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Friday, March 23, 2007
Falcons traded the wrong QB
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
To get to the point, the Falcons traded the wrong quarterback. Of course, that’s an illogical conclusion. They had no alternative. How are they going to dump a $70 million load on some other NFL team? The logical conclusion is that Arthur Blank and his franchise are wed to Michael Vick, and when an athlete’s picture begins to appear more often on the front page than the sports page, it’s a marriage in trouble.
Now, having said all that, you’ll note the modest little line that appears beneath the picture of that grizzled old guy accompanying this column, that what is written here is strictly my opinion. The very notion that the Falcons could have traded Vick rather than Matt Schaub is preposterous. But it was a question of hanging onto the quarterback from Wahoo U. and losing him next winter. Schaub is a commodity. He is a quarterback in the NFL tradition, drop back, find the target, deliver the pass or hand off. Run only when under defensive duress.
One of the platforms in Vick’s defense is dropped passes. The Falcons traded a first-round draft choice for Peerless Price. A bummer. Then used first-round choices to draft Michael Jenkins and Roddy White, and still the passes keep falling. “You don’t see any wide receivers trying to get to Atlanta,” as beat writer Steve Wyche says.
But is it all the fault of the catchers? Vick is inclined to dally about before he decides to run or to pass, while his receivers roam around, never quite sure where they should be, should he decide to pass, or what. So it would seem there’s enough blame to pass around. Look, there’s no doubt that Vick is a bundle of talent, but to this date the investment hasn’t been paying off. Among other things, he has become a public embarrassment, flipping off the fans, his Ron Mexico escapade, or whatever you call it, and now the Infamous Water Bottle Mystery.
Ever strike you strange that he took 65 days to explain that thing, and that the “mystery substance” was jewelry? Did he swallow it? Did somebody heist it? He doesn’t appear to be much disturbed about it, other than to suggest that someone might have been trying to “frame” him. What next, Michael, for heaven’s sake?
It has become he-said, they-said, Rich McKay said. Bobby Petrino said, or rather, it was said that the new coach “brushed it off,” whatever that meant. (Remember, it was one of Petrino’s Louisville players who was stepped on by Vick’s brother in the Gator Bowl, not that that’s either here or there. But what intrigue!)
Whether Vick ever becomes the classic quarterback he was supposed to be, he’s locked in as a Falcon. There are no takers with all his baggage. What McKay did was get the most out of Schaub before he lost him on the open market. The Texans thought enough of him to put David Carr on the market, a No. 1 draft choice.
A lot of fans put money into those No. 7 Vick shirts. You don’t see a lot of Schaub shirts. To suggest that Vick has become a burden rather than an asset is an irritating thought, but for the man picking up the tab for a $109 million payroll this season, this situation has “hit the wall,” as they say.
Blank had no choice. Mine would have been Schaub. My opinion, as it says.
Permalink | | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Furman Bisher
Wooden’s shoes are too big to fill
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
San Jose, Calif. — News conferences during the NCAA tournament are usually routine affairs. So this was striking on Friday at the HP Pavilion. Three times, UCLA coach Ben Howland chastised folks in the back of the room for making too much noise. Once, he cut off a questioner for his version of a faulty premise.
Later, Howland explained to those squirming in their seats, “I just like for things to be run properly. I’m a detailed-oriented guy, and that’s the difference between being good and great.”
Sounds like You Know Who. Despite 32 years out of coaching, his shadow still smothers UCLA basketball. That’s because as the most vibrant 96-year-old you’ll ever see, John Wooden still attends most home games. Not only that, he still sits at the end of the second row, right behind the Bruins’ bench to make his dominant era live enough to strangle anybody less than brilliant as head coach across the way.
Howland isn’t Wooden brilliant, but he is close enough.
For verification, consider the intriguing declaration on Friday from the first of the seven poor souls who mostly wallowed in Wooden’s shadows along the way to screaming into the night.
“Well, I think Ben is awfully good at his job, and he has a chance with his background in the [Los Angeles] area and with his knowledge of everything to sustain the UCLA legacy maybe better than anybody since John,” Gene Bartow said over his cellphone from Memphis, where he is a special assistant to Grizzlies general manager Jerry West.
Maybe you’ve heard that Bartow used to coach a little. He took Memphis to the NCAA title game. He also built the athletics department at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, where he led the basketball team to seven straight trips to the NCAA tournament, including the Sweet 16 and the Elite Eight. He also coached at some Los Angeles school, but let’s return to Wooden and Howland for a moment.
“Ben’s been successful at Northern Arizona and Pittsburgh, and he’s an outstanding coach, he works hard, and he’s a great person,” Bartow said. “Of course, John was such a special coach. He did so much that nobody is going to do what he did.”
Bartow should know. In 1975, he was hired at UCLA to do the impossible in a hurry. He was expected to replace a national icon who had just retired after grabbing his 10th national championship in 12 years while winning 82 percent of his games in 40 years of coaching high school and college. The problem was, at 52-9, Bartow was only pretty good during his three seasons with the Bruins. He even took them to the Final Four in 1976, but he wasn’t Wooden.
Or even Howland.
With Howland’s fourth UCLA team slated to meet Kansas today at HP Pavilion, he becomes the first coach to take the Bruins to a regional final in consecutive years since You Know Who. Howland also led the Bruins to the Final Four and the championship game last year for the first time since 1995, when UCLA captured its first and only world championship since the retirement of You Know Who.
This isn’t to say the others didn’t provide UCLA with post-Wooden success. There was Jim Harrick, the architect of that world championship for the Bruins 12 years ago before his infamous stay at Georgia. Among Larry Brown’s many travels, there were his two seasons in Westwood, where he even took the Bruins to a national title game. Steve Lavin won 21 or more games during six of his seven years with the Bruins, and Gary Cunningham, Larry Farmer and Walt Hazzard weren’t awful.
They just weren’t Wooden, with a slew of national championships, or Howland, who threatens to win big for a while, even though he has yet to go all the way. Bartow chuckled, saying, “Ben knows.” Then Bartow sighed, adding, “Everybody is still following John Wooden.”
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Final Four, Tech / ACC, Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
Gators get another tough test and pass
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
St. Louis — There’s a reason no team has repeated as champion in 15 years. There’s a reason the sappy CBS theme song is “One Shining Moment,” one as opposed to two. See, repeating is hard.
Florida has a great team. Florida could well win it again. But already the Gators have had two close calls, and they’re only halfway home. On Sunday they trailed Purdue in the second half. On Friday they had an even rougher ride against Butler, which has one-fifth of Florida’s talent but which, given a break or two (more about that shortly), could well have unhorsed the titlists.
Florida won despite making just 17 baskets. Florida won despite failing behind by nine points in the first half and by four in the second. Florida won against the kind of team — a strong-willed underdog built on pace and precision — that lives to upset the big boys in March. Florida won because it was not just better than Butler but tougher.
“When your backs are against the wall,” said the Gators’ Corey Brewer, “you’ve got to make a play. The plays we made tonight, that comes from playing with each other for so long.”
Take away a play or two and it might well have been, “So long, Gators.” Butler’s Brian Ligon missed a point-blank layup that would have given his team the lead with three minutes left. At the other end, Al Horford took the ball low and started backing Brandon Crone goalward.
Said Horford: “I caught it, and Corey was signaling to me, ‘Go score, go score.’ “
Said Brewer: “He had a guy on him who was about 6-foot-5. [Crone is listed at 6-6, Horford at 6-10.] What was the use kicking it out?”
Horford and Crone began to bump. They bumped for a good long while. Other referees might have called an offensive foul. These did not.
Said Crone: “It could have been a number of things. It was probably a no-call. But it was down to me. I let him back me down without pulling the chair [stepping back abruptly].”
Horford twisted, shot and hit. Crone was called for his fifth foul. Horford made the free throw. With 2:34 to play, the defending champs took a lasting lead. Soon Butler’s Mike Green missed two free throws, and soon after that he drove on Horford, who blocked his shot. Another set of referees might have whistled Horford for brushing Green’s body. This set did not.
And yes, the Gators took 28 free throws to Butler’s 13. But before any Duke-like conspiracy theories take root, let me attest that Peg Brand, wife of NCAA president Myles Brand, sat alongside her husband on press row politely clapping for Butler.
The point isn’t that Florida won because of the officiating. The point is that the defending champ was again extended by a lesser opponent. (Purdue was a No. 9 seed, Butler a No. 5.) It isn’t that the Gators are playing badly; it’s that everyone else is rising to meet them.
“Teams are going to play you a lot differently because you’re the defending champ,” Horford said. “We’ve got to keep coming with a lot of effort. We’ve got to keep grinding and getting stops.”
Just as everyone underrated Muhammad Ali’s ability to take a punch, we get caught up describing the Gators’ skill and selflessness while overlooking their grit. If they hadn’t guarded Butler so well — their big men were superb at switching and jamming the Bulldogs shooters on the perimeter — free throws wouldn’t have mattered at the end.
“We’re not going to be a thing of beauty,” Florida coach Billy Donovan said. “The whole thing about this team this year is moving forward. At times it’s going to look ugly.”
On Sunday the Gators will try to play their way back to the Final Four. They’re halfway to their grail, and it hasn’t been easy so far. It will get harder still.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Final Four, Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
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