Tag Archives: falcons

Beyond the Archives: How Big Government Cost Southern Conservatives a Super Bowl Win

Posted on by
Reply

Next up in our coverage of Super Bowl XLVII, we go outside the ALDLAND Archives for another memory of championship plans gone awry, the last of our unadvised foray into the nexus of football and politics. – Ed.

_________________________________________________________________

It was the waning days of the Clinton administration. Deep in the swingingest of swing states– the very and only one that determined the outcome of the election to name the President’s successor– a team of Southern footballers prepared to play for a championship. If they won, it would be their first. The squad’s “moral and spiritual leader” was a man named E. K. Robinson, a defender against offensive social values and offensive passing attacks. The day before the Super Bowl, Robinson received the Bart Starr Award “for high moral character.”

He celebrated receipt of that award and sought to prepare himself for the next day’s game according to his own, privately determined preparatory plan. A leader of the team all season long, he neither sought nor required governmental oversight in the execution of his preparation. He received it anyway, though, and as often is the case with government intrusion into individuals’ private lives, the results were disastrous.

Specifically, the government infringed upon Robinson’s attempt to contract privately with another individual in order to further his physical preparation. Before he knew it, it was 3:00 am (the very day of the championship tilt), and Robinson was under arrest.

Although he was released from custody later that morning and allowed to play in the game, the damage from the government’s regulation was done. Robinson was tired and distracted, and his teammates were rattled. From the People’s History:

[W]ithout much sleep the night before due to the  [aforementioned invasion of privacy], Robinson gave up an 80-yard touchdown reception to Broncos receiver Rod Smith, giving the Broncos a 17-3 lead over the Falcons. Later, in the fourth quarter, he missed a tackle on Denver running back Terrell Davis that enabled Davis to break a long run to the Atlanta 10-yard line. The Atlanta Falcons ended up losing the game 34-19.

As the San Francisco Chronicle remembers, “The lopsided loss might have happened anyway . . . but the pregame distraction clearly rattled them.”

We’ll never know for sure, though, a fact that illustrates that the externalities of Big Government’s invasion of the private life of even one citizen truly constitutes an invasion of the private lives of every citizen.

_________________________________________________________________

Related Super Bowl Coverage
Super Bowl Politicking
ALDLAND Archives: Breaking Up is Hard to Do
ALDLAND Archives: Why I Hate Harbaugh

One last note on the NFC championship game: What do we do with a Matt Ryan?

Posted on by
Reply

Despite fielding a squad of ninjas, the Atlanta Falcons were unable to overcome their own multi-touchdown lead and beat the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. It’s tough to pin the loss on any one thing– a game-ending injury to Michael Turner, a weak Falcon secondary, the fact that postgame stabbings don’t count for points on the scoreboard– and web-based Atlantans are having a hard time processing the loss. (Witness Atlanta’s young bloggeratti with differing approaches to an equivalent result here and here.)

Which means its up to cold, calculating Bill Barnwell to provide answers, and he wrote about Matt Ryan the only thing that one could write about Matt Ryan.

Onto Super Bowl coverage…

NFC Champtionship notes

Posted on by
Reply

The San Francisco 49ers meet the Atlanta Falcons this afternoon in the Georgia Dome to play for the opportunity to go to the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Hidden between the media’s heavy stereotyping of this matchup are a few nice preview pieces that actually track pretty well those for last week‘s game, as well as my prediction for this afternoon’s outcome:    Keep reading…

Stereotyping the NFC Championship Game

Posted on by
2

kaeprnick si coverThe San Francisco 49ers are back in the NFC Championship Game again this year, where they’ll be facing the Atlanta Falcons instead of the New York Giants, and they’ll be doing it with young go-hard Colin Kaepernick instead of old can’t-catch-a-break Alex Smith at quarterback. How is the media treating this meeting between Bay Area bohemians and members of Black Hollywood‘s elite crew?

By rushing to stereotypes, of course.

We go first to Atlanta, where you just know those FalCONS are up to no good. How did they get that way? Atlanta “like[s] players with high ‘FBI’ scores.” Because they’re criminals, you see. At least that’s what that Atlanta Journal-Constitution headline writer would make you click a link to a game-week puff piece on “football intelligence,” which no reasonable person abbreviates as “FBI.”

Let’s head out to Cali, shall we? See what’s pulled those hemp-farmers away from their crystal collections and communal energy vortex long enough to turn them into probably the best team in the NFL this season? What’s their secret? Yoga, of course! And a copy of the Dhammapada– or at least an old yearbook clipping– in every locker.

If playing to the lowest common social denominator isn’t lazy enough for you, how about a tried-and-true sports cliche? We again turn to the Falcons’ hometown paper, where we now find the Durrty Burds’ fans-of-letters grasping at straws, or other print publications, as it were. Knowing that the top seed is outmatched at home on Sunday, they’re putting their eggs in the SI Cover Curse basket, and at this point, why not? Unless it can make Kaepernick and Frank Gore disappear the way it did to the alleged girlfriend of Manti Te’o, though, I think the Falcons are going to be in a bad tangle Sunday.

Super Bowl XLVII, brought to you by the AARP?

Posted on by
4

The NFL playoffs is down to its final four teams, and by Sunday night, we’ll know whether Baltimore or New England will be facing Atlanta or San Francisco in the Super Bowl in New Orleans.

lewis-gonzalez-moss

These playoffs have been a Rusty’s Last Call ride for Ray Lewis, whose Ravens somewhat improbably have advanced to the AFC championship game. While their opponent, the Patriots, is a perennial postseason favorite, the Ravens (and not, any longer, the Seahawks) are the hot team of this postseason, and it’s becoming difficult to bet against them– ESPN certainly isn’t. Lewis’ last dance may come Saturday. If not, it will come on Super Bowl Sunday.

If it does, Lewis will share the setting sun’s spotlight with one other notable retiree. If the NFC championship game goes according to the seeding, it will be longtime Chief and current Falcon Tony Gonzalez. The tight end, probably best known for popularizing the crossbar dunk TD celebration, says he’s 95% certain he’ll retire after this season, and while his final act has received markedly less than the gyrating, bionic-armed one of Lewis, the attention he has received has taken care to note just how impressive of a career he’s had.

If the NFC championship game follows the hot hand, as it sure seems like it may, Lewis’ possibly outgoing opponent will one whose superstardom has long since burned low. Randy Moss’ days as the league’s most dominant wide receiver are long gone. His days as an albatross– i.e., his days in Oakland and Nashville– seem to be in the past as well. He’s retired once, and he’s rapidly approaching the end of his one-year contract with San Francisco. There hasn’t been any retirement discussion from Moss (this ambiguous retweet aside), or really much discussion of him in the media at all. Moss’ numbers are way down from his peak-production years, though they’re up over his recent disaster years. It’s tough to know whether the 49ers or Moss will want to sign a new contract for next year– he started only two games this year, the fewest of any season in his career– or if this is it. The only sure bet looks to be that, if this Sunday or Super Bowl Sunday really is Moss’ last game, he’ll treat it a little differently than Lewis will handle his.

Environmentally Friendly Birds vs. Dirty Birds: A few words

Posted on by
1

Big Boi is a tough act to follow, but here goes. The Seattle Seahawks meet the Atlanta Falcons in the Georgia Dome today at 1:00. There are a couple things you should read before then:

[This space for rent]

Posted on by
4

News last week was that, by 2017, the Atlanta Falcons will have a new home and the Georgia Dome, losing its chief tenant, is set to be demolished. The future location of other events to which the Georgia Dome plays host, including the Georgia high school football championships, the SEC football championship, and, this year, the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four, is unknown. While I’ve always thought it looked a little dark in the dome when I saw it on tv, it isn’t like it’s raining in there like it was during the Silverdome’s end days.

While many of the details remain yet to be decided or announced, one thing seems certain: the Falcons’ new home will bear the name of a corporate sponsor. Currently, ten of the league’s thirty-one stadiums do not have a named corporate sponsor. If nothing else, these names are cumbersome to say, and while local residents likely would prefer putting up with these sterile tongue-twisters in exchange for having to commit public funds to the venues’ construction and maintenance, most fans probably bristle at the concept from some old, undefined corner of the fan gut. Sometimes a stomachable compromise is available; in this case, the “Coca Cola Coliseum ” the “Delta Dome,” or the “Georgia Pacific Arena” each might keep things feeling local, but a move to a title corporate sponsor will always feel like something has been lost.

Google Image Search indicates that this is a rendering of Atlanta’s new NFL stadium. A fan can only hope that the discount the owners secured by purchasing the structure used from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Committee will obviate the need to secure a naming sponsor.

FrankenMonday Update

Posted on by
Reply

http://twitter.com/celebrityhottub/status/261813533640118274

Nothing is weather until it’s New York City weather, which means that, as of sometime today, we have ourselves some weather. Somehow unsurprisingly, the indomitable Clay Travis has himself a man on the scene, reporting live from the south shore of Long Island. Somewhat surprisingly, there has been a dearth of Point Break references being made, so that’s something we collectively need to work on. And while the Frankenstorm/Hurricane Sandy caused the main presidential candidates to take a break from the campaign trail, it didn’t stop sports this weekend.

Saturday was a tumultuous day in college football’s top 25, with undefeateds Ohio and Mississippi State taking their first losses of the season, Wisconsin losing to Michigan State in overtime, Oregon State losing to Washington, Florida losing to Georgia, USC losing to Arizona, Rutgers losing to Kent State, and Michigan losing to Nebraska. Although not technically an upset, Notre Dame surprised most people outside of South Bend by beating Oklahoma in convincing fashion. The Georgia win is significant because it dashes the order that was starting to distill in the highly competitive SEC East. The Arizona win is significant because 1) aren’t they really bad??, and 2) it weakens Oregon’s strength of schedule, because the Ducks were relying on a win against USC to buoy their BCS ranking that continues to fall despite an unbroken series of mathematically mind-boggling wins.

In the NFL, the Lions beat the Seahawks by scoring touchdowns in both halves of the game, and even daring to take a lead in the first half. The Falcons preserved their position as the NFL’s only undefeated team by beating the Eagles, a team where the only constant now seems to be the walrusness of Andy Reid’s mustache. (Reid fired his good friend and defensive coordinator Juan Castillo during Philadelphia’s bye week last week, and after yesterday’s game, Michael Vick said that Reid was contemplating a change at quarterback.) In a real accordion-style game, the Giants went up 23-0 on the Cowboys, then went down 24-23, before coming from behind in some technical sense to beat Dallas, 29-24. Andrew Luck led the Colts to an overtime victory against the Titans, the Broncos beat the listless Saints by twenty, and the Bears survived a scare from the visiting Panthers, beating Carolina by one.

Finally, the sad World Series came to an end last night when the Giants beat the Tigers 4-3 in the tenth inning of game four. It’s San Francisco’s second championship in three years. More on that later in the week.

Narrow Margin Monday, take 2

Posted on by
1

We find ourselves late on a Monday after another weekend of close games. On Saturday, woefully underachieving Michigan State lost in overtime to Iowa as a result of what one local radio host called the worst coaching he had ever seen in his life, and the man is neither young nor inexperienced in the field. In a real upset, LSU threw a monkey wrench in the SEC East race and beat South Carolina 23-21, Kansas State escaped Ames with a 27-21 win over Iowa State, Notre Dame beat Stanford 20-13 in overtime, and Texas A&M squeaked by Louisiana Tech 59-57. Even the Florida-Vanderbilt game was close into the fourth quarter before the Gators and their quarterback ran away with it. More on that game later this week.

Saturday had its share of blowouts, naturally, and the notable ones included Alabama’s 42-10 win at Missouri, which remains winless in its new conference, Texas Tech’s 49-14 embarrassment of one-time national championship contender West Virginia, still-undefeated Oregon State’s 42-24 win over BYU, and Michigan’s 45-0 muddy execution of Illinois on Wolverine homecoming. Michigan hosts Michigan State in another ALDLAND outing, more on which toward the end of the week.

The NFL had its share of close contests too, including the Lions’ overtime win over hapless Philadelphia, Buffalo’s 19-16 overtime win over Arizona, whose kicker hit a 61-yarder to tie the game but subsequently missed a 30-something yard kick to win the game in the final seconds, the Seahawks 24-23 win over New England, Atlanta’s come-from-behind win over Oakland to become the league’s final undefeated team, Miami’s 17-14 victory over the Rams, and Baltimore’s 31-29 capitalization on the Dallas (ongoing) Disaster. Baltimore payed a long-term price for its win, though, sacrificing defenders Ray Lewis and Ladarius Webb at last to the football devil (no, not the commissioner– separate office) in payment for their past defensive successes. Lewis and Webb are out for the season. Other high-flying teams went down in spectacular fashion on Sunday, including San Francisco, 26-3 at the hands of the Giants, and Houston, 42-24 to Green Bay on Sunday night.

In off-field NFL news, Jonathan Vilma, the embattled New Orleans Saint, reportedly will be allowed to play as soon as this weekend, although it isn’t clear if he will. Vilma continues to maintain a defamation suit against Roger Goodell.

In baseball, the final four is set and in motion. Detroit seized a 2-0 lead over the Yankees as the series heads to Detroit with AL strikeout kings Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer yet to pitch for the Tigers. The other road team, St. Louis, has a 1-0 lead in the NLCS battle of the two most recent defending World Series champions, though the Cardinals are down 5-1 in the fourth as I write this.