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Friday, April 27, 2007
Petrino fills Falcons’ biggest need
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Flowery Branch — The draft doesn’t matter if the draftees don’t get coached. Bobby Petrino will coach the heck out of whatever talent Rich McKay finds. Who says so? Rich McKay.
Granted, the general manager has a vested interest, having been party to Jim Mora’s departure and Petrino’s arrival. And yes, there was a time when McKay, who conducted the initial interview with Mora in January 2004, believed that coach and those assistants likewise knew their business. Time, alas, proved otherwise.
“I liked that staff very much as people and as coaches,” McKay said. “But it did not work out. Bobby and his staff are extremely focused on developing talent — I’m not saying that the other staff was not — and we believe this gives us the best chance to win.”
Conventional wisdom holds that the Falcons enter this draft in need of a massive makeover. McKay believes they’re rebooting, which isn’t nearly the same as rebuilding. He believes the resources on hand are greater than tepid results suggest.
“People see we finished 7-9, so accordingly we must not be very good,” McKay said. “The perception is going to be that we have a lot of holes. But we expect the quarterback to play really well. We like the Dunn-Norwood combination. We need John Abraham to be healthy because he’s as deluxe a right end as there is in the league.”
And Petrino isn’t just another college coach doomed to failure among the professionals. He’s a deluxe football man who can win anywhere. Said McKay: “I was really impressed in mini-camp with his attention to detail and his willingness to adjust to what he saw. That sounds easy to do, but it isn’t.”
Ask Mora. Ask Greg Knapp. The reason those two no longer work here is because they were at an utter loss when things went wrong. McKay: “The last two years we’ve gone in with very high expectations. We didn’t deliver in either season, and one reason was injuries, which we didn’t overcome. We’ve got to get over that. … Losing [defensive end] Brady Smith two years ago was a debilitating blow, and it should not have been.”
The Petrino portfolio: He lost his best player (tailback Michael Bush) in the third quarter of the season opener and his second-best player (quarterback Brian Brohm) for 2-1/2 games, and still Louisville was one lost second-half lead away from playing for the BCS title. He takes what he has — and Louisville’s recruiting base wasn’t nearly as vast as Florida’s or Southern Cal’s — and turns it into a spiffy-looking product. There’s no gimmickry to it. There’s simply coaching.
Said Petrino, speaking five days after taking this job: “Anybody can get on the blackboard and draw X’s and O’s, but it’s the details and technique [that matter]. We want to do that better than the other guys.”
These coaches will do it better than their predecessors. Defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer carries the reputation of being able to cultivate players, and Petrino is as good an offensive coach as there is. “We were pretty far along from an offensive perspective in mini-camp,” McKay said. “Michael [Vick] has put in the work — he hasn’t missed a day this offseason. He’s been phenomenal. I think you guys [the media] have put it in his head: ‘This is it.’ “
With seven choices in the draft’s first four rounds, the Falcons are positioned to give Petrino a quick and heavy helping of what we wants. Still, being seen to have won in the draft doesn’t necessarily translate to winning in December. The Falcons spent the last two seasons trying to override not a dearth of talent but a lack of direction. No matter what happens this weekend, they’ve already upgraded the most important position — head coach.
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