FLOWERY BRANCH — Vic Beasley Jr.’s cadence was hard to hear Monday afternoon, much like he hopes that Falcons fans make it difficult to catch the voice of Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson in Saturday’s playoff game against the Seahawks.
Try as he did to pump the value of crowd noise in the Georgia Dome, the Atlanta’s second-year defensive end from Clemson couldn’t rise up above the cacophony of a nearby Alabama super fan.
Fellow All-Pro Julio Jones, a former Crimson Tide standout, was all riled up.
With their former college teams to meet hours later in Monday night’s national championship game, Jones was actively and loudly seeking bets in the locker room after practice.
Beasley said that fellow former Clemson teammate Grady Jarrett, now a Falcons defensive lineman were going to watch the game together. “Yeah, we plan to,” he said. “He’ll probably bring some folks over, and we’ll definitely have a big screen TV.”
At about the same time, Jones – who was not available to media for interviews Monday – may have found a foil. “Put your money up!” he bellowed from about 10 feet away from Beasley’s media scrum to an unknown teammate.
Without much to say about the national title game itself, he tried to focus on questions about the Seahawks.
Mindful of the crowd noise that Seattle fans made when the Falcons lost 26-24 out there on Oct. 16, and the effect of similarly raucous Atlanta fans in a season-ending victory over the Saints in the Dome, he echoed head coach Dan Quinn’s call for racket Saturday.
“It was very loud,” he said of the Dome experience. “We’re definitely looking forward to having that. On defense, you can’t even translate a call; you have to do hand signals. Keep your voices down [when the Falcons are] on offense, but keep it up on defense.”
With a smattering of teammates getting dressed, and quarterback Matt Ryan playing ping-pong nearby, Jones boomed again: “We’re going to whip this dude.”
Then, “SEC all day!” Someone, not Beasley, offered, “ACC!”
Jarrett and Upshaw were not available Monday.
Asked if he had anything riding on the game, with Jones or perhaps former Alabama linebacker Courtney Upshaw, Beasley said he did not. He did crow about winning a bet with, “an Ohio State friend,” after the Tigers drilled the Buckeyes 31-0 in a national semifinal on Dec. 31.
“Now, he’s got to wear a Tigers mask,” Beasley said with a grin. “It’s all good.”
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