Falcons ticker: Every team’s a championship contender on opening day
NFL opening week means every team in the NFL is allowed to believe this could be its year with no real evidence to say otherwise.
Fox NFL Sunday set the tone with a montage featuring several players, both former and current, waxing poetic about the excitement of the first game. And what better way for Fox to capture the excitement of opening week than to botch the transmission of the Falcons-Chiefs game?
There were some minor picture freezes on Fox’s Comcast telecast with about nine minutes to go in the first quarter, just before Atlanta’s Julio Jones caught his first touchdown pass. Then there was a major freeze with about seven minutes left on the first-quarter game clock.
The picture didn’t fully recover until the start of the second quarter, more than 15 minutes later. As you can imagine, fans online were totally understanding about the technical problems.
“Wow. First NFL game of 2012. Nice job, Fox. Or Comcast.” Falcons65 complained on Jeff Schultz’s ajc.com blog.
A Comcast spokesman, who was unavailable Sunday afternoon, said late Sunday night that the problem originated at WAGA and was an equipment malfunctions at the station.
Cyber chatter
The Falcons’ #RiseUp theme was trending on Twitter several times throughout the day, which begs the question: When exactly is this rise going to happen?
The Birds have one playoff victory since 2004 and two since 1999. Caleb Pitts (@themostcaleb) was fired up on Twitter:
“Guess I’ll sit down and watch the Falcons do the damn thang. Nothing else to do. #dirtybirds #riseup”
It could be worse. Falcons fans could instead be Cowboys fans, in which case they’d have to hear Fox NFL studio analyst Jimmy Johnson predict a “deep, deep” playoffs run for the Cowboys even though they’ve won one postseason game since 1996.
Short takes
- Johnson on the Falcons: "[The new coordinators] will help them but I think the big reason will be a breakout year for Julio Jones. He had a good year last year but this year will be phenomenal. He's going to be the deep threat they are looking for."
- After Falcons cornerback Chris Owens and Kansas City's Shaun Draughn scuffled in the fourth quarter, Fox play-by-play man Thom Brennaman fingered Owens as the instigator and predicted: "You can rest assured Owens is going to be facing a substantial fine of some kind."
- Randy Covitz, writing for The Kansas City Star Chiefs blog, noted before the game that new coach Romeo Crennel was 0-4 in season openers as Browns coach and that the previous six Chiefs coaches all lost their debuts.
- Fox NFL studio analyst Shannon Sharpe on Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez's touchdown celebration: "You are getting too old to dunk over the goalpost though, Tony. You might pull a hamstring. Slow it down!"
- Schultz blog commenter Joe 12-Pack found a silver lining to the TV troubles during some shaky moments for the Falcons: "Do you think Comcast could go back to blacking out the game when Atlanta is on defense?"
Trending topics
- Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III for leading his team to victory at New Orleans in his rookie debut.
- Vikings running back Adrian Peterson for running for 84 yards and two touchdowns just eight months after surgeries to reconstruct the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his left knee.
- Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford for tossing three interceptions in the first half against the Rams."His teammates want to assault him for this putrid display, but their parole officers are all watching," @NotBillWalton quipped on Twitter.
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