So this is what a black hole looks like huh? Even though the Hawks and Thrashers are both well in the middle of their respective play-off pictures the losses Saturday night felt like they had bigger meaning, they hurt slightly worse than the other 20-30 losses they will pick up this year. It didn’t help that the Thrashers lost their fourth straight and had to stare at Kari Lehtonen holding them to one goal in the process, for the Hawks it didn’t help that after winning 10 straight at Phillips they laid an egg against an ailing Rockets team in a game that, until the last two minutes, they could so easily have one. For the teams that inhabit the birds nest that is Phillips Arena it wasn’t any worse than any other bad day but, like the very real shadow cast by the Georgia Dome over downtown Atlanta, the Falcons cast the metaphorical shadow over the Atlanta sports landscape with one of the most embarrassing play-off capitulations in recent memory.
Of course it’s not particularly fun to write about, read about or watch and, unless anybody out there wants to offer to pay me to write about it, I’m just gonna try and manoeuvre around the falcon shaped elephant in the room. The performance of the team was about as bad as it could have been and, having avoided all benefits of the 21st century on Sunday in order to create an organic game day atmosphere, could not have pissed me off anymore than it did. Games like that created alcoholism. Anyway whilst the Falcons flopped the fans inside the Dome did the city of Atlanta. The city has been hammered for being a city of transplants, for lacking a sporting identity and, most seriously, of fans simply not caring. The Braves did a pretty good job of rebuffing those accusations with the ‘Bobby Cox weekend’ and the following play-off series, even the Thrashers have done a pretty good job of filling seats on a couple of occasions, but the Falcons fans on Saturday night proved that Atlanta fans have heart and will do anything for their teams. The two marketing efforts have the Falcons have run with this year have been the ‘Rise Up’ campaign and, more recently, the ‘Project 115’. Having gone to 111.4 decibels in Week 10 against the Ravens, in the week leading up to the Packers play-off game the organisation challenged Falcons fans to raise that noise level to 115 decibels, the significance of 115 being the date of the game 1/15, clever huh? Well the fans came through when the players couldn’t, the Dome reached 117.8 decibels when the Brent Grimes recovered Greg Jennings fumble in the first quarter of play. This was the second highest recorded noise level in the Dome since reaching 117.9 on October 12th, 2008 against the Chicago Bears. Oh yeah Matt Ryan threw 2 interceptions and had a rating of 69.0, Michael Turner rushed for 39 yards on 10 carries and defence gave up nearly 50 points “defending the Dome”. How was that in depth recap for y’all?
Two little odds and ends to finish a pretty depressing Monday post. Firstly did anyone notice the irony of the logo on Green Bay’s putting a whipping on the Falcons? This is the same ‘Power-G’ that the Packers have shared with none other than the Georgia Bulldogs since the 1960’s. Maybe next time it will be the Dawgs scoring 48 points in the Dome.
Secondly I just finished my applications for Grad school and just wanted to see where everyone thought the best landing spot would be. I applied to the Universities of Georgia and Alabama and also Georgia State University. Where do you guys think would be best Atlanta, Athens or Tuscaloosa?
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