The First Game of the Season

I can’t believe I waited two months for this.

The Falcons’ just got overrun by the Minnesota Vikings. Listen, I wasn’t expecting the Falcons to win the Super Bowl this season, but I was expecting them to be able to handle the Minnesota Vikings.

I know it was just the preseason, but how is it that they looked that good two weeks ago, and all of a sudden they were a high school team playing against the Indianapolis Colts. Two weeks ago Joey Harrington was shredding defenses. Two weeks ago, the offensive line was a solid wall. Today, the O-line was drilled in more holes than a veteran porn star.

But of all things that happened, I never expected to be able to say this at the end: It wasn’t Joey Harrington’s fault.

No, because in addition to constant pressure from that vaunted Minnesota defense, Roddy White and Michael Jenkins kept dropping passes. Not as many as last season, but that’s like saying, “This time, I only got shot THREE times.” And just like last season, the wrong receiver was on the field. Where was Laurent Robinson? Where was Joe Horn? I barely saw them at all during the game.

Joe Horn had been a playmaker his entire career. Laurent Robinson is a playmaker-in-the-making. I’m talking “bring the ball in even though the quarterback screwed up the throw” type playmaker. He is the kind of receiver that Michael Vick had been waiting for. Meanwhile, Michael Jenkins has been disappointing Falcons’ fans since 2004. He must be offering to play for free, because that’s the only way I can see him keeping his job.

No, none of that can be blamed on Joey Harrington. He didn’t assemble the roster. He wasn’t calling the plays. He was blocking. All of his interceptions weren’t even his fault. One of them, a defensive lineman managed to get off the ground and steal it, but the second one was Michael Jenkins’ fault. Not only did he not catch the ball, but he deflected it into the defender’s hands and made no move to tackle the defender as he ran away. Joey at least made an effort to tackle him. Sure, he almost missed the defender completely, but he’s a quarterback. He gets points for trying.

And speaking of the playcalling, if Jim Mora and Greg Knapp had known that I existed and read my blog, they would have heard me screaming about the playcalling while they were here. It seems that Mr. Petrino is gonna be hearing from me, too. That is, assuming he knew who I was.

You’d think by now that a coach would know a little bit about his personnel, especially a player with the career of Warrick Dunn. Warrick Dunn is about 5’6” and about 110 pounds. He is not breaking through any defensive line. He is not a between the tackles type of runner. Everyone has known this since he was at Florida State. Meanwhile, Jerious Norwood has the kind of speed that you usually expect to see on the Discovery Channel or in cartoons.

Bobby Petrino is the kind of coach that loves a between the tackles runner. He loves a big strong fullback to bust through the line. While it could mean that he has some kind of fetish, it doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t have that kind of runner. Yes, the Falcons signed Ovie Mughelli to be that guy, but he didn’t play that much and the one time I noticed him on the field, he was catching a pass. He could have played Jason Snelling if they hadn’t cut him. All that time, that T.J. Duckett trade looks more and more stupid.

Hopefully, Petrino will learn fast that Dunn and Norwood aren’t fullbacks or even that big, but they have strengths of their own, like being hard to tackle or being fast. It’s hard for that kind of strength to shine when you’ve got a 280 pound defensive end standing on your chest.

And then, there was the defense. Excuse me, I meant “defense.”

The Falcons’ run defense would have been more effective if they ran alongside Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor, shouting suggestions in their ears that they lay down. And did anyone else notice that on every big play that the Vikings made, there was DeAngelo Hall with smoke coming off of his body, because he just got burnt?

Yes, it was only the first game of the season, but it was a really bad first game against a team that I don’t think is really that good. I’m starting to reconsider my support for the Falcons and my claims that they’d surprise some people.

Well, they did manage to surprise me. I didn’t expect them to be THIS bad. They didn’t even manage to score a touchdown. It’s gonna be a long season.

Falcons 3, Vikings 24.