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Sun. Sep 07, 2008

The Circus Left Town

Last season for the Atlanta Falcons, well, it was like a surreal nightmare from which you could not wake. First we discovered Michael Vick is a Lying Dog Murdering Team Betraying Anti Role Model, followed by the ugly season of the The Atlanta Btfsplk’s that went on and on and on. And then it got even worse when Coach Loser quit with 3 games left in the season.

But Sunday, in about 3 hours these guys wearing the uniform of the Atlanta Falcons (as in, “who are these guys?”) made you wonder if maybe it was all just a really bad dream.

Sunday was the first time a rookie QB has started a season opener since 2003. Matt Ryan’s first NFL pass? A 62 yard TD. 1:27 into his NFL career. On their first three possessions, the Falcons scored three touchdowns. Newly acquired power runner Michael Turner has 6 rushes for 112 yards … in the 1st quarter.

Ryan’s touchdown pass got things started, but it was the running of Michael ‘The Burner’ Turner and Jerious Norwood that was the bulk of the offense. Turner rushed for a team record 220 yards as the offense set a team-record with 318 yards.

AJC: Ryan, Turner lead Falcons to win in opener

We knew that part of Coach Mike Smith’s strategy for starting a rookie QB was to give him lots of help from the running game. But, golly, Mike, we had no idea this is what you meant.

All the pre-season worries about the offensive line not being stout enough to protect the young rookie look pretty silly today. You don’t get 300+ yards on the ground (an average of 7.6 yards per carry), have your QB complete 69% of his passes (with only one sack) unless your offensive line is kicking serious booty.

Granted, they were playing the Detroit Lions (7-9 last year), but these Falcons were picked by most to be the worst in the NFL this year. The Sporting News predicted a 1-15 record.

But all the worries and predictions of gloom based on last year should be discounted. The kindest thing you can say is that the 2007 season was a severe aberration, the stuff of nightmares … but a One Time Thing.

This is not the same team. This team has seven rookies, 13 newly signed free agents, and overall, 11 new starters out of 22. This is not the same team, not the same sad excuse for a coaching staff … not the same circus in any way at all.

That circus left town. All the elephant dung has been cleaned up. Or traded.

Our local sports columnists are, well, you might say these Falcons made a shiver run up their spine…

This wasn’t a victory. It was a cleansing breath.

The cowardly coach who scrambled to Arkansas. The misguided quarterback who crash-landed in Leavenworth. The ill-fated romancing of the reptilian Bill Parcells as pooh-bah. All of it. Gone. It was like some greater power drifted into the Georgia Dome Sunday and took a power-washer to the entire franchise.

The Falcons opened the season Sunday with a 34-21 win over the Detroit Lions. They went from an 18-month nightmare to a perfectly scripted afternoon of bliss.

It’s only one win in a 16-game season.

Why does it seem like more than that?

Jeff Schultz: More than just a victory for Falcons

And from the guy who’s been watching the Falcons since their very first season…

This Sunday afternoon the sun came to rest its rays on this bedraggled NFL franchise, and while no guarantees come with it, of all the Falcons moments that I have experienced, none other can match it. No Sunday in Minnesota on the way to the Super Bowl, nor a frigid afternoon in Green Bay, where the storied Packers were beaten on their own grass. Those were but wisps of a fleecy brush with history compared to this opening game of a new season and a change in direction under a fresh command.

Furman Bisher: The Falcons have met expectations

I, too, have been following the Falcons a long time (since 1978), and I’ve learned to moderate the peak moments because the valleys are long and deep. Don’t get your expectations too high. After all, this is a team that has never had back-to-back winning seasons in their over four decades of existence.

But I did see a lot of potential today.

It remains to be seen what fresh hell these new Falcons might generate this year, if any, but one thing is for sure; it will be their own, not a hangover from last year. They officially cleared the air of that stench today.