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
JesusHChristo
August 9th, 2012
8:41 pm
That trainer just told Coach Smith “He got knocked out”
Phar71
August 9th, 2012
8:41 pm
Damn we were just talking about him, and he gets knocked out. Hope he is okay!
Sam
August 9th, 2012
8:41 pm
Crap
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:41 pm
Dent walks off. Looks wobbly.
Beastly
August 9th, 2012
8:41 pm
This is why I hate preseason games. They get boring whenever the starters go out.
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:42 pm
Tyrod Taylor in now. Flacco out.
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:42 pm
Wow. What’s the backup plan at middle LB if Dent stays out?
JSS
August 9th, 2012
8:42 pm
@ Bradley…
I was talking about that failure of a preseason more than that butt whipping administered by Big Blue!
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:43 pm
Tyrod Taylor will give the second-teamers fits.
Choke Ryan Jr.
August 9th, 2012
8:43 pm
Hi Choke. Where u been?
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:43 pm
Guess it’s “only” a concussion.
J.J.M.
August 9th, 2012
8:43 pm
redman should retire
JSS
August 9th, 2012
8:43 pm
Fat boy fell into a gap and got a tackle!
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:44 pm
Nobody cares about preseason results. Falcons still made the playoffs last year, I note.
POPCORN UNICORN
August 9th, 2012
8:44 pm
Hate to see players get hurt in meaningless games
Sam
August 9th, 2012
8:44 pm
Is it too early to call peria Jerry a bust
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:45 pm
Choke Jr., your dad was feeling tired. Had to go to bed early.
JesusHChristo
August 9th, 2012
8:45 pm
Jerry is pumped man. If we can get him back to where we first thought he would be….wow…
Georgia Sports Reports
August 9th, 2012
8:45 pm
Why is our starting middle linebacker covering punts in the 2nd quarter of the 1st exhibition game?
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:45 pm
Head injury for Akeem Dent. Won’t return to game.
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:46 pm
JSS, are you trolling last year’s preseason?
(shakes head sadly)
Beastly
August 9th, 2012
8:47 pm
The O-line is OWNING the Ravens D-line.
J.J.M.
August 9th, 2012
8:48 pm
why is your starting MLB playing on special teams though
todd grantham
August 9th, 2012
8:48 pm
smitty loves me this i know
for the scoreboard tells me so
all the foes to him belong
they are weak but smitty’s strong
yes smitty loves me
yes smitty loves me
yes smitty loves me
the scoreboard tells me so
todd grantham
August 9th, 2012
8:49 pm
with apologies to all those wonderful Sunday school teachers of long ago.
POPCORN UNICORN
August 9th, 2012
8:49 pm
Vick has a minor hand injury.
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:49 pm
Dang, TG, know I’m going to have that song in my head all night.
J.J.M.
August 9th, 2012
8:49 pm
ugh get redman outtttttt
J-MAN
August 9th, 2012
8:50 pm
Can JPW or Dominique Davis push Chris Redman out of the Back-up spot?
todd grantham
August 9th, 2012
8:50 pm
bitten by a k-9 no doubt
Beastly
August 9th, 2012
8:50 pm
I hate Chris Redman.
todd grantham
August 9th, 2012
8:51 pm
until Smitty gives up chewing tobacco Redman will always have a job
J.J.M.
August 9th, 2012
8:51 pm
can redman get released?
Kerryb
August 9th, 2012
8:51 pm
The defense looked really good and William Moore was not playing tonight.
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:51 pm
Dang, Coach Grantham. I’m going to have that song in my head all night now.
Choke Ryan Jr.
August 9th, 2012
8:51 pm
Nite Owl I believe you are correct…
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:51 pm
If the Falcons’ season comes down to Chris Redman … well, then I’m not seeing a Super Bowl in it.
Sam
August 9th, 2012
8:51 pm
Seriously if Parker can’t win the backup job, it’s time to cut him and find another option
J.J.M.
August 9th, 2012
8:52 pm
my god look at peyton
nobody
August 9th, 2012
8:52 pm
So Bradley do they think Dent has a Concussion or just got knocked out?
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:52 pm
The Redman reaction: Satisfaction.
Remember that TV spot?
JSS
August 9th, 2012
8:52 pm
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:44 pm
“Nobody cares about preseason results. Falcons still made the playoffs last year, I note”
If they had not laid that egg in Chicago the last opener I’d say yes… They are opening on the road (again) and have shown absolutely no sense of urgency the last two years about starting strong…
What did Smith say: “Try something different?”
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:53 pm
True enough, Mark, but I’m hard pressed to think of any team that’s SB-bound without their starting QB.
Mark Bradley
August 9th, 2012
8:53 pm
I don’t know what they think about Dent’s head injury. Just that it’s a head injury.
Sam
August 9th, 2012
8:53 pm
Except for the Arizona comment, the refs look ok
J.J.M.
August 9th, 2012
8:54 pm
what a throw
Nite Owl
August 9th, 2012
8:55 pm
@JSS:
(snapping fingers)
Wake up, man. It’s 2012 now. Was the first quarter tonight not enough “urgency” for you? Stop living in the past. Specifically 2009.
Sam
August 9th, 2012
8:55 pm
Nite owl, remember guys named Kurt Warner and Tom Brady. They were bak up qbs until the starters got hurt.
Beastly
August 9th, 2012
8:55 pm
Can we see what Dominique Davis looks like?
JSS
August 9th, 2012
8:56 pm
Nite Owl…
Won’t even dignify that silly comment…