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Mon. Nov 19, 2007

The Atlanta Btfsplks, Week Ten

It’s been seven weeks since I last wrote about the local NFL franchise I now call The Atlanta Btfsplks. Three of those seven weeks, they managed to not lose a game.

Of course, one of those three was their bye week. No game, no loss. So the aggregate pain for this year currently reads 3 wins and 7 losses. Mathematically, this means the Btfsplks could win their remaining six games and finish with a respectable record of 9-7. But here in The Real World, they must start this alleged winning streak by playing the current World Champs on Thanksgiving night.

My guess is that the Btfsplks will provide plenty of turkey for everyone. In fact, they were at the oven warming it up yesterday:

The return of Byron Leftwich as the Falcons’ starting quarterback against Tampa Bay on Sunday was supposed to create a spark. Instead, it may have started a wildfire.

Leftwich struggled, got booed and then benched. Former starter Joey Harrington got cheered, got playing time and then led Atlanta to its only touchdown.

The Falcons got manhandled, whipped and mercilessly embarrassed, 31-7, before a stadium that was never full and, by the start of the fourth quarter, resembled a tree that shed nearly all but its most resilient leaves.

AJC: Leftwich choice backfires on Falcons

Yes, there is little left for your local sportswriters to do but try to come up with the most concise lead possible to spare their readers the pain of reading the horrific details. Those three short paragraphs tell you everything you need to know. Different Sunday, same Btfsplks.

And if anyone tells you Atlanta now has a “quarterback controversy,” please slap them for me. This season has been one ongoing “quarterback controversy,” since about April. The controversy began with “OMG, what has Ookie done to the dogs?” Today, the controversy is “which stopgap QB do we try this week?”

Because you have to realize, [1] Atlanta does not have a single QB on its roster that was here when the year began, and [2] neither Leftwich nor Harrington will be the starter here next year. They are both … adequate … as QB. They bring a spark to the game … maybe one out of three weeks. But they are both stopgap players, grabbed on short notice because they were what was available. One of them will be here next year, but not as the projected starter. That player is To Be Named Later.

And so the hex continues, unequaled by any major league team in any sport: 42 years without being able to string two winning seasons back-to-back. And the best case scenario is that the hex might be broken in year 44.

Because Year 42 is toast to all but the most optimistic mathematicians.