RobJenkins.com

Option now may mean no option later 

So what's the deal with all these college football teams going to spread- or option-based offenses, instead of pro-style offenses?

Simple: good athletes are easier to find than good quarterbacks.

I'm not talking about arm strength or the ability to make certain throws. I'm not even talking about accuracy. I'm talking about decision-making ability, which is by far the most important skill a quarterback can possess.

And apparently, there just aren't enough guys out there who have that ability.

Sure, the spread/option requires a certain amount of decision-making, too. But I would suggest that those decisions--basically, whether to keep the ball or pitch it--aren't as complicated as recognizing cover packages downfield and progressing through a series of reads. Moreover, it's easier in an option-based offense, if everything else breaks down, for the quarterback just to tuck the ball and run. That's one of the options, after all.

An old football man once told me that the quarterback position is played with the head first, then the arm, then the legs. That's precisely the reason, he said, that Michael Vick was struggling (even before his unfortunate incarceration): he was playing upside-down, so to speak, with his legs first, then his arm, then his head. Vick made some spectacular plays his first couple of years and even put up respectable numbers, but he was basically a one-trick pony. Once the rest of the league caught onto his act, he found it increasingly difficult to move the ball.

But college defenses aren't as sophisticated. The players aren't as experienced, and they tend to turnover at a fairly high rate, anyway. So a quarterback with Vick-like athletic ability can have a great two- or three-year run in college.

A program can even succeed for years, if it can continue to replace athletic quarterbacks with similarly athletic quarterbacks. Very few programs, by comparison, can keep replacing pocket passers with NFL-type decision-making ability year after year. There just aren't that many of them out there, as evidenced by the fact that even most NFL teams don't have one.

And if current trends continue, in the future the league is likely to have even fewer. I mean, where are they going to get pocket passers if all the colleges are using the spread? Eventually, we're going to start seeing more spread offenses in the NFL, to take advantage of guys like Vick, Vince Young, and--coming soon--Tim Tebow.

Either that or the spread/option will turn out to be just another fad. Time will tell.

Camelot by the Lake? 

(This is something I wrote last winter and sent to the Daily Post's sports editor, but he never published it. Even though the Falcons seem to have turned a corner with the hiring of new GM Thomas Dimitroff and new head coach Mike Smith, I think the points I made here still ring true.)

Let’s be honest: King Arthur has created a royal mess.

Arthur Blank, the Home Depot tycoon to whom that regal appellation is occasionally applied (because of either his aristocratic bearing or his imperiousness, depending on whom you ask), has now owned the Falcons for five years—five years marked by a series of profound blunders that, collectively, have transformed the Falcons from up-and-coming franchise to late-night punch-line.

If Atlanta is not at this moment the league’s worst organization, it’s only because it has a lot of competition. As General Manager Rich McKay allegedly was overheard muttering as he left Wednesday’s press conference, “Thank goodness for Miami.”

No one doubts that Blank is a decent and honest man. He’s a noted philanthropist and a patron of the arts. Nor does anyone doubt his love of or devotion to the Falcons. The pain has been etched too deeply into face these past six months as he’s watched his star quarterback fall from grace, his team fall in the standings, and his coach not even last a single fall.

Much of that pain, unfortunately, has been self-inflicted. All his fine qualities notwithstanding, Blank clearly has a Georgia-Dome-sized ego. He thought he could run a football franchise successfully because he had run a retail business successfully, and he intended to go about it the same way: with a very hands-on, customer-friendly approach.

The customer-friendly part has been well-received by Falcons fans and may be the reason more of them don’t hold Blank personally responsible for the franchise’s decline, even though they probably should.

It’s the hands-on part that has created problems. From stalking the sidelines during games to attending regular meetings with coaches, everything Blank has done bears witness to his overriding, “this-is-MY-team” ethos. And regardless of what McKay might say in a press conference—to introduce a new coach, for instance—it’s crystal clear that Blank is the one calling the shots.

And that’s why we ultimately have to lay this debacle at the correct doorstep—the one leading to the throne room.

Before I go into specific mistakes Blank has made, I should acknowledge that, yes, hindsight is 20/20 and that the actions of others aren’t necessarily his fault. But when so many decisions turn out to be so disastrous, even in hindsight, it’s certainly fair to question the judgment of the decision-maker. We wouldn’t hesitate to subject a coach or GM to that kind of scrutiny. Why not the owner?

Here, then, are the five major blunders of the Blank era:

Firing Dan Reeves. The kind of coach Falcons fans are clamoring for in the wake of Bobby Petrino’s defection—someone’s who’s proven he can win in the NFL, who can handle NFL players, who’s had success in the post-season—is exactly the kind of coach Atlanta once had—until Blank fired him with three games remaining in the 2003 season.

Reeves is a Hall of Fame coach who took the franchise to its only Super Bowl. Based on past performance, it seems highly unlikely Blank and McKay will do as well this time around.

Breaking the bank for Michael Vick. This is the point where some readers will say, “But how could Blank have foreseen that Vick would end up in prison for dog fighting?”

As we now know, Vick was already involved in that barbaric “sport” at the time Blank signed him to a 10-year, 130 million-dollar contract. It seems likely that he was also involved in other illegal or questionable activities, such as gambling and using marijuana. The contract offer was made not only on the basis of Vick’s on-field prowess but also based on Blank’s expectations of the kind of person and leader Vick would become. The very best spin we can possibly put on this is to say that Blank grossly misjudged.

Even evaluating Vick purely as a player, there is some question as to whether or not he was ever worth that kind of money. True, his thrilling runs had graced the Sportscenter highlight reel on several occasions and helped win some big games. He was even making strides as a passer. But that was under a coach who would soon be fired, in a system that would soon be scrapped. Since then, and long before the dog fighting allegations, many have questioned Vick’s ability to win consistently in the NFL as a run-first, throw-second quarterback.

Hiring Jim Mora. Putting your team in the hands of a 42-year-old who’s never been an NFL head coach is always risky, but at the time this seemed like a bold move. Mora was popular with the press and with fans and, for the most part, in the locker room. And he did reasonably well, going to the playoffs his first season and finishing his three year-stint with a winning record overall—one of only two Falcons coaches in history to accomplish that feat.

It’s also true that Mora basically talked his way out of a job, saying on a Seattle radio talk show for instance that the University of Washington was his “dream job.” Even so, if firing a coach after three years isn’t admission that you picked the wrong guy, what is?

Firing Jim Mora. Despite Mora’s public indiscretions and the fact that he couldn’t string together successive winning seasons—something no other Falcons coach has ever been able to do, either—he did, as noted, have a winning record. His offense schemes were largely successful, as the Birds led the league in rushing each of his three years, and he was immensely popular with certain players.

Most importantly, perhaps, Mora was still a very young man, with a great deal of maturing and growing into the job still to come. Given those factors, Blank probably should never have hired him to begin with. But once he was on board and doing reasonably well by Falcons standards, it didn’t make sense to cut him loose after three seasons.

Hiring Bobby Petrino. Clearly, as we all now know, this was the most disastrous decision of Blank’s tenure as owner—or perhaps the second-most disastrous, after the Vick contract. Call it a toss-up.

In hiring Petrino, Blank and McKay willfully ignored the fact that few college coaches ever succeed in the NFL. Most would conclude that there’s probably a reason for that. Blank thought he knew better than everybody else and that, with his legendary people skills, he could distinguish a Jimmy Johnson from a Nick Saban. Obviously, he was wrong.

Of course, Blank also ignored Petrino’s history of deceit and careerism, exemplified by his signing contract extensions with Louisville while actively courting other jobs. For the Falcons, that’s a little like marrying a woman who has cheated on a couple of former husbands. It takes an awe-inspiring ego to assume you won’t be the next cuckold.

Although he obviously had input from others, all five of these decisions were Blank’s to make, and it’s clear that he’s the one who made them. Taken together, they’ve led to the degradation and humiliation of this—well, I can’t really say “once-proud franchise,” because it’s never been that. But at least it seemed a few years ago to be moving in the right direction.

Now the kingdom is in shambles and the fault lies with the king. He was too credulous, too good-hearted to see the bad in others, too sure he understood their motives. Ultimately, he was used, abused, and betrayed by those he trusted most. And if that sounds a little like the plot of “Camelot,” the comparison is probably apt.

King Arthur, indeed.