl, yes, but that was only the slot created by the BCS as a sop to the smaller conferences, a slot made possible by the creation of the championship game itself. Boise State, lest we forget, was the only Division I-A school to finish undefeated. For this distinction it wound up No. 6 in the coaches’ poll, behind Southern Cal and LSU, each of which lost twice.
Do I think Boise State would have beaten USC or LSU in a playoff game? No, but I didn’t think Boise would beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta, either. (Neither did I think Florida would beat Ohio State.) The beauty of March Madness is that anything can happen. The failure of the BCS is that only a few things are allowed to happen. Two teams completed their regular seasons unbeaten, and only one was given the chance to play for the title. That’s just wrong.
Until there’s a playoff system, the wrongs will mount on annual basis, but I’m convinced there will never be a Division I-A playoff. Now Mike Slive, the SEC commissioner, is saying the BCS might take a look at having a “plus-one” playoff after all the bowls when the current agreement expires after the 2009, but isn’t the BCS title game essentially a plus-one unto itself?
For the strongest argument against the BCS, we need only to turn to Bernie Machen, who’s Florida’s president. His team just finished No. 1, and he thinks a playoff is needed. Guess ol’ Bernie hasn’t heard how much missed class time — heh, heh — such a thing would entail.
Permalink | Comments (58) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Jackets have new outlook, new outcome
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Had they lost, they could have crouched behind a protective shield of clichés and survived. This is, after all, early January. College basketball has no must wins in early January.
An 0-3 start in the ACC — not a death march, they would say.
We lost at home again to Duke? I’m sorry, was that Duke? Didn’t even notice. Goodness, look at the time …
But the good thing about winning is, you don’t have to search for comforting rationalizations. Georgia Tech won Wednesday night. The Yellow Jackets defeated Duke, 74-63, and they did it at Alexander Memorial Coliseum.
Neither the feat nor the venue result constituted the norm. They had lost 20 of their past 21 to the Blue Devils. They had lost 10 straight to Duke at home. Their home. The last previous win — in double overtime in February of 1996. Thaddeus Young, one of Tech’s freshman guards, was 8 years old.
“Oh Lord,” Young said later. “Really? That’s crazy. All I know was they lost last year.”
As Tech coach Paul Hewitt said, “The good thing about college kids is they don’t have a lot of historical perspective.”
Nonetheless, the significance of this win was obvious. A loss would have left the Jackets at 0-3 and still wondering if this season would have too many crunch-time crumbles. They were coming off a one-point loss to Clemson, which had followed a defeat to Miami. Even Young could recognize, “This game allows us to get back on our feet.”
Tech is young. These days in college basketball, everybody is young. Even Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski labored on that point (though if he was trying to arouse sympathy, he probably was playing to the wrong crowd).
“We have eight scholarship guys and four are freshmen,” he said.
“Young teams have to learn how to win. Just because they’re at Duke doesn’t mean they inherit winning. You inherit money. You don’t inherit winning.”
The Jackets had contributions all around, but were carried largely by senior Ra’Sean Dickey (21 points) and junior Anthony Morrow (19). They built an 11-point lead at 52-41, but then began to replay the disasters of last season. They went seven minutes without a field goal, as Duke trimmed the lead to 55-53.
Hewitt: “We got a little tentative.”
They also got sloppy. The Jackets committed 28 turnovers, including 17 in the second half. But after Morrow had a shot blocked, freshman Javaris Crittenton stole the ball from Duke’s Lance Thomas and drove the baseline for a dunk with 3:31 left.
Everybody exhaled.
Well, everybody but Hewitt. If he wondered momentarily how this game would turn out, he has few doubts about this team.
“I phoned [athletics director] Dan Radakovich after the [Clemson] game Saturday, and I told him, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll be fine,’?” Hewitt said. “I can see how aggressive we are. I can see how we’re getting better. We’re battling for loose balls. Last year we weren’t doing that. Even if we had lost this game, I still would’ve felt good about us.”
Hewitt made a similar phone call after a loss to then athletics director Dave Braine in his first season in 2000-01. The new coach had lost his first two ACC games. But the Jackets finished 8-8 in conference and reached the NCAA tournament.
Had Tech lost, it would’ve been 0-3 in the ACC for the first time since Hewitt’s second season. That year Tech dropped seven in a row (including a 25-point loss to Duke) before winning seven of the last nine.
Now they don’t have to wonder. Assuming they don’t maintain their early pace for suspensions — they’ve already lost Lewis Clinch for the season and had another (Zach Peacock) out for the Duke game — the Jackets will be fine. They’ll compete in the ACC, and they’ll certainly compete with Duke.
When asked about the now-dead losing streak vs. the Blue Devils, Hewitt said: “We don’t talk about those things. Every year is different. Every team is different.”
Except that, had they lost, those words would not have packed much of a punch.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
McGwire can forget Cooperstown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
I didn’t vote for Mark McGwire for Cooperstown. I never will.
The same will apply for the overwhelming majority of the other Hall of Fame voters through the years, and here’s why: You can’t ignore the rule on the ballot that says you must consider “integrity” and “character” when judging potential Hall of Fame candidates and give McGwire a bronzed plaque anyway.
Period.
Did McGwire use performance-enhancing drugs to slam all those home runs? Well, you remember what he kept repeating during that congressional hearing on Capitol Hill. “I am not here to talk about the past,” which translates into “I did juice up, but I’m not talking about it.”
If Pete Rose isn’t even on the Hall of Fame ballot for violating baseball’s gambling rules, then why should …
You know the rest.
Permalink | Comments (67) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Baseball writers get it right for once
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
You know, it may not be as hard to get into heaven as it is the Baseball Hall of Fame. This is some hard-nosed jury sitting in the box, these members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. By and large, its members are as cruel as a hanging judge. These guys never forget a slight, or some grump who said he was too busy, then turned his back and headed for cover: the players lounge.
Eddie Murray was about as cordial as an executioner. He may have held the track record for snubs. But Jim Murray, the late columnist of the Los Angeles Times, felt that he had an inside track with him, both being Murrays and all. Didn’t work that way. Just being a Murray made no difference to Eddie. He cut Jim down like a cub reporter from Thousand Oaks. Jim always said he wouldn’t hold it against him when Eddie’s name came up, but he never got the chance. Death came first.
Well, they’ve counted the votes in Cooperstown again, and I’ll have to say that it seems this old gang of ours pretty much got it right this time. Two new members passed the supreme test, and those two are about the only candidates in this crop who ever will crack the line. Tony Gwynn led National League hitters eight times. Only Honus Wagner ever did that. You don’t even bother with his home runs and runs batted in. Others who didn’t make it had better numbers in those categories, but Tony gets credit for consistency. I voted for Andre Dawson — for I can’t tell you how many times — and Andre drove in 400 more runs and hit 300 more home runs, and his slugging percentage made Tony’s look like one of the Bad News Bears.
But eight times leading the league? Tony gets it. Andre takes a seat outside again.
Ripken gets extra points for another kind of consistency: showing up ready to play 2,632 games in a row. Lou Gehrig had the record that nobody ever thought would be broken. Ripken crushed it. I sat in a motel room in Tucson, Ariz., watching on television as he circled the stands and absorbed the huzzahs the night he broke it. This was held in such high regard that he got five more votes than Gwynn. He set a new record for votes. Of course, there are a lot more voters this time.
Ripken hit with power — 431 home runs. But check the batting average. Dawson outhit him. I know, only three points higher, but higher is higher.
While we’re at it, I have another case on my docket. Take Tommy John. Not the surgery, the man. He lost more than a season while he had repairs on his damaged arm, then came back and won 20 games three times, topped off his record with 288 for his 26 seasons, second-longest career in history, and pitched in three World Series. Not to throw in the surgery that bears his name and has saved many another pitchers’ careers, but the fact that he was the pioneer that proved it could be done, he and Dr. Frank Jobe, should stand for something in Cooperstown.
As a persistent “homer,” my ballot always includes a vote for Dale Murphy, two-time Most Valuable Player, 398 home runs — think two more would have made a difference? — more RBIs than Gwynn, gallant fielder on some dreadful Braves teams and a husband and father any family would covet. But that doesn’t score in Cooperstown. We still have six possible years to vote for him, though he lost ground this year, as did Dawson, John and Bert Blyleven. Rich “Goose” Gossage has campaigners out there, but they’re going to have to separate the pitcher from the closer for me.
No one set me up to monitor my peers, but where in heaven’s name are some of these votes coming from. Jose Canseco got a half-dozen. Even the tragic Ken Caminiti got a pair. I surely thought Wally Joyner, good fellow, might get a nod or two, but it’s over and out for him.
Now, for the crisis point. Where does Mark McGwire stand? How did I handle that? Well, until Bud Selig, the players union and some higher authority filters out this steroid thing, we’re all on the fence. And remember, that stuff McGwire was taking was legal at the time. Not now, but was then.
Permalink | Comments (29) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
SEC teams ponder Gators and tremble
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Glendale, Ariz. — A chill has fallen across the sunny South. The nagging fear that forever gnaws at the rest of the SEC — what happens if resource-laden Florida finds a clever coach? — has been realized. Florida again has a leader commensurate with its manifest advantages. More than simply to win, Florida is again poised to rule.
The season just completed wasn’t supposed to have produced anything so spectacular as a national championship. Florida was picked first in the SEC East, but consensus held that the league’s real powers, LSU and Auburn, were based in the West. Urban Meyer was still playing with 21 seniors recruited by the failed Ron Zook. Many still questioned whether Meyer’s spread offense would work against fleet SEC defenses, and even more folks doubted that Chris Leak would ever fully grasp Meyer’s scheme.
And maybe Leak never did. But it didn’t matter. Florida won the BCS title a year or two ahead of schedule, and the next few seasons should — as silly as this sounds in light of what happened here Monday night — see a pronounced upgrade. Meyer, who is said to be recruiting even better than the Zooker did, will soon have his chosen men to fit his stylized scheme, and the Gators’ 11 conference brethren can only tremble at the notion.
“I expect us to [use] a little more option, a little more quarterback runs,” Meyer said Tuesday, speaking of next season and beyond. “I expect us to be a little bit more spread offense like we ran at Utah.” And Tim Tebow, Leak’s heir apparent? “He’s very similar to Alex [Smith],” and that Meyer product was only the NFL’s overall No. 1 draftee in 2005.
Owing to the changeover between coaches, there’s a gap in Florida’s recruiting. These Gators had a slew of Zook’s seniors and a slew of Meyer’s freshmen without much in between. But Meyer is recruiting so well — were he a prospect, he said, “I know where I’d want to go” — that the holes will be filled soon enough. And then Florida should really get cracking.
Steve Spurrier stood astride the SEC in the ’90s almost as oppressively as Bear Bryant did in the ’70s, and at first blush it would be outlandish to expect Meyer to win, as Spurrier did, six conference championships in a decade and seven SEC East titles in the span of nine years. The league is better across the board. Meyer isn’t coaching against Ray Goff and Curley Hallman and Brad Scott. But Florida has always frazzled the rest of the proud SEC because, as the Athens analyst Jeff Dantzler noted the other day, Florida is uniquely positioned to win the biggest.
The caveat is that Florida, like any school, has to find the right coach, and in Gators annals there has only been one Spurrier. In the wake of Florida’s utter demolition of Ohio State, Meyer looks like Stevie The Second. (And Spurrier, we should note, fared rather less well in his first national championship game, losing 62-24 to Nebraska.) Meyer is smart and driven — he rarely smiles and has little feel for small talk — and he’s fully cognizant of the bountiful opportunity that rests on his doorstep.
Florida has a real chance to own the last part of this decade the way Spurrier owned the first part of the ’90s. If Meyer can go 13-1 and beat Ohio State by 27 points without a team completely to his liking, imagine the possibilities when he has all his “checkers,” as Meyer likes to call players, primed for regional and national dominance.
“What’s the future look like?” Meyer said. “I think it looks real good.”
In Gainesville they’re rejoicing and ruminating about even brighter tomorrows. At 11 other SEC outposts, they’re reaching for the Rolaids.
Permalink | Comments (119) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Sour notes at Sugarloaf
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
THE TUESDAY COUNTDOWN…
10: So I read about the Sugarloaf Lovebrokers. I’m not happy. We pay homeowners dues in our subdivision and all we get is swim-tennis.
9: If the Big Ten wanted to reaffirm that it the BCS title game should have been Ohio State vs. Michigan, getting smacked by Florida and USC, respectively, probably wasn’t the way to go about it.
8: True, I didn’t believe that Florida belonged in the game Monday night. But that wasn’t based on a belief that the Gators weren’t the second-best team in the country; it was based on Michigan being penalized for not playing the same week Florida won the SEC title game, and dropping from No. 2 to 3 in polls. The problem is, when you get your doors blown off in the Rose Bowl and the Gators smoke Ohio State, you lose all arguments.
7: And finally: Nothing against Jim Tressel, who has proven to be one of the premier coaches in college football. But you can tell a lot about a coach by how he and his team prepare and handle down time during a long break between games. Urban Meyer coached Tressel’s pants off.
6: Which leads me back to Duluth. I’m not naming names. But there are some high profile sports celebrities and business folk who live in the Sugarloaf Golf and Love Club. This thing has Gold Club Jr. Trial written all over it.
5: Question: I understand it’s the players’ off-season. But wouldn’t it have made sense for the Falcons to have a few players around - particularly, say, Michael Vick - at the Bobby Petrino news conference Monday. You know, that show of solidarity and all? Or is this hire not playing that well in the locker room?
4: Then again, none of those lockers have nameplates right now.
3: The Falcons have either been evasive (Arthur Blank) or outright deny (Rich McKay) that Petrino and/or his agent may have been contacted well before the Orange Bowl - and while Jim Mora still had a job. They stated this at Monday’s news conference, which was attended by, among others, the Easter Bunny.
2: News: Terrell Owens fired his much-maligned publicist, Kim Etheredge. Views: He had 25 million reasons.
1: Forget Petrino. Lisa Ann Taylor — now, SHE can run an offense. (Thank you. Try the veal.)
Permalink | Comments (26) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Gators swamped the Buckeyes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Glendale, Ariz. — The Urban Lobbyist might have talked his way into this game, but he more than walked the walk once here. Urban Meyer coached a game for the ages. Fifty years from now, people will still talk about this many-splendored scheme and its edgy precision, about this outrageous 41-14 triumph of the team that arrived as a rank underdog.
Technically the Florida Gators won the BCS national championship for their coach, but in truth their coach won it for his men. He convinced enough voters to give his Gators this chance, and on an improbable night in the desert he flung every strategem imaginable in the face of an opponent deemed all but invincible.
Talk about rising to a moment: Florida scored more points in the first half Monday than in the totality of any of its eight SEC regular-season games. Florida had three touchdowns by the time Ohio State managed its second first down. Florida stretched the Buckeyes past the breaking point — see why it’s called the Spread Offense? — and found so much space that the Gators seemed to have more eligible receivers than the Buckeyes had defenders.
Meyer deployed three different men at quarterback in his team’s first eight snaps, and the effect was so dizzying that Ohio State, which actually led 7-0 after 16 seconds, always seemed to be chasing the game. So completely did Meyer confound the man known as the best big-game coach in the country that, 3 1/2 minutes shy of halftime, Jim Tressel lost his buttoned-down mind.
Fourth-and-1 on its 29, Ohio State down by 10 but still with loads of time and a realistic chance. No coach in the history of football, not even the madcap Jerry Glanville, would have gone for a first down there, but Tressel did. And his team failed. And by halftime his team was 20 points behind, the game already gone.
Yes, there was inspired playing involved. Chris Leak saved the best game of his career for the very last. He completed his first nine passes and looked like he, not Troy Smith, was the finest player in the land. Smith, the newly minted Heisman holder, was overwhelmed by Florida’s swift and ravenous defense, making as many first-half turnovers as completions.
For all that, someone had to put those players in position, and that someone was Meyer. Florida’s longest gain from scrimmage was only 20 yards, but all those little swirls and swoops had a disproportionate impact. Steve Spurrier was, and occasionally still is, the Evil Genius, but the Urban Lobbyist has joined the ranks of Big Brains. He took a team not entirely of his choosing — let’s not forget Recruitin’ Ron Zook — and, after nursing it for two regular seasons, turned it loose against Arkansas in the SEC title game and now on this bigger stage.
For goodly chunks of this season, Florida seemed at odds with itself. It was winning, yes, but it wasn’t dominating anybody. (Not even Vanderbilt. Not even Georgia in a temporarily weakened state.) The Gators weren’t nearly this good in September or even in November, but on the night they had to be at their best, they authored a performance that ranks with any team’s best, any team’s ever.
And that’s coaching. That’s nurturing. That’s taking what you have and building as you go, building so carefully that the finished product is as impregnable as Fort Knox. These Gators didn’t always look like the nation’s best team, but by the time Urban Meyer was through with them, there was no doubt. They were the best by a mile.
Permalink | Comments (124) | Categories: Mark Bradley
Taking a gamble on Petrino
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Flowery Branch — By the end of Arthur Blank’s seven-minute opening statement (no water break), we had been painted a picture of the perfect football coach. Of course. It’s what introductory press conferences are all about.
Here’s our new guy. He’s innovative. He’s hungry. He’s a winner. Part Lombardi. Part Walsh. A dash of Einstein. Drew up plays when he was 6. Split the atom at 12. By the end of Blank’s dissertation, you were ready to run through a wall for Bobby Petrino.
But it’s like buying a house from the classifieds. The ad says, “Charming waterfront home.” But until you see the product, you don’t know if it’s splendor by the beach or a storage facility across from a water treatment facility.
This is what we know about how the Falcons will fare under Bobby Petrino: zilch. It’s the same thing we knew about Jim Mora, who went from a perceived uninspiring hire, to the NFC title game in year one, to a spectacular crash. Did you see any of that coming?
By any definition, Petrino is a risk. But Blank must be feeling lucky. He has given his new head coach significant money and a kicking foot, two things previously lacking.
It’s easy to sum up Petrino’s stature: five years, $24 million. Mora, the last perfect choice, didn’t make half that. (Then again, Petrino is coming off a win over Wake Forest.)
It screams that the Falcons have a new pecking order, and it’s not: 1) Michael Vick; 2) The less significant dude with a whistle.
Petrino is a smart guy. He holds degrees in both mathematics and physical education (and, given his track record, I suspect has some sort of doctorate in espionage). So when he said Monday, “Michael Vick is our starting quarterback today,” it could not have been by accident that “today” punctuated the sentence.
Blank said he wanted a coach with the “ability to develop our quarterbacks, and I would use the word quarterbacks, as opposed to quarterback.” So there are other quarterbacks on the roster? This follows a season in which Vick — while hardly the sole reason for the offense’s malfunctioning — again showed significant deficiencies in the maturity and leadership departments, particularly following an embarrassing season-ending loss at Philadelphia. The heat was turned up this season, and he cracked.
General manager Rich McKay somewhat shot down a report that the Falcons let coaching candidates know they “weren’t married to Vick,’ commenting: “There was never a discussion, ‘Boy, with respect to Mike Vick, there’s no holds barred.’ “
But McKay acknowledged the situation is stickier than most quarterback situations, given Vick’s marketing power and that he’s only two years into a 10-year, $130 million contract. “It’s a valid way to look at it,” McKay said. “But we’re in this business to win. When we don’t win, it’s not good for any of us.”
So let me summarize, with license: Blank is tired of losing, he wants to get back to the playoffs, and he doesn’t care who gets him there.
Vick is not toast here, yet. Let’s just not automatically operate on the assumption he’s on the menu. Chances are, he’ll be the starting quarterback next season. But if Vick fails early under Petrino, the chances of the Falcons dumping him skyrocket, salary cap be damned.
They just gave a new coach $24 million.
Where do you think the greater commitment lies — with him or the quarterback?
The Falcons wanted a tough guy following Mora’s pal approach. They got him. They wanted somebody who had a track record for developing an offense. They got him. Petrino’s Louisville teams blew up the scoreboard. But he was an NFL assistant for only three years at Jacksonville. Only in one was he offensive coordinator. The Jaguars went 6-10 and ranked 20th in offense, dropping from seventh in Petrino’s two seasons as quarterbacks coach.
Like Nick Saban, Petrino wanted to test his collegiate success in the NFL. Like Saban, you know where his loyalty lies: with himself. There was the secret Auburn meeting in 2003. Two years later, he interviewed with LSU only days after signing a new contract with Louisville. Last summer, he signed a new 10-year deal. So much for roots.
Petrino called this “the best job in the NFL.” It’s what you say on day one. Between now and next September, there will be new players and schemes. No blemishes until kickoff. But then the ad takes on meaning, and the product will be his.
Permalink | Comments (117) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Everything’s wrong about Petrino hire
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Flowery Branch — They couldn’t afford to get it wrong, but they just did.
Again.
I mean, given the furor in the Falcon Nation over rising ticket prices and falling results, how could owner Arthur Blank and team guru Rich McKay go from the disaster that was Jim Mora to the pending one that is Bobby Petrino?
Here’s how: You had the Falcons hierarchy obsessed with finding an offensive whiz such as Petrino to turn Michael Vick into something that he will never be, and that is more than just a potent runner with a great arm who plays quarterback. You had the Falcons hierarchy searching for somebody who would be comfortable with the ultimate hands-on owner, and a college guy falls into that category more than any of those NFL assistants that Blank and McKay interviewed only in theory. You had Petrino’s lengthy relationship with McKay and Petrino’s willingness to pull a reverse Nick Saban by swearing allegiance to his college team one moment before bolting for the pros the next.
Thus the Falcons’ latest hiring of an overmatched NFL head coach to rank along with the silliness of acquiring Marion Campbell (twice) and Jerry Glanville.
Actually, this is worse. At least Campbell and Glanville were accomplished NFL assistants. Petrino has spent 18 of his 21 years of coaching in the college ranks. In other words, no matter how much the Falcons hierarchy tries to clean it up — citing everything from Petrino’s pro-style offense at Louisville to his three seasons as an assistant with the Jacksonville Jaguars — Petrino is a college coach.
If you go by NFL history, especially the recent one featuring the likes of Butch Davis, Steve Spurrier and Dennis Erickson, college coaches are brutal pro coaches. College coaches eventually leave the pro ranks to return to the college ranks. College coaches also are control freaks, which brings us to a thought and a question: Yes, Petrino did the impossible by spending his four seasons at Louisville making the Cardinals more famous for football than basketball. It’s just that, given the Falcons’ emphasis on image under Blank, why did they hire a guy who views public relations as less pleasurable than drinking out of a whirlpool?
“We have talked to him about that,” McKay said Monday of Petrino’s surly reputation, which prompted Louisville officials two years ago to hire a media consultant for the now 45-year-old coach. Despite it all, Petrino still isn’t as cuddly as John Madden, or even the frequently tight Mora.
Added McKay, after Petrino’s first news conference with the Falcons featured more than a few smiles, “No, his [problems through the years with public relations] is not a concern. We’ve talked to him about it, and it’s something that I think you should talk about. It’s something that we’ll work through, because his approach at Louisville was somewhat different than our approach here. We’ll modify the approaches, but at the end, I think you’ll always see us being a franchise that understands that the media plays a part, and that they are our connection to the fans.”
Sounds like what the Falcons hierarchy used to say after Mora kept embarrassing the franchise with his mouth or his actions. Not encouraging. Neither is Petrino’s habit of punting away loyalty.
There was that Auburn thing, when Petrino tried to maneuver in the shadows to leave Louisville and get Tommy Tuberville’s head coaching job at Auburn. This is the same Tuberville who did Petrino a favor two years before all of that by giving him an assistant coaching job at Auburn.
Then there was Petrino signing that $1 million extension with Louisville at the end of 2004. He interviewed for the LSU job a few days later. Just last summer, Louisville athletics director Tom Jurich reached deep into the Cardinals’ treasury to give Petrino a 10-year deal for $25 million. Said Petrino during the news conference back then, “This is where I want to be. I want everyone to really believe it.”
Said Petrino during his Falcons news conference of the Atlanta move, “It was the right place at the right time. There is no question about that.”
Translated: The Falcons will need a new coach in two, maybe three years.
Permalink | Comments (129) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Hiring Petrino a splendid move
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Some will question this move. Some will wonder why Arthur Blank is entrusting his NFL franchise to a guy who has spent only three seasons in the league, none as a head coach. Some will wonder if Bobby Petrino is just another of those college guys — Nick Saban, to name the most recent name — who finds his methods less effective when there’s a salary cap involved.
I am not among those people.
I believe this is a splendid hire.
Bobby Petrino is among the best technical coaches, college or pro or high school or sandlot, in the land. What he did at Louisville, a city school in a not-very-populous state with an overwhelming basketball tradition, will stand as one of the greatest coaching jobs of this or any century. I’m in Arizona awaiting Monday’s BCS title game and, if not for a wasted 18-point lead on a Thursday night before a frothing Rutgers crowd, Petrino and Louisville would have been, too.
Petrino just went 12-1 and won the rejuvenated Big East and the Orange Bowl to boot despite losing his best player, running back Michael Bush, in the third quarter of the season opener. Indeed, if Bush and quarterback Brian Brohm elect not to enter the NFL draft, Louisville is positioned to make another run at the national championship next season. That’s how well Petrino had built a program whose previous claims to fame were that Johnny Unitas played there and Lee Corso coached there.
Petrino is a shrewd offensive coach, which is what the Falcons — and Michael Vick especially — needed. But Petrino is not, contrary to popular belief, one of those offensive coaches who see the running game as being as outdated as the 8-track tape. His teams strike a balance. Louisville finished seventh among Division I-A schools in passing offense, 12th in rushing. His receivers get open and his quarterbacks find them, but his backs knock people over. His guys play hard and play smart.
It was no surprise that Auburn, having watched Petrino work with the Tigers offense for only one season (2002), sought to hire him to replace Tommy Tuberville barely a year later. (The clandestine process — flying the school president and AD, both of whom were subsequently deposed, to Sellersburg, Ind., on Bobby Lowder’s private plane to meet with Petrino while Tuberville was still on the job — was flawed and insulting, but the idea had merit.) Petrino is one of those smart and driven guys about whom you can just tell: He’s going to win big.
He won bigger than anyone ever had at Louisville, and he will win big with the Falcons. He will take the high-profile offensive pieces — Vick, Warrick Dunn, Alge Crumpler, Jerious Norwood, the many first-round wideouts — and maximize their gifts in a way Jim Mora and Greg Knapp never could and never would have. Petrino will have this team back in the playoffs within two seasons, perhaps within one.
That said, he comes with a caveat: He has the reputation of being a great tactician but a not-so-nice guy, and Blank, as we know, is hugely conscious of his club’s public image. Petrino could get away with bullying functionaries and trying to cow the media in a college setting, but the NFL brings brighter lights and deeper scrutiny. If Petrino can mind his manners and manage to give the appearance of being a team player in Flowery Branch, he’ll do this organization proud.
He’s no charmer, but neither is Bill Belichick. Mora got the job on charm and lost it because he didn’t have the technical wherewithal to harness a slew of resources. Petrino has the wherewithal. He can make the most of Vick, the most of this franchise. He’s not just another college coach getting in over his head. He’s a pure football coach who can win at any level. Can and will.
Permalink | Comments (297) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Buckeyes’ Tressel is big-time in big games
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Glendale, Ariz. — He wears rimless glasses and color-coordinated sweater vests. He wears ties with short-sleeve shirts, which the fashion police consider a Class A felony. He says little that’s memorable and less that’s witty, and you might easily mistake him for the branch manager of your neighborhood Lowe’s. You might, except for this:
He’s the best college football coach in the land.
He’s Jim Tressel, and he’s the reason Ohio State keeps winning. He has five national championships in the bank — four in Division I-AA with the Youngstown State Penguins, plus the 2002 BCS title in the Buckeyes’ massive upset of Miami — and tonight he’s favored to deposit a sixth.
Good coaches win games. Great ones win big games. At Ohio State, Tressel is 25-7 against ranked opponents and 8-2 against the Top 10. (Who bats .800 against the very best?) And his repeated success isn’t a case of finding a formula and sticking with it. Tressel keeps reinventing his team and its methods, turning the school once known for the off-tackle blast into something resembling BYU.
Tressel won the 2002 championship with a team that completed only seven passes in the Fiesta Bowl. On that famous night, quarterback Craig Krenzel led the Buckeyes in rushing and passed for only 122 yards. In the game that brought this team to the desert for its championship date, Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith completed 29 passes for 316 yards against Michigan.
“A great game plan,” said Urban Meyer, whose Florida Gators will oppose Tressel’s team tonight. “They had great game plans against Michigan and against Texas [on Sept. 9] in those games where the checkers were fairly even.”
Much about this championship game seems fairly even — the Buckeyes are fast, and so are the Gators; the Buckeyes have been tested, and so have the Gators — but the edge in direction favors the Scarlet and Gray. Meyer might well be the sport’s next great coach; Tressel is great already. Think of it this way: Mark Richt came to Georgia in 2001, the same year Tressel arrived in Columbus, and has done a superior job with the Bulldogs. But Richt hasn’t played for a national title and has won only one BCS game. Richt is 61-17, which is splendid; Tressel is 62-13 over that same span.
“We’ve had good fortune,” Tressel said Sunday. “Hopefully we [meaning he] have been able to contribute something.” And then: “You’re only as good as the people around you.” And then, speaking of the Heisman-winning Smith: “You have to have an aura about you.”
Strange as it sounds, the aura ringing Ohio State emanates from beneath those sweater vests. The Buckeyes have come to believe that, in times of duress, their coach will think of something. Florida used to have that feeling about Steve Spurrier, and Notre Dame about Lou Holtz.
Born and raised in Ohio, Tressel played quarterback at Baldwin-Wallace for his dad, who had coached at famed Massillon High and who won — DNA counts for something, doesn’t it? — the 1978 Division III national title at Baldwin-Wallace. Jim Tressel apprenticed under Earle Bruce at Ohio State. (So did Meyer, though not at the same time.) He won his first championship in 1991, beating Marshall and Jim Donnan in the Division I-AA title game.
Woody Hayes, the coach most associated with Buckeye greatness, was an outsized — occasionally out of control — presence. Tressel is the essence of unassuming. He just coaches his team and outcoaches his opponents and keeps showing up in January and winning there. He seems never to put a foot wrong, but even the best have lesser moments.
Such as: This week a Buckeyes player related one of Tressel’s little motivational tacks — distributing a card bearing a thought from Confucius. “Obviously that one didn’t work,” Tressel said. “It wasn’t Confucius. It was Nelson Mandela.”
The lesson herein: Sayings might misfire, but the sweater vest rarely does.
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Mark Bradley
With a win, Gators — shudder — will rule us all
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Glendale, Ariz. — Florida, the reigning basketball national champion, can win the football national championship Monday night. No school has ever held concurrent ownership of the two biggest collegiate titles. Woe unto everybody else — Georgia fans and us neutrals alike — if it happens now. Florida has always acted as if it owns the world. If the Gators are champs in the two sports that matter most, won’t it mean they do own the world?
“Pretty much,” said Max Starks, the Pittsburgh Steelers lineman who stopped by his former school’s practice Saturday. “It would mean the Gators definitely have the edge on everyone athletically.”
Granted, there are Florida fans who aren’t insufferable. They, alas, number in single digits. And it would be different if Southern Cal or Wisconsin or some other distant school did the double because fans of those programs tend to keep their distance. Florida borders on our fair state and sends a massive number of its infernal grads across the border. And Florida, as we know, has come to own Georgia in the two major sports.
Florida is already too close for comfort. Now imagine if Florida topples Ohio State.
Jeff Dantzler has. He’s part of the Georgia basketball broadcast team and a columnist for the magazine Bulldawg Illustrated. He spoke Saturday from, of all places, Gainesville, Fla., where the hated Gators were about to beat Georgia in basketball for the sixth time in succession.
Dantzler confessed to being torn, if only slightly, about the BCS title game. “There’s a part of me that knows it would be nice for our conference,” he said. And how big a part is that? One measly corpuscle? “It’s about 5-1 [against Florida].”
Some schools can win without leaving an aftertaste. Florida is not such a school. No, it hasn’t been caught cheating in recruiting lately, but the Gators have such inherent advantages — academics, facilities, fan base, state population, even the bloomin’ weather — that they don’t need to bend rules to ruffle feathers. Said Dantzler: “They’ve definitely got a swagger. Some would call it arrogance.”
Well, yes. Steve Spurrier played and coached there. Rex Grossman smirked there. Dwayne Schintzius grew hair there. Of all the qualities that can be ascribed to Gator Nation, humility would be at the bottom of the list.
To wit: When a correspondent offered congratulations immediately after Florida’s basketball championship, here was athletics director Jeremy Foley’s magnanimous response: “Now take back all that [stuff] you’ve been writing.” (And this to the only columnist in the world who defended Foley after he hired Ron Zook.)
Part of the dislike for the Gators, Dantzler suggested, has been “the deep-down fear of how good they could become.” Sure enough, here they are, holders of a powerfully won basketball title and no worse than a touchdown underdog against unbeaten Ohio State. Going beyond Monday night, Dantzler looks to Oct. 27, 2007: “It would be gut-wrenching walking into Jacksonville with them having won 15 of the last 17 [Georgia-Florida games] and having them do the Gator Chomp and wave two national championship rings in our face.”
But the indignity of continual Gator coronations could hit home even before that. There’s a good chance Florida could become the first school in 15 years to stack basketball titles back to back, and if the football team wins in the desert the hoop Gators could, come April, be going not for a mere double but for a triple in, of all places, the Georgia Dome.
Said Starks: “That would be a great day if we could run the trifecta.”
Great for him, yes. Great for all Gators, sure. Gut-wrenching for everybody else.
Permalink | Comments (62) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Hartley’s work gets top marks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
There must be nicer things to say about Bob Hartley than the fact he currently ranks as the most successful coach of Atlanta’s pro sports teams. Consider the field: One guy is out of a job (Jim Mora). One guy is in last place (Mike Woodson). One guy is coming off the franchise’s first losing season in 16 years (Bobby Cox).
Hartley? His team has a division lead and ranks second in the NHL’s Eastern Conference. “Playoffs” looks to be a new word in the city’s vocabulary. He has turned a one-way superstar (Ilya Kovalchuk) into a responsible player. Kovalchuk was smiling the other morning despite having scored only three goals (one an empty-netter) in a span of 13 games.
“Before Bob,” Kovalchuk said, “it was like we were just like playing games for fun. We weren’t really going for the playoffs. It wasn’t too much fun for me.”
There are nice things to say about Bob Hartley.
Ask Scotty Bowman.
“He’s not one of these guys who just parachuted in,” said Bowman, the retired nine-time Stanley Cup winner, who opposed Hartley in several Detroit-Colorado playoff series. “He worked his way up. The one thing I found out about him is he knew how to get an edge. He knew matchups. He knew when to have certain guys on the ice.”
The Thrashers have made the turn into the second half of the season, and they have not turned downward. Credit Hartley. He’s one reason Bowman, generally recognized as the greatest coach in NHL history, listed the Thrashers among his top five picks to win the Cup this season (see today’s “Gimme 5”).
When Bowman’s praise was relayed to Hartley, it was as if Joe DiMaggio had just told a Little Leaguer, “Nice swing.”
Hartley grew up a Montreal Canadiens fan when Bowman was behind the bench and winning Cups. The two first met when Bowman was with the Red Wings and Hartley was coaching one of the Wings’ top prospects, Martin Lapointe, in Laval, Quebec. Then Hartley worked his way up with the Avalanche.
“When I was in Colorado, I was coaching against my idol,” he said. “It was strange because he was my favorite, but in those series he was my No. 1 enemy. The first time I faced him in a playoff series, he beat me in the first two games but then we won the next four. After the game, I was almost too shy to shake his hand. I didn’t know what he would say to me. I didn’t know what to say to him. But he told me he was very proud of me, that I had done a good job.”
That might seem kind of mushy for one coach to be so glowing of another. But it speaks to Bowman’s place in NHL history. When the Thrashers were in Montreal earlier this season, Hartley lit up when Bowman stopped by and told him how impressed he was with the team.
The Thrashers’ coach cherishes a picture of he and Bowman posing in front of the Stanley Cup in a Toronto steakhouse. “It’s the best picture I own,” Hartley said. “If my house was on fire, I would go back in just to save that picture.”
Hartley coached a Stanley Cup winner in Colorado. He is still waiting to coach a playoff game in Atlanta. It nearly happened a year ago, when the Thrashers survived a slow start and goalie injuries to work their way back into the race. But then the team lost seven straight in January and early February and dropped back into a hole. Hartley took it personally.
“I still don’t know what happened,” he said. “During those seven games, I tried everything. I yelled. I screamed. I hugged. I made changes. Our game was simply not there. I pressed all the buttons, but I couldn’t find the right one.”
There have been a few bumps this season, most notably four- and five-game losing streaks. But each slide has been answered with a winning streak.
Hartley’s work with Kovalchuk parallels Bowman’s with Steve Yzerman, who broke into the league as a scoring whiz but became a well-rounded player and key to Stanley Cup teams. “There are some nights in the playoffs when your team is not going to be able to score four goals,” Bowman said. “You have to teach guys how to do the little things and play well defensively. Bob is doing that in Atlanta.”
High praise, from the highest of sources.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Thrashers / NHL
Worst field ever begins NFL playoff race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
He always was perceptive as a Falcons player, which made Jeff Van Note an interviewer’s delight. Even today, when his head and his beard feature enough gray to serve as a clue that he hasn’t made an NFL snap from center in 21 years, he is as wise as they come.
So why is Van Note hugging this parity mess with a slew of others among the misguided? Well, he is suffering from flashbacks, and we’re talking about ugly ones. He played on those frequently shaky Falcons teams from 1969 through 1986, when the lack of parity (or shall we say mediocrity?) brought them only three playoff appearances.
If those Falcons had the advantage of living in today’s NFL that has the New York Giants in the postseason despite losing six of their last eight games, then those Falcons could have played in January enough to turn the Smith family’s reputation into the Waltons instead of the Clampetts when it comes to competency.
“We used to enter every season thinking that it was going to be our year — you know, by thinking we’ve just added this guy and that guy, we’re more mature, we’ve worked hard and those things,” said Van Note on Thursday, before sighing. “Once you did all of that and entered that thought process, there always was a realization at some point as the season progressed as to where you were going to finish.”
If you were those Falcons, the finish usually was bad. If you were among those back then reaching NFL immortality, the finish usually was great.
You won’t hear “immortality” regarding teams during this postseason that lacks a Superman but has plenty of Jimmy Olsens and Lois Lanes. You can blame it on several things. The salary cap. Free agency. Fundamentally challenged players. Pete Rozelle’s ghost. The dwindling number of future Hall of Fame players (there were more on the Steelers of the 1970s than there are now in the whole league). Money trumping winning for players and coaches. (See Bill Cowher trying to maneuver his way to a bigger contract by retiring from a solid Pittsburgh team before returning someday to the highest bidder).
Thus parity. Thus the reason why the playoffs begin this weekend with the worst set of teams ever in pursuit of the Lombardi Trophy. There is no Pittsburgh of Bradshaw, Mean Joe and Franco. No Washington of Theismann, Riggins and Gibbs (the effective one, not this one). No Dallas of Staubach or Aikman, no San Francisco of Montana or Young, no Oakland of Stabler or Plunkett.
Simply put, there isn’t anything close in the NFL to those suffocating playoff teams from Van Note’s past, when the likely suspects for a world championship each season caused folks to greatly like them or greatly hate them, but not to ignore them. Such dominance by a few forced many to get better. That’s opposed to the horror of now, when shaky teams reign.
Even the heavily flawed Falcons were among five 7-8 teams with a chance to make the playoffs on the last day of this season. “The beauty of the game any more is that the fan — and I’m a fan — can see that his team can get better very quickly if you’re sharp about acquiring free agents, and if you’re drafting well,” Van Note said. “What was it? (A record) 20 out of the 32 teams in the league still had a shot at getting one of the 12 playoff spots entering the last weekend of the season?”
Yep. The NFL set an attendance record for the fourth consecutive season, and only seven of the league’s 256 games weren’t sellouts. That means the majority of folks agree with Van Note about parity. That means the majority of folks won’t get it until the quality of play in the league keeps falling off the face of the earth.
Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Saban’s deal doesn’t include loyalty
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
This was late in the season four years ago, even before Nick Saban felt it necessary to pledge allegiance to LSU boosters over breakfast, while meeting with his agent about NFL jobs over lunch.
“It was the grind of the season in 2002,” said Georgia Tech athletics director Dan Radakovich, then the senior associate AD at LSU. “[Then- New Orleans Saints coach] Jim Haslett, a former teammate of mine, was telling me on the phone how his job was driving him crazy, and he said, ‘You’ve gotta get an AD’s job so you can hire me.’ Then later in the day, I was walking through the building and I see Nick and he’s telling me, ‘I gotta get out of here. I gotta go to the NFL.’ It was kind of funny. One guy wanted out of the NFL, one wanted out of college. It was like, ‘The grass is always greener.’?”
Saban can afford fields of fake grass today. Alabama gave him an eight-year contract worth at least $32 million, give or take another NCAA mandate about reforming college athletics. But there’s as much chance of Saban seeing the end of that contract as there is him winning an ethics battle with Don Shula.
He loved Michigan State and left. He loved LSU and left. He leaped at a chance to run the Miami Dolphins, then left two years into a five-year contract. Why? Because he couldn’t win. The other excuses are mere window dressing. Such is the life of a wealthy invertebrate. As Shula told the Miami Herald: “He has run away from the challenge.”
At each stop, Saban has lied. But let’s get past that. Coaches lie all the time. Sometimes the best coaches are the best liars. They wear their ability to lie, distort and deceive as a badge of honor. Besides, if nothing else, having a good liar on staff gives Alabama an ace in the hole the next time the NCAA phones.
But know this about Saban: He was miserable in the NFL, and in time he’ll be miserable in Tuscaloosa. Perhaps college football is where he belongs, but he picked the wrong place at the wrong time to ease his throbbing temples.
Alabama used to be a top 10 job. Today Alabama is a cartoon. It’s symbolic of everything that is wrong about college athletics. (Most recent evidence: giving $32 million to a football coach). Saban is the Crimson Tide’s seventh coach since Bear Bryant left. He’s the fifth in eight years (counting Mike Price, who held the position only for an offseason of lap dances).
Alabama is now the second-best job in the state behind Auburn. And Troy’s closing on No. 2.
There are at least five schools in the SEC with more strength, stability and promise: Georgia, Florida, LSU, Tennessee, Auburn. (Alabama gets the edge over South Carolina only because of the alphabet.)
Alabama doesn’t have cachet. It has ghosts. The school will never dominate like before because the conference is too strong and recruiting is too competitive.
The Tide will improve because Saban can coach. But the days of owning Auburn and the SEC are gone, and the bigger problem is that nobody in Tuscaloosa realizes that. That will make Saban miserable. That will make him look around. Again. Michigan needs a new coach? Rich Rodriguez is leaving West Virginia? Time to try the NFL again?
Radakovich said he liked Saban at LSU. He disputes the notion that he’s perpetually unhappy, preferring to call him “driven.”
He added: “Nick wants to be in circumstances where he has the opportunity to be extremely successful.”
Saban might have eventually succeeded with the Dolphins. But his comments Thursday about leaving the team in great shape made him look like a clown. Miami went 6-10 this season. In the AFC, only Cleveland and Oakland were worse. Saban botched personnel decisions. He picked the wrong quarterback (Daunte Culpepper over Drew Brees) and embraced a quitter (Ricky Williams, who thanked him by failing another drug test).
Saban said this is his last job.
Two weeks ago, he said, “I’m not going to be the Alabama coach.”
The video will be an opposing recruiter’s best friend.
His next move? Saban says it will be to his retirement home on Lake Burton. Perfect. It’s a ready-made fish story.
Permalink | Comments (120) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
It’s about accountability
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The annual Accountability Scoreboard begins with a brag: I picked Texas over Southern Cal in the 2006 Rose Bowl. (Picked it in the summer of 2005, if I do say so myself.) But my prognosticating year peaked on the night of Jan. 4, which doesn’t say all that much for the last 361 days of last year.
I did correctly pick Georgia Tech to finish its regular season 9-3, but I was wrong about the way the Jackets would construct that record. I had them beating Notre Dame and Georgia, neither of which occurred. I thought they’d finish second in the ACC Coastal to Miami. But then, the division won, I expected Tech to beat Wake Forest for the conference title. Wrong again.
I had Georgia going 9-3 and beating Auburn, which would seem to suggest I wasn’t far off. (Georgia finished its regular season 8-4 and indeed upset the Tigers.) But I never expected the Bulldogs to lose to Vandy and Kentucky – I doubt anybody did – and I was wrong about Georgia losing at South Carolina. I was right about Matthew Stafford being the starter by the season’s third game, but I can’t claim to have foreseen an injury to Joe Tereshinski III being the reason why.
I thought Auburn would beat LSU, which happened, and go on to win the SEC West, which didn’t. I had Florida taking the East – right again – but had the Gators losing four times before their bowl game. They’ve lost once, as we know.
Ohio State was – and is – my choice to win the national title. Adrian Peterson was my preseason Heisman pick, but he broke his collarbone and wasn’t a factor. I was right about the ACC being down, wrong about Florida State winning the title. I was wrong about West Virginia finishing the regular season unbeaten, wrong about Miami and LSU playing in the 2006 Chick-fil-A Bowl.
The Falcons looked like a playoff team to me, a 10- or an 11-game winner. They won seven. I expect Arthur Blank was somewhat more disappointed than I was. (He must be or he wouldn’t be interviewing Ken Whisenhunt to replace Jim Mora as head coach today.)
I can’t say I saw the end of the Braves’ run of division titles coming; on the contrary, I decided long ago to pick the Braves to win the NL East every year until they actually didn’t. But I was correct in assuming their surge around the All-Star break wouldn’t turn into a serious wild-card run.
Having picked the 2004 Final Four correctly – and this, I promise, is the last time I’ll brag about that – I whiffed completely on the 2006 version. I had Duke (lost in Round 3), Connecticut (Round 4), Kansas (Round 1) and Villanova (my choice to win it all, which lost in Round 4 to the team that did win it all – Florida.) And here’s the really bad news: I covered the SEC tournament and saw Florida and LSU in the flesh, and I can’t say I thought either one looked like a Final Four team.
I thought the Thrashers would make the playoffs, and so did Don Waddell. We were both wrong. I thought the Hawks should have drafted Marcus Williams instead of Shelden Williams, and I haven’t seen anything to make me regret that stance. I thought these Hawks would be slightly (but not significantly) better, but at the moment they’re essentially on pace to win 26 games, same as last season.
It’s an Accountability Scoreboard tradition to close with a fairly off-the-wall prediction. Last year’s stab – that Tech would miss the NCAA tournament but that Georgia would make it – was half-right but also way wrong. (Neither team even qualified for the NIT.)
This year’s wild guess: The Thrashers will upset Buffalo in seven games in the Eastern Conference finals and play Anaheim for the Stanley Cup.
Permalink | Comments (65) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
TV adds some weight to Bennett’s abilities
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
St. Simons Island — The truth is, America is overdosed on footbowl. And 10,000 of the most irritating commercials that ever invaded our privacy. “Remember, drink responsibly,” (but drink Grubheimer’s Select). That’s like telling a snake not to bite.
I wonder how many little boys have asked their dad, “Did you play in the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, Daddy?” So many bowls, so many six-loss teams. Actually, my official bowl season began where my last season ended, at Ford Field in Detroit, Central Michigan and Middle Tennessee playing on the turf where the Super Bowl had trod, two smalltown teams gone to the city. From then on, it all became a jumble of good teams, sloppy teams, some of the ugliest uniforms I have ever seen, unfamiliar names breaking out of anonymity, stars having bad days, and one special comeback, when Georgia proved it is possible to win with a freshman quarterback.
Sixty-four teams, same as the NCAA basketball numbers, providing extracurricular exercise for 6,400 students, 12,900 band members, 1,200 cheerleaders and an inestimable number of alumni, with a $210 million pot on the table. Some of these so-called bowls have names as long as a movie script. Thank you, Rose Bowl, for sticking to the name you were born with. Why the need of a sponsor for the original? Imagine, if you can, UCLA and Florida State playing for nuts in San Francisco, home of Barry Bonds.
Enough of that. Now to the subject closest at hand, the Gator Bowl, Georgia Tech’s “10th annual bowl game,” press releases proudly proclaim, blithely lumping in such backyard scrums as the ill-fated Silicon Valley Bowl with the four original giants of bowling. The Gator Bowl was an event I glumly missed live and in person, suffering from a disorder that rearranged my innards. However, television brought to a head a mystery that has been puzzling Georgia Tech patrons for at least two seasons: Why has Taylor Bennett been chained to the sideline while Reggie Ball suffered through his pits of depression?
Even in this game Ball would have started had he not been flagged by academic zebras. So Bennett got his second start in two seasons, again not by choice but of necessity.
Left-handed, heroic build for a quarterback, 215 pounds on a 6-foot-3 frame. No Michael Vick but pocket savvy. Amazing patience, waiting for receivers to get open. West Virginia thought it was getting a backup quarterback. The Mountaineers weren’t expecting this kind of surprise.
It turned out to be Bennett’s finest hour. He completed 19 of 29 passes, nine to Calvin Johnson, who was enjoying his new working partner. Bennett’s 326 yards was a Georgia Tech bowl record, which was inconsequential in the long run. With Bennett in the box, Georgia Tech scored 35 points against a team that had allowed that many points in only two games during the season. This was a game lost by Jon Tenuta’s vaunted defense, not by a backup offense. This, now, summons Chan Gailey to the forefront. How much better might the past two seasons have been if Bennett had been called on, especially when Ball slipped into one of his occasional depressions?
How many more passes might Johnson have caught, yards and yards of receptions. Remember the Clemson game, when he never had a reception, and in the second half was never a target. He might have broken every receiving record in the ACC with such an accurate pocket passer as Bennett. And remember again, the importance of Bennett standing in the face of the charge, waiting for targets to shake loose.
For all that, Chan Gailey owes an explanation to his Georgia Tech constituency, especially the Old Guard, which watched and begged relief from Ball’s unraveling as the team sank into its annual malaise. Of course, Bennett has the quarterback job in his clutches now. This could open the door on a new day of offense out there.
You’ve read and seen replay after replay of Boise State’s incredible upset of the Oklahoma powerhouse. Well, let me take you back to Georgia’s opening day of 2005. Boise State was the guest, Jared Zabransky was the quarterback. Sanford Stadium was stuffed. Zabransky had never played before in such a scene. Poor fellow, he came completely unhinged on the first series, fumbled a number of times and had to be replaced before the half. One and the same Jared Zabransky who quarterbacked the most astonishing upset these many bowls have known in many a year. Fa-la-la and a happy new year.
Permalink | Comments (51) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
Falcons coach needs owner at a distance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Flowery Branch — Unless Arthur Blank changes much of his ownership style, the Falcons will have a disastrous search for a new head coach. Nobody of significance will agree to work in an NFL environment where the guy writing the checks is as omnipresent as air.
Somebody of significance named Dan Reeves agreed on Wednesday from his Buckhead home, and then he chuckled before saying, “Having Arthur on the sideline all the time wasn’t something I asked him to do. That’s for sure. You look up and you go, ‘Oh, gosh. Arthur is down here,’ or something like that. This is not something that you’re used to.”
Added Reeves, now an NFL analyst for Westwood One radio, “I think the coach who eventually comes in there is going to know that here’s a guy who is going to be on the sideline, and I can’t imagine that coach ever telling Arthur, ‘I don’t want you on the sideline.’ The chances of that happening are few and far between.”
All of this is among the reasons why this suddenly reeling franchise went from the veteran Reeves three seasons ago to a career assistant such as Jim Mora who was just happy to be here. Well, until Mora became so miffed by something involving Blank or others in the Falcons organization that he began his shameless campaign for the University of Washington job in the middle of a playoff run.
Not surprisingly, Blank disagreed with my assessment of the Falcons’ plight from his office at team headquarters. “My style in relationship to the new head coach will be supportive and will reflect the wishes and the desire of that person,” said Blank, while leaning forward in the large chair behind his desk. “I’ll [honor the wishes of the new coach] as long as we’re keeping to our standards, keeping to our values.”
Thus this question: If your new head coach asked you to stop your five-season habit of roaming the Falcons sideline near the end of games, would you?
Blank said quickly, “Oh, absolutely. I wouldn’t be there [on the sideline]. I had those discussions with Jimmy [Mora] several times over the years. The guy who started me doing that was [former Falcons adviser] Bobby Beathard when he used to stand on the sideline with four or five minutes to go. And if I didn’t [do that], I would get caught in the elevator. So Bobby suggested that I come down with him. Of course, living in the media world that we do, the cameras wouldn’t tend to focus on [somebody else] on the sideline. They would focus on me.”
That’s because Blank is an oddity in NFL history. Except for zoom shots to their luxury boxes, owners usually aren’t seen or heard during games. The Cowboys’ Jerry Jones was the undisputed king of high visibility among owners until Blank came along. While Jones rarely interacts with players and coaches on the sideline, Blank regularly does — unless, as Blank suggested, our eyes are lying. “I actually make a point of not talking to coaches and not talking to players, etc.,” Blank said. “If I’m passing by, I might give them a pat on the behind. That’s about it.”
To which Reeves stifled another chuckle when told of Blank’s remarks. Reeves recalled, for instance, one of the most bizarre moments during his 23 years as an NFL head coach. It happened in 2002 when the Falcons could make the playoffs through a victory at Cleveland on the last game of the season or a loss by the Saints.
With the Falcons sprinting downfield in the final minutes, Reeves’ focus was interrupted. The visibly perturbed coach didn’t know it was his owner telling him in his ear that the Saints had lost and that the Falcons already were in the playoffs. “That bothered me, and it affected me,” Reeves said. “We got on the goal line, and we had about three plays with Mike Vick running the football, and I’m thinking, ‘Well, I’ve been told we’re in the playoffs. Should I run Mike Vick, or should I take a chance on getting him hurt?’ I didn’t run him. We ended up not scoring and not winning, because of [Blank’s message].”
Even so, Reeves said he never asked Blank to stay off the sideline. “He’s the owner, so he can do what he wants,” said Reeves, who did invite Blank to the Monday meetings of coaches to review games. “I thought that was a good thing — being in meetings, listening to personnel guys, learning why we played well or not — so he could see how good the coaches are.”
Nothing changed for Blank during the Mora regime. In fact, it expanded. Blank met with Falcons president Rich McKay, top coaches and Mora every Monday for a briefing on games. Blank said it was done at their insistence. So what if the new head coach doesn’t want those kinds of meetings with the owner?
“I would never feel comfortable with any head coach who would say to me that he wouldn’t want to review the game with me in some setting,” said Blank, who just narrowed his choices of possible candidates even more.
Permalink | Comments (138) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Jackets can’t revise history
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Contrary to the perfect hindsight of those around the Jacket Nation, Georgia Tech football coach Chan Gailey didn’t blow it this season with his decision to play the historically erratic Reggie Ball at quarterback instead of the recently amazing Taylor Bennett.
If Bennett starts the opener against Notre Dame, does that mean Tech offensive gurus throw more passes (as opposed to virtually no passes) to the great Calvin Johnson in the second half of that loss?
If Bennett starts at Clemson, do the Jackets discover ways to keep from getting clobbered in Death Valley?
If Bennett starts against Georgia, does he turn the Yellow Jackets’ non-rivalry with the Bulldogs (sorry, but it isn’t a rivalry when you keep losing to the same team) into a rivalry again?
If Bennett starts in the ACC Championship Game, do the Jackets score more than a pitiful six points against Wake Forest?
If Bennett starts all season, does he play even better (19-for-26, 326 yards passing, three touchdowns and an interception) than he did in the Gator Bowl during the Jackets’ 38-35 loss to West Virginia?
Who knows the answer to any of those questions? Just like, who knows the following: If Bennett starts the Jackets’ opening six games this season, does he match Ball’s ability to put Tech on a five-game winning streak during that span to push the Jackets as high as 13th in the nation in the Associated Press, USA Today/Coaches and Harris polls?
For those in the Jacket Nation, here is the answer to all of the above: Just move on.
Permalink | Comments (101) | Categories: Quick Hit, Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Filling in Blank’s slate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Before Arthur Blank begins interviewing coaches, he must first question himself. In the wake of Jim Mora’s flameout, the owner needs to ask:
• Have I overrated Michael Vick? Have I sunk $130 million into a quarterback who, as many insist, isn’t a quarterback? Is he really a coach-killer? Is he destined to exit the NFL having never progressed beyond the Fun To Watch stage?
• Have I overrated our talent and, by extension, Rich McKay? Are recent returns a reflection of the players or the coach? Having just fired the coach, haven’t I already cast my lot with McKay? But if we’re 7-9 next year with a new set of coaches, does the GM likewise get the gate? And do his maladroit first-round receivers go with him?
• Speaking of which, is Vick the kind of quarterback who makes all receivers look bad? (The high-salaried Peerless Price didn’t blossom here, did he?) Is Vick too fundamentally flawed as a passer ever to complete a reasonable percentage? Or is his completion percentage low because he hasn’t had the right coaching?
• Don’t I automatically disqualify any candidate (a.) whose dad has a radio show, or (b.) who keeps a University of Washington helmet on display?
• At this late date, haven’t I gone too far with Vick to stop now? Isn’t No. 7 essentially the No. 2 man — after me, but ahead of McKay and the coach, whoever he is — in Flowery Branch? Aren’t he and I partners in the sense Bernie Marcus and I were? Having coddled Vick to the point of not reprimanding him publicly for flipping off our fans, do I dare do anything to alienate him now?
• Given all that, do I have any choice but to hire a head coach who has a feel for quarterbacks? (What was I thinking, hiring a defensive coordinator the last time?) If I’m married to Vick and his production, don’t I owe it to myself to get as creative as possible? Don’t I want a head coach to do for me what Sean Payton has done for Tom Benson?
• Isn’t this the first thing I need to ask every candidate: “Can you win a Super Bowl with Michael Vick, and if you don’t think you can, why are you here?” And isn’t this the next thing: “What will you do to make Vick the player his talent insists he should be?”
• Since everything here is about the quarterback, is there any reason not to hire Norm Chow, who’s better with quarterbacks than anybody in the history of football? Since Vick is the centerpiece of my franchise, don’t I want him guided by someone who has coached both Steve and Vince Young? Since I have an asset of irregular dimensions, don’t I want the architect who has the greatest familiarity with that template?
• Is there any way I can read the list of other Chow pupils — Gifford Nielsen, Jim McMahon, Marc Wilson, Robbie Bosco, Ty Detmer, Philip Rivers, Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, Steve McNair — and not believe the man has a singular feel for the most important position? Is there any way I can view what Chow just did with the rookie Vince Young and not believe he’d do at least as much with the veteran Vick?
• Even if Chow’s playbook contains elements of the locally dreaded West Coast offense, doesn’t his recent work prove he fits his schemes to the quarterback, not the other way around?
• Does it matter that Chow is 60 and has never been a head coach? Did it matter that Sean Payton was 42 and had never been a head coach? Having had to apologize for Mora’s smart-alecky excesses, wouldn’t a more seasoned man be most welcome? And didn’t a 63-year-old just lead the Chargers to the NFL’s best record? And am I not 64 myself?
• Wasn’t it Mora who insisted offensive linemen never have anything to say? Wouldn’t it be funny if Chow, who played guard at Utah, gets to say, “I’m proud to be the new coach of the Atlanta Falcons”? Well, wouldn’t it?
Permalink | Comments (280) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Next guy needs to scare, not hug, players
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Flowery Branch — During his tenure as owner, Arthur Blank has operated on the misguided assumption that when you treat people well, pay them well, and make it clear in almost every way possible that you are emotionally and certainly financially invested in their future, they will respond accordingly.
This season should teach him something.
Blank fired Jim Mora Monday. Before deciding on a replacement, he and president and general manager Rick McKay need to realize that the Falcons’ biggest problems can’t be fixed by a smiling, peppy “consensus” guy with a new book of Xs and Os.
Because in the big picture, the Falcons don’t just need a coach. They need a human cattle prod.
Mora certainly looked like the right choice to take over two years ago. He was high-energy. He coached like his pants were on fire. He gave his players group hugs.
But if collapses the past two seasons have proven anything, it’s that things have gotten way too comfortable at Flowery Branch.
The owner wants to be the players’ pal. The coach wanted to be the players’ pal. Too much pal.
This team needs a head-slap once in a while. This is football. Remember football?
Blank presumably is as demanding as an NFL owner as he was in the retail industry. But between Blank’s generosity — one of the NFL’s highest payroll, wooing free agents on his private jet, new dorms for training camp — and Mora’s daily devotionals about how much he loved his players, the Falcons played like they were wearing bedroom slippers. They lost their edge. They lost something that really should be automatic in professional sports, but, in reality, isn’t: a desire to earn to their paychecks.
The Falcons dressed 45 players a game, but significantly fewer heart beats. Please, no more claims about the great leaders on this roster. Great leaders don’t allow a team to go 2-7 after a 5-2 start. Great leaders don’t get stepped on by Philadelphia backups to close the season. Great leaders don’t throw their coach under the bus, regardless of what they may think of the play-calling.
No matter what you thought about Mora as a coach, it says something about the man that, right to the end, he wouldn’t publicly dump on his players for their heart-less efforts. But maybe somebody needs to be called on the carpet. The Falcons have lacked accountability. If the best head coaches don’t constantly rip their players, they certainly don’t wave pompons every day.
The last thing any Falcons player needed in the second half this season was to think that everything was OK, when it clearly wasn’t. They played with a feeling of acceptance.
Mora wanted to be liked. Coaches don’t have to be liked. Coaches have to be respected. Maybe they even have to be feared. The next coach won’t need a whistle, he’ll need a blowtorch.
Yes, players want to know that a coach has their back. But they also need to believe that they’re one yawn away from being drop-kicked. These players never had that feeling, and it showed.
Blank did not lay out the blueprint for his next coach Monday. But in comparing the criteria for this season to the one that led to Mora’s hiring, he seemed to acknowledge miscues two years ago.
“There will be things that we’ll look at a little differently,” he said.
It’s logical that Michael Vick’s development will be central to the search. Mora and Greg Knapp never could figure out the best way to utilize him. But the Falcons don’t need innovation. They need simplicity. Football in the era of the NFL Network is the same thing it was in the era of leather helmets. It’s blocking and tackling. It’s a physical game and the Falcons are not a physical team.
The Falcons did not lose their final game because Mora and his staff got outschemed. They lost because a bunch of well-paid, coddled athletes were punched in the face and they didn’t punch back. Maybe they forgot how. Maybe they didn’t feel it was worth the effort.
The pitfalls of direct deposit.
The next coach can’t change the salary structure of the NFL. But he can change the attitude, and it starts with a little discomfort. These players need to feel something, and it’s not a warm embrace.
Permalink | Comments (237) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
When team quits, coach must go
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Flowery Branch — He had to go, and for so many reasons. We needn’t go further than that self-inflicted dagger through the heart of Jim Mora’s coaching career with the Falcons. In case you missed the bloody truth in the aftermath of his firing on Monday, his players just quit on him for the second straight year.
To have your players vanish through indifference once is bad enough. Twice, and you definitely have to go.
This is the same Mora who spent three seasons chest-bumping and overly praising everybody in his locker room when he wasn’t snorting ammonia caps with all of them on the sideline. It was enough to make his players often speak of how they loved the guy. Well, they loved the guy so much that they quit on him against Carolina to seal last season’s underwhelming finish, and then they quit on him Sunday in Philadelphia against a bunch of folks at the end of the Eagles’ bench.
So here’s my advice to Falcons owner Arthur Blank and franchise guru Rich McKay during their search for a new head coach: Stay away from “player coaches” because they eventually get assassinated by their players. Falcons players had good reason to do so in this case.
In contrast to that Carolina fiasco, when Falcons quarterback Michael Vick even admitted to yawning through it all, Mora’s players quit on him to end this season because he quit on them with three games left to play. That’s when Mora shamelessly campaigned for the University of Washington job when his players were scrambling down the stretch in search of the playoffs. Not a good way to win friends and influence people who have the power to save your job.
Despite what Falcons players might say, they wanted Mora gone, and you could tell by their listless play, not only against the Eagles, but against the pitiful likes of Detroit and Cleveland and the depleted likes of Carolina. Even if the Falcons had done the unlikely by discovering ways to reach the playoffs with a strikingly flawed roster, Mora was a firing waiting to happen.
There was the football stuff, exemplified by the Falcons’ inability to adjust during games (0-17 when entering the fourth quarter behind, baffling offensive schemes, strange personnel decisions). Then there was all of that other stuff.
Way too much of the other stuff.
You know about some of them. They range from Mora slinging his headset in an ugly tantrum after a postgame question that he didn’t like from a Falcons radio announcer, to ripping franchise legends Mike Kenn and Jeff Van Note for being too quote-friendly (at least in Mora’s mind) during their playing careers. As for the rest of Mora’s explosions, well, there were so many of them that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. Plus, the real ones are too numerous to list in this space.
Translated: He had to go. You also have to consider that Blank is the ultimate czar of image. He likes to boast of bringing the customer-friendly approach that he used during his successful Home Depot days to the Falcons. That said, having a coach who has a habit of being more discussed for his foolishness than for his X’s and O’s isn’t helping you become customer-friendly.
“We’re not going to go through and kind of figure out who shot who and what was said and when it was said,” explained Blank of Mora’s dismissal, and then he quickly added, “This was a very complicated decision for us. It was a variety of factors that came into play. … I simply can’t put a weight on any single one of them. It was a combination of things that kind of brought us to this point.”
A combination of things? That’s the understatement of the year — this one and the previous one.
Permalink | Comments (145) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Diminishing returns doomed Mora
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Jim Mora got hired because he had Plan A. He got fired because he didn’t have Plan B.
Arthur Blank and Rich McKay hired Mora over Lovie Smith and Tim Lewis and Romeo Crennel — and even over the last-minute possibility of Nick Saban — because Mora trotted out his playbook and impressed the brass with his impending choice of coordinators. (Meaning Greg Knapp, if you can believe that now.) Mora was, in the minds of Blank and McKay, simply better-prepared than the other career assistants they interviewed.
And that part was true. Mora indeed won bigger faster than Smith — granted, Mora inherited a much better roster — and was invariably quick off the mark. The Falcons were 6-2, 6-2 and 5-3 in the first halves of Mora’s three years, a winning percentage (.708) which, had it extended over full seasons, would have exceeded Don Shula’s.
Alas, the Falcons were 9-15 over the second halves of Mora’s regular seasons, and it became apparent why. Mora was fine so long as everything broke right, but everything never breaks right for long. Andy Reid has proved in Philadelphia he can win with any quarterback. Mora proved he didn’t know quite what to make of the most talented quarterback in the NFL. (And it wasn’t as if Michael Vick, whose injury in 2003 cost Dan Reeves his job, was lost to Mora for long. Vick has missed two starts in three years.)
Great coaches adjust. Mora’s teams tinkered — some games they’d throw a lot, others scarcely at all — but never established a forceful signature. They were usually OK if they could run the ball and nurse a lead, but they were hopeless if they couldn’t. The Falcons under Mora won one game (against San Diego on Oct. 17, 2004) when trailing after three quarters. This in a league built for comebacks. This with the incomparable Vick.
The Falcons under Mora were always one of the NFL’s more gifted assemblages. (They had six Pro Bowlers last season, one more than the Super Bowl champion Steelers.) But not since Mora’s first season did the Falcons beat a team that would win as many as 10 games or qualify for the playoffs. Their talent enabled them to feed on minnows, but when matched against an opponent of comparable worth they were undone by their coaching.
The nice part about working for Blank is that he’ll spend whatever it takes to accumulate resources. The catch is that Blank expects performance commensurate with his outlay, and not since 2004 has he gotten them. The last two seasons proved Mora, in whose hiring Blank invested no small amount of political capital, was overmatched as a tactician and also something of a brat.
His bizarre I’m-a-Husky-at-heart radio interview seemed tantamount to insubordination, and his inability to rally a team going wrong stamped him as a coach for fair weather only. And through the prism of distance Mora’s one big season can be viewed as a slightly lesser achievement. The Falcons trampled through a weak division and made the NFC title game by trashing St. Louis, which had finished a demonstrably middling 8-8, in the playoffs.
Ultimately an owner has to ask: Are we losing because we don’t have the players or because those players are being misdirected? This was an easy call. There was no reason for this offense — No. 1 in rushing, No. 32 in passing — to be so imbalanced. There was no reason to keep falling behind 14-0 at home. There was no reason not to make the playoffs last year or this.
In the end there were a hundred reasons not to keep Mora. This team is too skilled and this owner too committed to settle for steadily diminishing returns. This coach stepped into a prime situation, but the longer he worked the clearer it became that more Mora would yield only less. He needed to go. He needs to go dazzle some other prospective employer with his preparation and charm and wit.
Permalink | Comments (402) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
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