Dirty Birds Dispatch: 20-plus years on the Falcons beat come to an end
Good morning!
This will be my last newsletter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and I want to thank everyone for reading our coverage for all of these years.
It’s been a blast over the 22 years, four months and 19 days with the AJC.
I’ve been on the Falcons beat for the past 351 games, and I’ve missed only two games in that time.
Today, I’m going to reflect on the great times on the Falcons beat, thank some folks and bid you all adieu.
FIRST GAME
After covering the Bengals and Packers, I was added to the AJC’s Falcons coverage team for the 2004 playoffs. Michael Vick and the crew throttled the Rams 47-17 on Jan. 15, 2005, at the Georgia Dome. Special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis had a great plan to unleash returner Allen Rossum for 232 yards and a 68-yard punt return for a touchdown to effectively put an end to the “Greatest Show of Turf” Rams.
The trip to Philadelphia for the NFC title game was epic, and several of us — 12 staffers deep — took trains, planes and automobiles to get to the game in the middle of a snowstorm.
THE COACHES
I worked the beat with friend and fellow Howard Bison alum Steve Wyche from 2005-07 before he left for NFL Network.
I was on the beat for coaches Jim Mora, Bobby Petrino, Mike Smith, Dan Quinn, Arthur Smith and Raheem Morris. Good luck to coach Kevin Stefanski.
Wyche and Mora got along well. Offensive coordinator Greg Knapp was my guy on that staff.
We both liked Petrino because he always made sure the beat writers had the news first. We knew Joey Harrington was getting benched before he told the QB. He also liked to talk hoops and was a big old-school 76ers fan. World B. Free was his guy.
However, he didn’t tip us off before he left for Arkansas.
Coach Mike Smith was my favorite. He used to let us on the field — as long as we stayed out of the way. He also used to let my dad attend practice when he was in town. He even let me throw passes one Friday. If you got it into the basket from 10, 20 or 30 yards, there was a reward.
The access was amazing. Media members also miss his golf tournaments.
Things tightened up under Quinn, Arthur Smith and Morris. The beat reporters get to see only stretching these days..
Quinn respected that I coached youth football, and he helped with getting Bryant Young into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Arthur Smith respected the media and fined me $500 for being late to camp in 2023. (My wonderful wife, Queen Led, scheduled a vacation real close to the start of camp. Coach Mike Smith used to share his calendar with us, so we knew when to wrap up vacations. But I know better than to throw the Queen under the bus.)
The AJC paid the $500, and Arthur Smith and Arthur Blank matched. So, $1,500 went to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.
Morris became the franchise’s first full-time Black head coach before he was dismissed after two seasons with a 16-18 record.
THE PLAYERS
Shout out to Bijan Robinson, Roddy White, Julio Jones, Keith Smith, Harry Douglas, Todd McClure, Brian Finneran, Michael Turner, Jonathan Babineaux, Qadree Ollison, Chris Lindstrom, Tyson Clabo and Matt Ryan.
Wyche and I were just getting to know Michael Vick better through meetings in former PR director Reggie Roberts’ office before things went sideways.
John Abraham, Kynan Forney, Thomas DeCoud, William Moore, Robert Alford and Curtis Lofton were great, too.
It was tough covering Stephen Nicholas, who married into the Ledbetter family.
All of the linebackers would wonder why Lofton would always call me “Cousin Led.” Others wrote the stories on Nicholas.
Alford was a favorite because we did a rookie diary together. Ollison came through when his college teammate, Damar Hamlin, nearly died on the field in Cincinnati when he was playing with the Bills.
THE STORIES
1. Bad Newz Kennels: The federal dog fighting trial was the most bizarre story that I covered. It had many layers to it. Wyche would stay with the team and I’d fly to Richmond, Virginia, for the trial.
It was a dark period for the franchise and for Vick.
If only he’d come clean earlier, most believe things would have turned out differently.
I ran into Vick at the Super Bowl in San Francisco in February at a Nike party. He’s now Norfolk State’s head football coach, and he promised me that he planned on beating Howard down this upcoming season.
2. Matty Ice arrives: General manager Thomas Dimitroff won a knock-down, drag-out draft-room fight to select quarterback Matt Ryan with the No. 3 overall pick in 2008. Others wanted LSU defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey. Ryan’s first pass was a TD to Michael Jenkins, but you knew things would be different after he guided the Falcons to a victory over the Bears in the final 11 seconds in his sixth NFL start.
3. Back-to-back: The Falcons posted their first back-to-back winning seasons in 2009.
4. Top seeds: The Falcons were the No. 1 seed in the NFC for the playoffs in 2010 and ’12. In 2010, they were smoked by the Packers. In 2012, they reached the NFC title game, but they blew a 17-0 lead to Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers at the Georgia Dome.
5. Super Bowl march: The Falcons defeated the Seahawks and pounded the Packers in the NFC title game to reach the Super Bowl following the 2016 regular season. We don’t need to rehash what happened against the Patriots, but I was well into a story about a parade being held down Peachtree Street.
6. Quinn’s best season: The 2017 season was remarkable in the way Quinn kept the team together after the monumental Super Bowl collapse. If this team didn’t get stuck on the goal line in Philadelphia, they likely would have gone on to win the Super Bowl. “People don’t realize what a really good coaching job DQ (Dan Quinn) did that next year,” former Falcons executive Nick Polk told the AJC recently. “Yeah, you know, because that was hard. Coming off that (Super Bowl) loss. But it is what it is.”
7. No more highlights: After the 2017 season, the Falcons haven’t found a winning formula. There was the Deshaun Watson derby, the trade of Matt Ryan, the signing of Kirk Cousins, the drafting of Michael Penix Jr. Then there were league fines for injury reporting, tampering and for failure to secure confidential data.
I was looking forward to working with Ryan and Ian Cunningham, who will get the franchise turned around.
THE ASSISTANT COACHES
Terry Robiskie, Bill Musgrave, Tim Lewis, Bryan Cox and Chris Scelfo were my favorites.
Marquand Manuel, Jerome Henderson, Ray Hamilton, Kyle Shanahan, Mike Mularkey, Michael Pitre, Kevin Koger and Jeff Ulbrich were always helpful.
THE AWARDS
There were several writing awards along the way, including for the federal dog fighting trial; a first-place news story of 2018 titled “Team thankful as Blank backs anthem protests”; the 2022 Georgia Writer of the Year award from the National Sports Media Association; and winning the Bill Nunn Jr. Award by the Professional Football Writers of America as the 56th honoree and the first journalist who primarily worked at the AJC to win the award. The Nunn Award is given to a reporter who has made a long and distinguished contribution to pro football through coverage and their name is listed on a plaque in the writer’s wing of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
FAREWELL
It has been a blast. I got a kick out of asking the first question at news conferences. Now, it’s someone else’s turn.
Take care.
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of the Dirty Birds Dispatch.
Stay tuned for what’s next.
About the Author
Honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in recognition of his "long and distinguished reporting in the field of pro football," D. Orlando Ledbetter, Esq. has covered the NFL 28 seasons. A graduate of Howard University, he's a winner of Georgia Sportswriter of the Year and three Associated Press Sports Editor awards.
