Live from the Dome: An important Falcons’ season begins
"Hut one! Hut two! Hut three! Play championship football!" (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)
If you can win four seasons running and make the playoffs three times in four, you’re not far off. You’re not a team without talent or an organization without savvy. You are, as they say, in the mix.
The trouble with the Falcons is that, three times in four Januarys, they’ve played their worst game of that season (or very near) at the moment it mattered most and the watching world was paying rapt attention. Three times in four seasons they were eliminated by a team with a lesser record.
The Falcons have become, to invoke the British term, the NFL’s nearly men. They’ve almost made it. (Had the Falcons beaten Green Bay here in January 2011, they’d have won the Super Bowl.) They’ve gotten close enough to make you – well, maybe not you, but me for sure – think this time would be different, and to date it hasn’t been.
The offseason just past marked this franchise’s first real period of recalibration since Thomas Dimitroff, Mike Smith, Matt Ryan and Michael Turner arrived in 2008. A staff of four years’ standing underwent major upheaval, and the message has been both sent and received: No longer will “nearly” be good enough.
The exhibition part of this massive season is about to begin, and I’m here at Ye Olde Dome to monitor developments. I’d be happy if you tagged along. And I thank you, as ever, in advance.
By Mark Bradley
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462 comments Add your comment
falconsrus
August 9th, 2012
11:07 pm
Thanks MB
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
11:08 pm
@Loserville USA:
Awesome to hear from you! How are things in San Diego?
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
11:08 pm
See you next week, guys. Same Bat time, same Bat channel.
Matt "CHOKE" Ryan
August 9th, 2012
11:09 pm
A Falcant game is the reason why Comedy Central is only aired once a week
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
11:11 pm
That doesn’t even make sense.
Hey “Choke,” let’s go back and forth like this and see who gives up first. It will be really neat.
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
11:15 pm
Just kidding. I’m going to go watch “Louie” now. You should try it, Choke. It would be good for you to laugh at something besides the moon. The neighbors are starting to talk.
JSS
August 9th, 2012
11:16 pm
Night trolls. I mean Falcon fans JK!!!
Choke Ryan Jr.
August 9th, 2012
11:16 pm
Well Well Well…what you think fans? Are you satisfied? I must admit my view of the Falcons and Icey is a bit different from that of my father’s. I support them…Im just not confident in them as of yet.
Falcon Jim
August 9th, 2012
11:24 pm
Geez, the only thing worse than this blog was the broadcast of the game. I’ve been watching/listening to games since before 1965 (heck, Ray Scott was my late dad’s cousin.) Tonight set an all-time low for any attempt to call a game. Embarrassing. Horrible. My son’s high school 100-watt broadcast is much better than these bozo’s that forgot they were suppose to call a game. Shame on this station and these alleged broadcasters. Unbelievably bad. (So were the Falcons after the 1st string left.)
K Money
August 9th, 2012
11:36 pm
“Had the Falcons beaten Green Bay in January 2011, they would have been Super Bowl Champions”… What the h$%$%? Are you high? This has to be the most innacurate, illogical, and downright idiotic statement ever written by a “professional” sports writer. How did you come to that conclusion exactly Mr. Bradley? No, take your time, please explain this to me. How is a team who lost its first playoff game with home field advantage to a 9-7 team by 27 points going to automatically win the Super Bowl, had they won that game? Would they suddenly have transformed into the 85 Bears between the 27 point drubbing and the NFC title game? Why would they have not gotten slaughtered by another superior team in the NFC title game by 30 points this time? And if they magically survived that? Why would the Atlanta Falcons have won the Super Bowl? Considering the only Super Bowl appearance, they got hammered by the Broncos, and probably shouldnt have even taken the field. Yes Mark Bradley said the team that is 0- the franchise history in winning Super Bowls, would have definitively won the 2011 Super Bowl, if they didnt get beat like a ragdoll by 27 points to the Packers. Can i have some of those drugs, Bradley?
vuduchld
August 9th, 2012
11:43 pm
What a hoot of a game. Falcants had a 14-0 lead and you fools had dreams of a Super Bowl in your pea size brains, but true to form, the Falcants did what they always have done, blow games. Now don’t try and explain away this one because I saw some of the game on the NFL Network and what I saw was a team that is going nowhere, just like they have in previous seasons. Keep drinking the Jim Jones Kool-Aid people, this team SUCKS!
Opening night: A passing grade for the Falcons’ passing game | Mark Bradley
August 10th, 2012
11:26 am
[...] We can’t even know if the Falcons be playing then. Being human, we still look for clues. And what we saw Thursday night was most encouraging. The Falcons met the Baltimore Ravens, who played for the AFC title last season, and looked much the [...]