100%CardsFan
100% embarrassed
http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/sh...008/12/29/everything_set_up_nicely_for_t.html
Trip to Arizona a blessing for blessed Falcons
By Mark Bradley | Monday, December 29, 2008, 06:17 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Flowery Branch — Mike Smith began his postgame walk to the locker room Sunday believing his team would have a week off and then a home playoff game. By the time he reached his destination he’d learned otherwise. And was the Falcons coach disappointed?
“It would have been nice to have a home game with our home-field advantage and the bye week,” Smith said Monday. “That’s definitely an advantage.”
But again we see that some higher power seems to have taken a liking to these bold Birds. Because their reward for finishing second in the NFC South is one of the sweetest consolation prizes in the history of consolation. They get to play Arizona, and here’s what Vegas thinks of the Cardinals: They’re home-field playoff underdogs to the team that only four months ago was the consensus choice as the NFL’s worst.
Sixteen games have taught us these Falcons are much closer to being the league’s best than its worst, and there seems no reason for the happy story to end Saturday in Glendale.
Arizona was 6-0 against the NFL’s worst division, 3-7 against real teams. It was 1-4 against playoff qualifiers — the Falcons were 3-2 — and enters the postseason having lost four of six.
If you have to play on an opponent’s field in January, you pray Arizona is the opponent. For all the worry about the Cardinals’ passing — Kurt Warner and three 1,000-yard receivers — they have nothing else. They’ve yielded 101 more points than the Falcons, and Arizona’s running game is the league’s worst. And a team that can’t run is a team that shouldn’t be playing in January.
Smitty being Smitty, he made Arizona sound like the 1966 Packers in his weekly media briefing — “very potent,” he called the Cardinals — but in a private conversation afterward he made it clear that he likes his team’s chances in the month ahead. He was the defensive line coach for the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, a wild-card team that won the Super Bowl, and when a visitor asked if he sees similarities in these Falcons, he said this: “I’m very confident we will execute and go out and play well.”
For someone so cautious, that came close to sounding like Joe Willie Namath the week of Super Bowl III. (OK, maybe not that close.) But Smith has reasons to be cheerful: His team has passed every big test, and it seems as, er, potent as any team in the playoff grid.
The Falcons have been a week-by-week surprise to those of us on the periphery, but not to the men inside the complex at 4400 Falcon Parkway. Indeed, Smith said he learned all he needed to know about his team not in those 11 seconds against Chicago or the overtime against Tampa Bay, but way back in Week 2.
The Falcons trailed the Bucs 17-3 in Tampa. Matt Ryan had thrown two early interceptions and was getting hammered by a defense that lives to hammer young quarterbacks. And then you looked up in the fourth quarter and it was 17-6 and the Falcons had a first-and-goal and Ryan was rattled no more.
“You talk about turning points,” Smith said. “That was a turning point. Our young quarterback completed 8 of 9 passes, and we showed we could handle a surge on the road. The outcome [a 24-9 loss] wasn’t what we wanted, but you felt very proud about what we were able to accomplish.”
The Falcons would win four of their next seven road games, and not since that first half on Sept. 14 have they seemed overwhelmed anywhere. They will not be overwhelmed Saturday in Glendale. They’ve beaten better teams in tougher places.
They’ll beat the Cardinals and move on to the next task.
Trip to Arizona a blessing for blessed Falcons
By Mark Bradley | Monday, December 29, 2008, 06:17 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Flowery Branch — Mike Smith began his postgame walk to the locker room Sunday believing his team would have a week off and then a home playoff game. By the time he reached his destination he’d learned otherwise. And was the Falcons coach disappointed?
“It would have been nice to have a home game with our home-field advantage and the bye week,” Smith said Monday. “That’s definitely an advantage.”
But again we see that some higher power seems to have taken a liking to these bold Birds. Because their reward for finishing second in the NFC South is one of the sweetest consolation prizes in the history of consolation. They get to play Arizona, and here’s what Vegas thinks of the Cardinals: They’re home-field playoff underdogs to the team that only four months ago was the consensus choice as the NFL’s worst.
Sixteen games have taught us these Falcons are much closer to being the league’s best than its worst, and there seems no reason for the happy story to end Saturday in Glendale.
Arizona was 6-0 against the NFL’s worst division, 3-7 against real teams. It was 1-4 against playoff qualifiers — the Falcons were 3-2 — and enters the postseason having lost four of six.
If you have to play on an opponent’s field in January, you pray Arizona is the opponent. For all the worry about the Cardinals’ passing — Kurt Warner and three 1,000-yard receivers — they have nothing else. They’ve yielded 101 more points than the Falcons, and Arizona’s running game is the league’s worst. And a team that can’t run is a team that shouldn’t be playing in January.
Smitty being Smitty, he made Arizona sound like the 1966 Packers in his weekly media briefing — “very potent,” he called the Cardinals — but in a private conversation afterward he made it clear that he likes his team’s chances in the month ahead. He was the defensive line coach for the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, a wild-card team that won the Super Bowl, and when a visitor asked if he sees similarities in these Falcons, he said this: “I’m very confident we will execute and go out and play well.”
For someone so cautious, that came close to sounding like Joe Willie Namath the week of Super Bowl III. (OK, maybe not that close.) But Smith has reasons to be cheerful: His team has passed every big test, and it seems as, er, potent as any team in the playoff grid.
The Falcons have been a week-by-week surprise to those of us on the periphery, but not to the men inside the complex at 4400 Falcon Parkway. Indeed, Smith said he learned all he needed to know about his team not in those 11 seconds against Chicago or the overtime against Tampa Bay, but way back in Week 2.
The Falcons trailed the Bucs 17-3 in Tampa. Matt Ryan had thrown two early interceptions and was getting hammered by a defense that lives to hammer young quarterbacks. And then you looked up in the fourth quarter and it was 17-6 and the Falcons had a first-and-goal and Ryan was rattled no more.
“You talk about turning points,” Smith said. “That was a turning point. Our young quarterback completed 8 of 9 passes, and we showed we could handle a surge on the road. The outcome [a 24-9 loss] wasn’t what we wanted, but you felt very proud about what we were able to accomplish.”
The Falcons would win four of their next seven road games, and not since that first half on Sept. 14 have they seemed overwhelmed anywhere. They will not be overwhelmed Saturday in Glendale. They’ve beaten better teams in tougher places.
They’ll beat the Cardinals and move on to the next task.
Last edited by a moderator:
