mlough@macon.com
Oh yes, it was Monday night, and people were mighty ready for some football.
“Who dat say ...” started a New Orleans fan at the Georgia Dome, about 20 minutes before kickoff.
Before he could go further, an exasperated reply was forthcoming:
“Shuuuuut uuuup.”
And soon after, one of the most electric nights in Georgia Dome history began, with the building louder than it has been in a long time.
Then the teams bogged down into an NFC South game for a while, and things calmed a bit. But the outcome notwithstanding, there’s something of a debate on how good Atlanta really is, and it’s legitimate.
They’re good to very good, not necessarily great. Impressive, but the Falcons aren’t dazzling. Some might say overrated, others might offer underrated.
Let’s remember the last meeting, when Atlanta was the beneficiary of a rare missed chip shot field goal in overtime.
And thus continued a season where the Falcons are almost always precision and efficient but rarely dominant.
There are more than a few, to paraphrase old Saints head coach Jim Mora, coulda/shoulda near losses along the way for the Falcons, sweating out more wins than the average 12-2 team.
Atlanta almost lost to San Francisco at home and almost lost to Jake Delhomme.
If you’ve controlled stats, and really have willed the opponent into submission in the fourth quarter, you’ve dominated.
Atlanta has won only three games by 17 points or more, and against teams with a combined 14-31 record. The Falcons average only 16 more yards a game despite having run 147 more plays than the opposition.
Great teams dominate more.
The Falcons don’t have an upper level defense, either. They have a good one, sometimes above average and sometimes not.
Opponents are completing 65 percent of their passes against the Falcons, ranking 27th in the NFL. The Falcons are 18th in pass efficiency defense and yards per attempt, 19th in touchdowns, 22nd in yards per game and 24th in sacks.
There are 32 teams in the NFL -- yes, including Carolina -- so Atlanta is in the middle of the pack or worse in some key categories.
The Falcons bend, but don’t break. Great teams don’t bend so often. And that’s part of the lack of a knockout punch, even against the Cincinnatis and Carolinas.
The Falcons aren’t great. They’re good to very good, not far from great.
The grumbling about national attention is off base for a variety of reasons. Just because one didn’t see it or read it doesn’t mean it wasn’t said or written, and the Falcons may have more respect than anybody outside of New England.
They just play fundamental old-school football, a glorious style to those with attention spans. Yes, that eliminates more than a few on the tube.
But be patient. Greatness, regardless of Monday night’s result, is coming.
This is an organization that has only once had two straight winning seasons, and thus only once had three straight winning seasons. It had been royally mismanaged for decades, even through the little success, which is why there’s been little success.
It’s hard to give Patriots-like respect to such a program until it does more, and it will.
The thought here is that Atlanta is almost an expansion team, starting over when Bobby Petrino cut bait and Mike Vick cut a deal, when Arthur Blank stepped back and just owned and let people do their jobs, when Thomas Dimitroff and Mike Smith were hired and Matt Ryan drafted.
This Atlanta organization is a young organization. The Falcons aren’t supposed to be great yet, and to be where they are in three years of “re-existence” is fairly remarkable.
And this fundamental football may not get a lot of attention, but it may get a Super Bowl ring sooner than anybody could imagine.
For all the concern about national pub – and it’s there – don’t worry, be happy. Championships lead to attention, and the Falcons already have respect.
Atlanta soon enough will have both. Regardless of whether they clinched home field throughout the playoffs on Monday, the teasing of this organization is over.
Contact Michael A. Lough at 744-4626 or mlough@macon.com
