With all due respect to the resurgent Fins and the perfect-so-far Titans, the dramatic turnaround of 6-3 Atlanta — winners on Sunday over the fading Saints —- is arguably the League’s best current story, and due only in part to the calm hand of BC alum Matt Ryan. “There are no Glanvillian gimmicks in these Falcons, no Mora-like false chatter,” writes the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Mark Bradley. “This a simply a collection of proud pros ” hey, even rookies can have pride ” that has developed a sense of itself and has cottoned to its coaches.”
They™ve played 240 minutes in the Georgia Dome this season. They™ve trailed for a total of 11 seconds, and those 11 ” the time it took the Falcons to lose the Chicago game and then win it ” are part of NFL history. This is a team that keeps tending to business with such dogged resolve that we are, believe it or not, coming to regard winning as business as usual.
œYou keep hearing that Atlanta is going to fail at some point, said Lawyer Milloy, the free safety, œbut this is happening the right way.
Here he smiled, and you should know that Milloy is stingy with his smiles. œEvery year there™s a team that has you scratching your head, that you never saw coming. Why not us?
It sounds silly until you watch this team play, but when you do you see no silliness about it. You see a team that comes to work, that hits really hard and plays really smart. On Sunday the Falcons took the ball from New Orleans on the first snap and saw the frazzled Saints use the last snap to cut their deficit to 14 points. In between the Falcons were dominant.