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Sunday, September 30, 2007
Tip your cap to Petrino
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
That sound you heard … well, it was no sound at all. For the first time this calendar year, there was no storm buffeting the Falcons — no call for another town meeting; no further outcry over the absence of Matt Schaub; nary a discouraging word from DeAngelo Hall. There was only an actual team winning an actual game and luxuriating in the sound of silence.
“We’ve had to fight through the controversy,” Bobby Petrino said Sunday, and nobody has fought harder than this coach. The Falcons coulda/shoulda been a shambles by now, but one man has averted the collapse, one driven man with one heck of a plan.
The Falcons beat Houston — Schaub’s team, if you haven’t heard — and thereby exited the ranks of the winless. In the locker room afterward, Arthur Blank handed the game ball to the coach who’d just notched his first NFL victory, and never was a trophy more dearly earned. “He’s not going to let that happen,” said Blank, speaking of what many figured would be the imminent implosion of his team. “[Petrino’s] going to will it not to happen.”
He already has. Imagine if the Falcons, who opened training camp to PETA protests and a banner-streaming plane overhead and who fell to 0-3 after their Pro Bowl cornerback decided it was more important to win an argument than a game, had plunged to 0-4 by losing to the quarterback they let go. Imagine the angst that would have generated.
Now imagine its absence. Imagine instead this tempest-tossed team headed into the season’s second month on a warm wave of happiness.
Because that’s what transpired Sunday. For at least one sweet day, the Falcons stopped being a drama workshop and learned how it feels to be a normal NFL team. They did what they were supposed to do and got the result they were supposed to get. They executed Petrino’s offensive schemes and saw, for the second week running, that this stuff will work in the pros, same as it had for Louisville. They saw Hall sit out the first quarter because his coach had had enough of his raging egomania, and maybe they respected Petrino all the more for taking such a stance so soon in his stewardship.
“It’s been a tough situation,” Keith Brooking said. “But we faced it, and then we started 0-3. But we kept fighting and plugging away. … It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve moved forward.”
Petrino can work 50 more years and never have a tougher ride than his first nine months as the Falcons’ coach. Said Lawyer Milloy, who was drafted by Bill Parcells and who played for Bill Belichick: “[Petrino] has been outstanding. Being a rookie head coach, losing your starting quarterback … we are a reflection of him, and hats off to him, truly. He’s a guy you want to fight for.”
Speaking of hats: Petrino had gone without one against Carolina the previous week; he sported a white cap Sunday. The thinking? “Just trying everything to get a win,” he said, smiling. “Not that I’m superstitious, but you’ll probably be seeing a white hat for a while.”
Some teams would have waved the white flag by now. These Falcons seem to be grasping the notion that, for all they’ve endured, they can still make something of this season. Said GM Rich McKay: “Bobby hasn’t given in to the discussions or the excuses, and those are the two things you worry about.”
And now they face a more conventional worry — next week’s opponent. They’ve gotten past Michael Vick and Matt Schaub and MeAngelo Hall, and the guy in the white hat has kept his wits and his players’ attention. The Falcons don’t get a break from football for their efforts Sunday, but they did earn themselves a respite from all the stuff that has nothing to do with football.
“Since the [Vick] water-bottle incident [in January], it’s been nonstop,” Blank said. “We’re hopeful this can be a quiet week and we can focus on the Titans.”
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