The dirtbag with the Stanford degree, the one who spent an offseason at the Harvard business school, was the first to recognize an opportunity to cash in on an insult.
“Maybe we should make T-shirts and start branding this, you know?” brainstormed Falcons tackle Will Svitek as he began processing the playground jibe that was directed at him and his fellow blockers last week.
“Make a profit with the New York market, you know?” he mused.
Another dirtbag, once a finalist for an award recognizing the nation’s top African-American high school scholar-athlete, was smirking at the thought of how they’d react back home to how he was being portrayed these days.
“Yeah, my mom won’t talk to me this week,” said guard Justin Blalock.
Family issues are everywhere along the Falcons line. Center Todd McClure was awaiting the moment a parent dreads, when one of his four children inevitably would ask:
“Daddy, are you a dirtbag?”
“I’m sure they will ask, and I’ll have to explain just the same way I’ve explained [to the media] all week,” he said.
When defenders in Green Bay and Detroit earlier this year labeled the Falcons offensive line dirty, little came of it. But this is playoff time, and this was a player from the city where everything comes out in capital letters and exclamation points — the New York Giants’ Justin Tuck — leveling the charge. Tuck was kind enough to provide a catchy sobriquet. Dirtbags, he called the Falcons line.
Not directly. “Most people, you would call them dirtbags,” he said. Close enough.
Good nicknames are hard to find for O-lines, being that their labors are so unappreciated. The Bills of the 1970s had the Electric Company. Washington had the Hogs during the Redskins’ Super Bowl years. By embracing the nickname Dirtbags — one of the lesser offensive members of the “bag” family of insults — the Falcons up front, at least, would gain some sense of shared identity.
‘Friendly chatter’
As last week wore on and the linemen were asked about their style of play from every possible direction, they did not seem eager to gather beneath the dirtbag umbrella.
“I’ll have to look up the urban dictionary for a definition of dirtbag, because I don’t know what it means,” said Svitek. (Several definitions are listed, none of them appealing).
“We’ve tried to move past it, but [the media isn’t] going to let us,” said tackle Tyson Clabo, the dirtbag who in 2010 adopted his troubled brother’s two children. “Just a little friendly chatter between two football teams that are about to play a physical football game.”
Being considered a dirtbag is not a completely terrible thing for a unit getting ready to face a pass rush the likes of the Giants’. The Falcons need every advantage in the Meadowlands, including any doubt they can plant in an onrushing end’s mind.
Keeping Matt Ryan vertical is one of the Falcons critical issues in this game. Led by Jason Pierre-Paul’s 16.5 sacks, the Giants are tied for third in the league in sacks.
While ends Tuck and Osi Umenyiora have confronted injury much of this season, the Giants had their rush going strong at season’s end (11 sacks in the final two games vs. the Jets and Dallas).
They are quick and agile up front, needing little help from their linebackers to apply pressure. “They don’t have to do much blitz-wise because of the personnel they have,” McClure said.
Pass protection has not been a source of comfort for the Falcons in playoffs past, having given up eight sacks over the last two postseason losses. After yielding 13 sacks in the first three games of this season, the O-line patched up the holes and gave up only 13 more in the other 13 games.
“It’s overall group improvement. We’re all doing a much better job,” said Clabo.
“When we don’t give up sacks, I’ve always said it’s a combination of running backs, tight ends, quarterbacks, receivers. I would say the same when we do give up sacks.”
While awaiting the trial by Giants, there was the matter of the Falcons line defending itself against the charge of being so many bags of dirt.
“If being a dirtbag is getting downfield and protecting your guys who are carrying the ball, then that’s what we are,” McClure said.
“We want [defensive players] to know we’re there. We’re going to be pests. We’re going to play physical,” Svitek said. “We’re going to play fairly, but we’re always going to play hard. We never want to be standing around waiting for things to happen. That’s always been our M.O. We take a lot of pride in the way we play here.”
A certain renegade reputation has persistently clung to this line, surviving coaching changes (from Alex Gibbs to the current O-line coach Paul Boudreau) and personnel migration (chief instigator Harvey Dahl signing with St. Louis this season).
If enough people say they’re dirty, does that make it so?
Opponents’ complaints center on a couple issues: The Falcons chop blocking techniques, which focus on a defender’s legs, as well as their habit of continuing to block well downfield right up to the last gasp of the play, slamming into any opponent near the pile. Playing right to the whistle, it’s called. Their detractors might say they play to the echo of the whistle.
They apologize for neither assertion.
“I cut a lot throughout the game. I’ll dive at legs all the time, but I’ve never been called for an illegal chop block,” Svitek said. “It’s a form of blocking, a form of technique. Just like [defenders] have their forms, teeing off to get to the quarterback.”
“If defensive players stop running downfield, so will we,” smiled Blalock. “They’re going to try to catch a back from behind, strip the ball or get a shot in. We’re going to try to stop them from doing that. If they stop, then we don’t have to run downfield.”
Few penalties
If one is to believe Tuck, these Falcons are stealth dirtbags. A review of every play this season revealed not a single personal foul or illegal block call against the Falcons line. A couple illegal use of hands penalties are the most malicious transgressions by the linemen this year. Receiver Roddy White has been flagged for two more unnecessary roughness penalties than any Falcons offensive lineman.
If one of Tuck’s motives for the name-calling was to draw the officials’ attention to the Falcons’ tactics, the targets seemed unconcerned.
“They’re not going to fly in an extra ref for this one,” Blalock said. “They’ve been watching us all season. Guys have been talking about the way we play, and so far nothing has come of it. We’re not worried about it in the least.”
It’s questionable whether the nickname dirtbags will stick to this unit, like a grass stain that won’t wash out.
More immediately, the mission of the Falcons’ line is to play to a level in New York that will leave the Giants calling them names far worse.
Meet the ‘Dirtbags’
Falcons offensive line penalties 2011
Tyson Clabo 7: Holding (3), False Start (2), Illegal Use of Hands (2).
Joe Hawley 5: Holding (2), False Start (2), Illegal Use of Hands (1).
Garrett Reynolds 5: False Start (5).
Will Svitek 4: Holding (2), False Start (2).
Justin Blalock 3: Holding (3).
Sam Baker 2: Holding (2).
Todd McClure 0.
Falcons at Giants
When: 1 p.m. Sunday
TV; radio: Fox; 790, 94.1, 680, 93.7
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