Not to say that my instincts are always unerring -- I picked South Carolina over Auburn in an SEC championship game the Tigers won 56-17 -- but I haven't had the greatest feeling about these Atlanta Falcons, and I've seen nothing to date to make me reassess. In Week 1 they lost the kind of game they'd made a habit of winning. In Week 2 they won the sort of too-close-for-comfort game they've played way too often, and in the process they saw five starters leave injured.

Comes now the news that two of those -- defensive end Kroy Biermann and fullback Bradie Ewing -- will be lost for the season. And now the Falcons have to play the unbeaten Dolphins in Miami on Sunday, and then they return to face the Patriots, and the first half of this schedule isn't even the tougher part.

Not to be crass about it, but losing Biermann and Ewing for the duration isn't the personnel loss that losing Steven Jackson and Sean Weatherspoon (two starters who were also injured Sunday) would have been. Still, losing any starter represents a reversal, and one reason the Falcons have been consistently excellent the past five years is that they've managed to stay as healthy as an NFL team can.

Seeing so many players getting hurt so soon -- remember, Roddy White and Asante Samuel were injured in preseason -- does nothing to alleviate my angst. On the contrary, it makes me wonder even more.