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Sorry if this has been posted already.....after Sunday's loss to the NYG.

Something seriously wrong with Falcons
By Mark Bradley | Sunday, October 15, 2006, 09:01 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

We saw this game last year in Carolina and Chicago. We weren’t supposed to see it again, but here it was: Matched against a brawny opponent of playoff caliber, the Falcons got manhandled. And from that we’re left with one conclusion:

Something’s wrong.

Something’s wrong when a team that makes noises about the Super Bowl can’t manage a first down for 23 minutes in a second half that can only be described as revelatory. Something’s wrong when Michael Vick, who used to be able to throw the ball to great effect, can accomplish nothing via the forward pass. Something’s wrong when an NFL team of first-rank talent is reduced to being the equivalent of Oklahoma in the ’70s.

The Falcons don’t employ the wishbone offense, but they might as well. They’re fine so long as they can run the ball and get ahead, but the minute they fall behind they’re in panic mode. (The Giants, by way of contrast, trailed by 11 points Sunday but won by 13 because they struck a balance.) The Falcons panic because they know their passing attack is an attack in name only. They panic because Vick, who under Dan Reeves seemed the ultimate comeback quarterback, is now no threat to bring a team from behind.

Something’s wrong when Vick, a pro since 2001, looks more confused than he did as a younger man. There might not be an ideal offense for this quarterback and his unique skill set, but clearly this one isn’t it. “This loss hurts more than any loss I’ve had,” Vick said, and at first that seemed a harsh pronouncement for any October game. But the Falcons had invested much in this test of legitimacy, and on Sunday they were unmasked.

They can’t throw the ball. They have a Pro Bowl quarterback and a Pro Bowl tight end and three wideouts who were first-round picks, and they can’t throw it the way an NFL team must. There was a time when the Falcons’ entire offense was Jamal Anderson pounding the middle and Chris Chandler throwing deep off play-action, and that was enough to get them to a Super Bowl. But the Falcons under Jim Mora/Greg Knapp lead the league in rushing — and still they get little off play-action. Either Vick overthrows somebody or somebody drops the ball or Vick gets sacked and fumbles (he took seven of the former and had four of the latter Sunday).

Something’s wrong when a team that spent big money to bolster its run defense yields 259 rushing yards. (Of the prized front four, three were hurting by game’s end.) Think of it this way: The Falcons netted 90 yards on one snap, and still they were outrushed by New York. “There were times we did,” said Mora, asked if his team had gotten pushed around. “I don’t like to admit that.”

No coach likes to admit what was blatant Sunday: that the beefed-up Falcons couldn’t stand up to the beefier Giants. “They definitely put it to us the second half,” said safety Lawyer Milloy, acquired for his ferocity. “It doesn’t feel good, but we know what happened. Any team in the NFL wants to be the aggressor, and we weren’t today.”

Something’s wrong when the broad-shouldered promise of September falls to pieces in one afternoon 16 days shy of Halloween. The Falcons took this game so hard because it undercut every notion they’ve formed about themselves: That they’re tough, that they’re resourceful, that they’re as good as anybody in the league. “Instead of progressing,” Vick said, “we regressed.”

Eleven games remain, and if a coaching staff knows its business that’s sufficient time to figure things out. But what happened Sunday makes us wonder, not for the first time, if these coaches are indeed the ones for these players. Something’s wrong when a team this gifted seems to have run out of ideas so soon.

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