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Sunday, December 16, 2007
End Falcons’ cursed season
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Tampa — For the good of the league and all who watch it, Roger Goodell needs to act. The commissioner needs to stop the Falcons before they play again.
This is the NFL, where on any given Sunday any team is supposed to be capable of winning. The Falcons can’t even come close. On any given Sunday — and there are, pending league intervention, two games remaining — the Falcons can only heap further indignity on themselves.
First this season went bad. Then it got embarrassing. Now it’s just plain sad.
The Falcons lost to Tampa Bay 37-3 here Sunday. They managed five first downs. Their latest quarterback, the overmatched Chris Redman, had a passer rating of 1.2 in the first quarter, and it went down thereafter. (At game’s end, his rating was 0.0.) The Bucs had returned 1,864 kickoffs in their 32-season history without scoring a touchdown but, sure enough, Micheal Spurlock took one the distance in the first quarter.
“Guys were having fun [post-Petrino], and that’s something that’s been missing from our ballclub,” said DeAngelo Hall, who made a nifty interception but also committed another really silly personal foul. “But obviously that wasn’t the answer, either.”
There’s no answer for what has befallen the Falcons. No team has had a season begin with its best player going to court and wind down with its coach bolting for Arkansas. No team has ever had more reason to abrogate professional responsibility. No team has ever been more deserving of a mercy stoppage.
This was Arthur Blank, delivering a message he apparently felt was so essential that he called a reporter 10 minutes after the two spoke in the hallway: “I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for us. We’ll get back on track, and we’ll be fine.”
In that hallway conversation, Blank was asked where his franchise goes from here. “We’re going forward,” he said. “What else can we do?”
Sell the team, it was suggested.
“That’s not leadership,” Blank said.
“That’s quitting,” said his wife, interjecting an unsubtle dig at you-know-who.
“Leadership is going forward,” Blank said.
You’ll pardon the Falcons if they feel this season has been nothing less than a re- treat on roller skates. They’re professionals, yes, but they’re also human beings, and in the span of six days they saw their best player sentenced to 23 months in prison and their head coach quit to go call some Hogs and, almost as an afterthought, they lost two games by an aggregate 54 points. (And on Sunday they doubtless heard the ESPN report that Bill Cowher wants no part of coaching them.) What prepares even a rock-ribbed pro to handle all that?
Said Keith Brooking: “Obviously, this is unprecedented.”
Someone asked Brooking if, assuming he lives to a ripe old age, he’ll someday be able to look back on 2007 and laugh. Cocking an eyebrow, he said: “I’ll never be able to find that spin on this year.”
The defense actually played pretty well Sunday, but that effort was always fated to fail. Redman threw an interception that Ronde Barber took for a touchdown one minute in, and that was that. The offense didn’t covert a third down and lost the ball four times inside its 30-yard line.
“We came out with a lot of passion and hope,” said Emmitt Thomas, the stoic interim coach, and for all that the Falcons lost by 34 points. Imagine what might happen next Sunday, when they meet the Cardinals three time zones from home, or the next, when the Seahawks and Patrick Kerney (and yes, Jim Mora) come to what will be a half-filled dome.
“Pray for us as a staff,” Thomas said, “to get these guys to play like professionals.”
This wretched season, sorry to say, seems beyond even the power of prayer. A season like this calls for Goodell to announce today that, for the greater good of both the NFL and the Falcons, they’ll be granted a bye these next two weeks. Nothing good can come from them showing up to play. Nothing good can happen until this season comes to its bitter and blessed end.
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