Monday, January 01, 2007
The Atlanta Falcons next coach
The Atlanta Falcons end another disappointing season
Jim Mora Jr. absolutely deserved to get fired as the Falcons coach. With three number one drafts picks at wideout, Pro-Bowler, but still underrated Warrick Dunn and rookie sensation Jerrious Norwood in the backfield, not to mention, the incomparable Mike Vick, how could the Falcons fail to make the playoffs in the crummy NFC? Not to mention Mora’s pinhead moves on the radio. Say what coach?!?
Mora Jr. had The Mike Vick, people, remember him?
Mike Vick has reached the point in his career where fates are diverging. Is he going to be the Pistol Pete Maravich of NFL quarterbacks? Vick set the NFL QB rushing record this year. Beat Bobby Douglass’s thirty-four year old mark. However, like old Pistol Pete, Vick despite the ability to do things on the playing surface, that quite literally, nobody else in the game can, and quite possibly nobody has ever even dreamed of trying, has yet to win much of anything and lacks success in performing some of the basic skills normally required for his position. For Michael Vick it is passing consistency and accuracy, evidenced by his completion percentage, lack of passing yards and over-reliance on his terrific tight end, Algee Crumpler. For Maravich it was an inability to play on the ball defense or make his game work within the team concept. One of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players of All Time, Maravich might have been a better off as a Globetrotter.
The other road Michael Vick and his extraordinary game could parallel is Magic Johnson. Like Vick and Maravich, Magic was an incomparable player in his sport. Young players cannot pattern their game on Magic Johnson any more than they can pattern their game on Gale Sayers or Barry Sanders. One either is one of these people or is not. It is why all those insisting that LaDamian Tomlinson is the first LaDamian Tomlinson, and not, the next Jim Brown(or pick your all-timer comparison) are entirely correct. Note, this is why the Clarion chose analogize Mike Vick to basketball players, because no matter what else happens, Vick will always be the first any only QB to play the position like Mike Vick did.
So Magic: how can Vicks’s career arc like Magic’s? While it is too late for the rookie year, lead the team a championship trick, Vick like Magic, still has attributes never before seen at his position. He doesn’t quite have Magic’s supporting cast (Hall of Famers, Kareem, Worthy, Perkins, All-Stars Byron Scott and Michael Cooper.) but Vick isn’t exactly lacking supporting cast as detailed earlier. The critical difference is the Coach with the vision to understand and exploit the all-timer’s unique talents. A coach who can put that player in the position to use his talents to win. Magic had Riley, Mike Vick has had perennial playoff loser Dan Reeves and the inheritor of the inglorious Mora legacy.
Well now, Jim Mora Jr. is gone and Arthur Blank Blank bio link and his front office team have the opportunity to take Michael Vick’s career down one or the other of these roads. Pistol Pete Maravich Maravich’s stats & bio or Magic Johnson Magic’s stats
The Clarion has a suggestion for Home Depot co-founder, Mr. Blank, on his head coaching hire. Remember the theme is someone who has the vision to use the advantage Michael Vick’s unique skill set presents. Believe it or not, it is our contention that the Falcons have actually not been committed enough to the running game. The running game when they have used it has been awesome, all but unstoppable. Witness Vick’s 8.4 yards per carry. Dunn’s 4.0 yards per carry. Norwood’s 6.4 yards per carry and the team’s overall 5.5 yards per carry, which ranked first in the league by more than half a yard! Why aren’t they using this advantage more aggressively? The Falcons just watched the Carolina Panthers do it to them in the second to last game of the season. The Panthers took it so far as to remove their QB from the game for 15 or so offensive plays and run the venerable single wing. This is the kind of commitment the Falcons need to make to the running game. They have an tremendous advantage in the running game and they need to commit to exploiting it. They need to commit to the run like they are Nebraska and it’s 1983. Not that they need to run that simplistic of an offense, but the Falcons need to run almost that mix of run to pass plays, 75%-25% or thereabouts. Can’t be done in today’s NFL you say? We’ll see. What the Falcons need is the right innovator, a coach who marries that creative skill with a tremendous drive to win. (Needless to say the Clarion tries never to promote candidates who have less than excellent personal integrity.)
The man for that Atlanta Falcons job in our view is one Paul Johnson. We know some of you will say he is just coaching a college team. He isn’t ready for the step up to the big time of the NFL world. You will be wrong. Coach Johnson at the Naval Academy is leading a unit with thirty-five graduating seniors. Ten of whom have elected to fufill their service committments in Marine Corps ground duty, including linebacker Tyler Tidwell, which means, six months of training, then Iraq. see here for an in-depth look Coach Johnson is already dealing with the world at large and young men making choices far greater and far more serious than face most NFLers.
Coach Johnson’s background gives him the highest of baselines for integrity, drive and respect. What will make the biggest difference for Mike Vick however is Johnson’s offensive innovation. Johnson took a Navy program that had been 1 up and 20 down in the previous two seasons, that many thought unrevivable, and has led them to .700 winning percentage in the last three years, while having the highest graduation rates in Division I-A football. See also Johnson’s successes Georgia Southern, where he had an .800+ winning percentage and won Division I-AA Coach of the Year four consecutive seasons. He is a great, great play caller, all the way back to his days as offensive coordinator at the University of Hawaii. And though Coach Johnson is a running game genius, he doesn’t abandon the pass, which the Falcons, can’t and the Clarion would not advocate. The pass still has to be judicially used, even on 1st down. But the Falcons running plays, especially with a superb fullback like Justin Griffin available, too, need to be much more creative.
Finally, the Falcons need to trade back-up quarterback for Matt Schaub for defense or draft picks. Then they need to get a back-up quarterback that is as close to Michael Vick’s strengths and weaknesses as they can. Ala Joey Hamilton, Michael Bishop…if there was ever anyway they could pry Antwann Randle-El away from the Redskins and let him play wideout and back-up QB…
all right, enough, ennough when we’re daydreaming about who the back-up QBs might be...
Arthur Blank get on the horn, aplogize to the Naval Academy and get Coach Paul Johnson down to Atlanta, stat.
further links
Vick’s stats
Falcons team stats
Paul Johnson bio
Jim Mora Jr. absolutely deserved to get fired as the Falcons coach. With three number one drafts picks at wideout, Pro-Bowler, but still underrated Warrick Dunn and rookie sensation Jerrious Norwood in the backfield, not to mention, the incomparable Mike Vick, how could the Falcons fail to make the playoffs in the crummy NFC? Not to mention Mora’s pinhead moves on the radio. Say what coach?!?
Mora Jr. had The Mike Vick, people, remember him?
Mike Vick has reached the point in his career where fates are diverging. Is he going to be the Pistol Pete Maravich of NFL quarterbacks? Vick set the NFL QB rushing record this year. Beat Bobby Douglass’s thirty-four year old mark. However, like old Pistol Pete, Vick despite the ability to do things on the playing surface, that quite literally, nobody else in the game can, and quite possibly nobody has ever even dreamed of trying, has yet to win much of anything and lacks success in performing some of the basic skills normally required for his position. For Michael Vick it is passing consistency and accuracy, evidenced by his completion percentage, lack of passing yards and over-reliance on his terrific tight end, Algee Crumpler. For Maravich it was an inability to play on the ball defense or make his game work within the team concept. One of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players of All Time, Maravich might have been a better off as a Globetrotter.
The other road Michael Vick and his extraordinary game could parallel is Magic Johnson. Like Vick and Maravich, Magic was an incomparable player in his sport. Young players cannot pattern their game on Magic Johnson any more than they can pattern their game on Gale Sayers or Barry Sanders. One either is one of these people or is not. It is why all those insisting that LaDamian Tomlinson is the first LaDamian Tomlinson, and not, the next Jim Brown(or pick your all-timer comparison) are entirely correct. Note, this is why the Clarion chose analogize Mike Vick to basketball players, because no matter what else happens, Vick will always be the first any only QB to play the position like Mike Vick did.
So Magic: how can Vicks’s career arc like Magic’s? While it is too late for the rookie year, lead the team a championship trick, Vick like Magic, still has attributes never before seen at his position. He doesn’t quite have Magic’s supporting cast (Hall of Famers, Kareem, Worthy, Perkins, All-Stars Byron Scott and Michael Cooper.) but Vick isn’t exactly lacking supporting cast as detailed earlier. The critical difference is the Coach with the vision to understand and exploit the all-timer’s unique talents. A coach who can put that player in the position to use his talents to win. Magic had Riley, Mike Vick has had perennial playoff loser Dan Reeves and the inheritor of the inglorious Mora legacy.
Well now, Jim Mora Jr. is gone and Arthur Blank Blank bio link and his front office team have the opportunity to take Michael Vick’s career down one or the other of these roads. Pistol Pete Maravich Maravich’s stats & bio or Magic Johnson Magic’s stats
The Clarion has a suggestion for Home Depot co-founder, Mr. Blank, on his head coaching hire. Remember the theme is someone who has the vision to use the advantage Michael Vick’s unique skill set presents. Believe it or not, it is our contention that the Falcons have actually not been committed enough to the running game. The running game when they have used it has been awesome, all but unstoppable. Witness Vick’s 8.4 yards per carry. Dunn’s 4.0 yards per carry. Norwood’s 6.4 yards per carry and the team’s overall 5.5 yards per carry, which ranked first in the league by more than half a yard! Why aren’t they using this advantage more aggressively? The Falcons just watched the Carolina Panthers do it to them in the second to last game of the season. The Panthers took it so far as to remove their QB from the game for 15 or so offensive plays and run the venerable single wing. This is the kind of commitment the Falcons need to make to the running game. They have an tremendous advantage in the running game and they need to commit to exploiting it. They need to commit to the run like they are Nebraska and it’s 1983. Not that they need to run that simplistic of an offense, but the Falcons need to run almost that mix of run to pass plays, 75%-25% or thereabouts. Can’t be done in today’s NFL you say? We’ll see. What the Falcons need is the right innovator, a coach who marries that creative skill with a tremendous drive to win. (Needless to say the Clarion tries never to promote candidates who have less than excellent personal integrity.)
The man for that Atlanta Falcons job in our view is one Paul Johnson. We know some of you will say he is just coaching a college team. He isn’t ready for the step up to the big time of the NFL world. You will be wrong. Coach Johnson at the Naval Academy is leading a unit with thirty-five graduating seniors. Ten of whom have elected to fufill their service committments in Marine Corps ground duty, including linebacker Tyler Tidwell, which means, six months of training, then Iraq. see here for an in-depth look Coach Johnson is already dealing with the world at large and young men making choices far greater and far more serious than face most NFLers.
Coach Johnson’s background gives him the highest of baselines for integrity, drive and respect. What will make the biggest difference for Mike Vick however is Johnson’s offensive innovation. Johnson took a Navy program that had been 1 up and 20 down in the previous two seasons, that many thought unrevivable, and has led them to .700 winning percentage in the last three years, while having the highest graduation rates in Division I-A football. See also Johnson’s successes Georgia Southern, where he had an .800+ winning percentage and won Division I-AA Coach of the Year four consecutive seasons. He is a great, great play caller, all the way back to his days as offensive coordinator at the University of Hawaii. And though Coach Johnson is a running game genius, he doesn’t abandon the pass, which the Falcons, can’t and the Clarion would not advocate. The pass still has to be judicially used, even on 1st down. But the Falcons running plays, especially with a superb fullback like Justin Griffin available, too, need to be much more creative.
Finally, the Falcons need to trade back-up quarterback for Matt Schaub for defense or draft picks. Then they need to get a back-up quarterback that is as close to Michael Vick’s strengths and weaknesses as they can. Ala Joey Hamilton, Michael Bishop…if there was ever anyway they could pry Antwann Randle-El away from the Redskins and let him play wideout and back-up QB…
all right, enough, ennough when we’re daydreaming about who the back-up QBs might be...
Arthur Blank get on the horn, aplogize to the Naval Academy and get Coach Paul Johnson down to Atlanta, stat.
further links
Vick’s stats
Falcons team stats
Paul Johnson bio
Comments:
The Falcons elected to go in an entirely different direction, with a coach who is not known as a character guy, and emphasizes the vertical passing attack rather than the run.
Bobby Petrino has had 12 coaching jobs in 24 years, talk about the grass is always greener somewhere else or not letting the grass grow under your feet, whoa.
See Len Pasquarelli on ESPN for the full details
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Bobby Petrino has had 12 coaching jobs in 24 years, talk about the grass is always greener somewhere else or not letting the grass grow under your feet, whoa.
See Len Pasquarelli on ESPN for the full details
