After you hit bottom, you …

Little good comes from an admission of starting over.

It can douse the best expectation, discourage the employees and trivialize results.

Close observers have noted Thomas Dimitroff, the new Falcons general manager, has declined to admit these past nine months that his team is starting over, not even after the aneurysm that was 2007.

“I don’t want to just start all over and wipe everything out because I think there are some very good and legitimate pieces of the puzzle in place here already” he said. “That’s one of the reasons why I considered leaving a very successful organization in New England.”

But as the Falcons embark on a new season today against visiting Detroit, just where are they if not starting over?

Dimitroff not only hired on new coach Mike Smith but also has overhauled the front office. Of the 66 players listed on the active/injured reserve roster posted after last season, a full third of them were gone before camp even opened.

Today’s lineup will include 10 new starters, 11 counting place-kicker Jason Elam. Three new starters will be rookies while five others will be starting their second seasons.

Players in three of the club’s highest-profile positions —- quarterback Matt Ryan, left tackle Sam Baker and middle linebacker Curtis Lofton —- will be taking their first NFL snaps.

So if this is not a redo, then what is it? This was a 4-12 last-place team that in December essentially lost its mind, if not just coach Bobby Petrino. How close could the Falcons be to competing this fall?

“How close?” Dimitroff asked. “I often wonder how to answer that question.”

The NFC South offers one answer: closer than you think.

In every season since the NFL realigned its divisions in 2002, the team that finished last in the South has turned around to win the division the next season. Five times in five years.

Every franchise has done it at least once: Carolina (2003), Atlanta (2004), Tampa Bay (2005 and 2007) and New Orleans (2006).

Nor have the South champions slinked into the postseason. Carolina went all the way to Super Bowl XXXVIII. The Falcons and Saints advanced to the NFC championship games.

Fluke? You bet. Irrelevant? No.

“It’s possible,” said Falcons center Todd McClure, entering his 10th Atlanta season. “It’s something that you can keep in the back of your mind. But you can talk all you want. It comes down to going out there and executing. And that’s what we’re going to try to do Sunday.”

That’s a hard sell. Atlanta is the all-galactic pick to finish last in the division again. Sports Illustrated predicts the Falcons to win three games. The Sporting News predicts just one.

But the NFC South has seen a bigger long shot come in. Take the 2006 Saints. Hurricane Katrina drove them out of their city for the entire 2005 season. They went 3-13. Coach Jim Haslett was fired. Quarterback Aaron Brooks was released. The Louisiana Superdome was a wreck.

One year later, they finished 10-6 and took the division by two games.

An untested former assistant with no head coaching experience, Sean Payton, was hired. An impact free agent, Drew Brees, was signed away from a San Diego team that could not meet his contract demands.

With the second pick of that spring’s draft, the Saints picked up another impact performer in Reggie Bush, though it was unclear at first how he would fit into the lineup. On Sept. 25, the team returned for its first game in the refitted Superdome. The opponent: the Falcons, a coincidence.

Or not. Just last January, an untested former assistant with no head coaching experience, Mike Smith, was hired in Atlanta. An impact free agent, Michael Turner, was signed away from a San Diego team that could not meet his contract demands.

With the third pick of this spring’s draft, the Falcons picked up another impact performer in Ryan, though it was unclear at first how he would fit into the lineup. This afternoon, the team returns for its first game in a refitted Georgia Dome.

Nice story. But cut through all the circumstantial gobbledygook and the Falcons are still viewed elsewhere as 2007 flotsam, the team Petrino fled.

That stigma has been addressed by the new administration.

As McClure said, “It makes it easier to come in to work every day when you know the coaches respect you.”

As the last man standing from the 1998 Super Bowl Dirty Birds, linebacker Keith Brooking, has now played for six head coaches and enjoyed just three winning teams. He knows something about starting over.

“I look around this locker room, and what I’ve seen during the process of the past four months, I don’t feel like we’re starting over by any means,” Brooking said. “The key in any transition —- and that’s every year —- is how quickly you can have all the guys on the bus buy into your coaching staff’s and your team’s philosophies.

“Everything I’ve seen from this group is that everyone’s pushed all their chips in. They’re 100 percent in.”

Well, that’s change for you.

FALCONS SEASON OPENER

> Who: vs. Lions

> When: 1 p.m. today

> TV; radio: Fox; 92.9 FM