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
P B Orr
August 9th, 2012
8:11 pm
Keep us informed about Ewing.
Prometheus
August 9th, 2012
8:12 pm
Injuries freakin suck in football. There always has to be some injury its hard to avoid.
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:12 pm
Ryan to Julio. Fifteen and a first.
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:12 pm
Knee injury for Ewing. Won’t return to this game.
JesusHChristo
August 9th, 2012
8:13 pm
Pollard is a new target. Julio is such a good character guy…
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:14 pm
I don’t like the sideline stuff very much, even though we got a TD with it.
Get Julio in space!
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:14 pm
Ryan scrambles and hits White. First down.
yo mama
August 9th, 2012
8:14 pm
mark whats the prognosis on bradie ewing?
Phar71
August 9th, 2012
8:14 pm
Stephan nicholas (54) seems to be playing very well.
J.J.M.
August 9th, 2012
8:15 pm
ehhh offense line
Lakewood
August 9th, 2012
8:15 pm
Hope Ewing is ok. Dimitroff sure loves drafting high character guys who get injured a lot. Not sure if Ewing has a history of injuries but it sure is par for the course as far as recent draft picks go…
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:15 pm
Ill proc on Justin Blalock
Matt "CHOKE" Ryan
August 9th, 2012
8:15 pm
Pick 6 CHOKE….HA HA
That weight room training really helped on that pick to the linebacker
Beastly
August 9th, 2012
8:16 pm
Justin Blalock never gets a flag. NEVER. What’s wrong with him?
And sadly I think Ewing’s season is over which I hate because I think he was going to start for us.
DP
August 9th, 2012
8:16 pm
“(Had the Falcons beaten Green Bay here in January 2011, they’d have won the Super Bowl.)”
Being spectacularly wrong the majority of the time is not going to stop Mark Bradley from making outlandish statements with absolute authority.
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:17 pm
Ryan to Julio. Got held and still caught the ball.
JesusHChristo
August 9th, 2012
8:17 pm
JULIOOOOO – There it is again….
Beastly
August 9th, 2012
8:17 pm
O-line protecting Matt very, very well. I’m impressed so far. And Julio is a monster.
Sam
August 9th, 2012
8:18 pm
Watching the onfiield exam, looks like torn acl for ewing
Prometheus
August 9th, 2012
8:18 pm
Im getting my Julio Jones jersey.
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:18 pm
Thanks for the beer, Choke.
No one’s really sure what you’re talking about with the “Pick 6.” Are you trolling from the future or something?
Also, this isn’t the way I like my sandwich. Go back and get it right.
JesusHChristo
August 9th, 2012
8:18 pm
OLine must know their in an open competition – they are fighting down there…
JesusHChristo
August 9th, 2012
8:19 pm
Look at little Quizz!…
Beastly
August 9th, 2012
8:19 pm
Loving the play calling. O-line is winning the battle up front.
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:19 pm
Quizz Show!!!
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:19 pm
Quarter ends. (Yay.) Falcons second-and-goal from the 2 after the Rodgers draw
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:20 pm
Seen, you’ve been awful quiet, man. Don’t let me down. Don’t be that guy.
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:20 pm
I’m wearing my Julio Jones jersey as we speak.
Not really.
Phar71
August 9th, 2012
8:21 pm
After this drive let’s get the starters (all of them-those competing for starting jobs) out.
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:21 pm
“Don’t be that guy.”
OK, you did it. You made me laugh out loud.
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:21 pm
Wonder how much it took out of Cody to make that 96-yard walk to the other end.
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:21 pm
This is surely it for the starters.
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:22 pm
Touchdown. Jacquizz.
JesusHChristo
August 9th, 2012
8:22 pm
TD FOR QUIZZY!
Beastly
August 9th, 2012
8:22 pm
TOUCHDOWN!!!!! QUIIZZZZZZZZZ!!!!! O-line is putting in WORK!
Prometheus
August 9th, 2012
8:22 pm
Im here in Hawaii, and im sure ill see Julio out here for Pro Bowl, or maybe not (Super Bowl MB)
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:22 pm
Guess we just found out. Little Quizz just ran him over.
Phar71
August 9th, 2012
8:22 pm
So f’ing happy it’s football season!,!
Beastly
August 9th, 2012
8:23 pm
Alright starters, you did your job, get outta there. We need you vs. the Chiefs.
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:23 pm
Bradley’s rule of thumb: The only score worth noting in an exhibition is the score when the first starting quarterback leaves. It’s 14-0.
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:23 pm
Honored, Mark!
Got to let the Saints trolls know we won’t take this lying down. Like Cody on that TD just now.
Joe "CHOKE" Flacco
August 9th, 2012
8:23 pm
a FLACCO SHUTOUT
J.J.M.
August 9th, 2012
8:24 pm
all 4 QBs will play tonight?
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:24 pm
Choke?
Seen?
(echo)
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:24 pm
Pretty impressive, so far. Remembering always that it’s preseason.
Waycross,Ga Dawg
August 9th, 2012
8:25 pm
@MB, How is the defense and o line looking?
Prometheus
August 9th, 2012
8:25 pm
I agree MArk, its only presseason. but I would rather feel good about us being up 14-0 than cursing about why we are down 14-0. Ill take the former.
Beastly
August 9th, 2012
8:26 pm
Preseason or not, these guys look for real. I know it’s different week to week, but you know they’re going to turn it up a notch come regular season. Pat Hill may be the best hire we did this off-season. He’s got that O-line up and running and it’s only preseason game 1.
JesusHChristo
August 9th, 2012
8:26 pm
I think we see Franks as the full time Punt returner come game 1. I just watched a replay of his long return and he just looks like a natural return guy. He took excellent angles and had great burst – Weems who?
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:26 pm
O-line looks fine. D-line looks fine. Scoreboard tells us so.