The last time
Michael Vick(notes) lit up the Georgia Dome, Arthur Blank’s owner’s box was a dark and dejected place.
Vick, the
Atlanta Falcons’ former franchise quarterback and fallen star, returned to his old stomping grounds in December of 2009 as a member of the
Philadelphia Eagles. At the time, he was trying to salvage his career after 23 months of incarceration for his role in a dog-fighting scandal. The Eagles were crushing the Falcons 27-0 early in the fourth quarter, and Vick, who had already run for a third-quarter touchdown, replaced starter
Donovan McNabb(notes) to the delight of thousands of fans – many of them wearing replicas of Vick’s old Falcons jersey – who’d
been chanting his name.
In what Blank would come to view as a gratuitous gesture of disrespect by Philly coach Andy Reid, Vick wowed the crowd with a 43-yard pass to wideout
Reggie Brown(notes), followed by a 5-yard scoring toss to tight end
Brent Celek(notes), his
first touchdown pass since 2006 in an eventual 34-7 victory. With tens of thousands of frustrated customers already having bolted, the Dome was dominated by jubilant Vick supporters, and Blank could only sit and seethe.
Talk about a Blank stare.
Worst of all,
Matt Ryan(notes), the young quarterback drafted to succeed Vick, was equally powerless to respond. He was standing on the sidelines in civilian clothes, having been deactivated because of a turf toe injury.
Twenty-one long months later, Ryan is finally in position to restore order – and to reaffirm his owner’s immense faith in his abilities. When the
Dream Team returns to the Dome on Sunday night, with Vick now
large and in charge, many of those same fans will join a national television audience in recalling Blank’s nightmare.
The focus will be on Vick, a man in the midst of one of the more remarkable revivals the sports world has seen. I expect him to be his effective, electrifying self, and his teammates to feed off his energy.
The
real story, however, is Ryan. The time has come for Matty Ice to rise up and assert his manhood, and the best way to do that is to stare down the Ghost of Touchdown Celebrations Past.
I saw Steve Young go through this
against Joe Montana in 1994, and I was there when
Aaron Rodgers(notes) took on
Brett Favre(notes) on that
surreal day at Lambeau Field two years ago. In each case, the younger quarterback lost the game to his predecessor, but I believe the experiences helped steel Young and Rodgers for eventual Super Bowl glory.
So Ryan doesn’t necessarily have to win Sunday’s standoff, but he does have to summon a tough, cool, confident effort of which his owner, teammates and fans can be proud.
That said, it would
really, really be better for him if he could do both of those things, particularly the part about winning.
The evidence suggests that Ryan has it in him. My
man crush on Matty Ice is well-documented, and I know I’m not alone.
Installed as the starter immediately after the Falcons took him with the third overall pick in the 2008 NFL draft, Ryan was shockingly poised and proficient as a rookie, leading Atlanta to the playoffs in the process. After the team stumbled to a 9-7 record in ’09, Ryan elevated his game last season,
guiding the Falcons to a 13-3 record and earning his first Pro Bowl selection.
Despite all that, Ryan and the Falcons come into this game on a negative note. Their locker room is filled with exasperation, and their performance last Sunday should contain a whiff of desperation.
Like Ryan, the Falcons are a team trying to make the difficult jump from very good to elite. And Atlanta’s last two games have represented major setbacks for everyone concerned.
Ryan was hardly the sole reason the Falcons got pulverized by the Packers in the playoffs last January, but he didn’t play well in Atlanta’s 48-21 defeat at the Dome. His performance included three turnovers, including an ill-advised sideline pass just before halftime that Green Bay’s
Tramon Williams(notes) intercepted and returned 70 yards for a game-altering touchdown.
The Falcons entered this season as a trendy Super Bowl pick (though, to be fair, not as trendy as the Eagles), especially after general manager Thomas Dimitroff’s bold,
draft-day trade for talented wideout
Julio Jones(notes), a move designed to give Ryan another explosive option.
Though the Bears played in last season’s NFC championship game, Atlanta went into the season opener in Chicago as a favorite – and left as a beaten, bewildered team.
The Bears’ 30-12 triumph was the most lopsided regular-season defeat of Ryan’s tenure, and the quarterback had another rough outing, throwing an early interception to Chicago linebacker
Brian Urlacher(notes) that led to a Bears touchdown and later coughing up a fumble that Urlacher returned for a game-clinching score.
Not only would losing to the Eagles reverberate with symbolic ramifications, but it would also put the Falcons in a 0-2 hole in a highly competitive division. That’s why Ryan has to step up and bring his “A” game – and his teammates need to do their part by acing this test as well.
I would argue that Ryan’s teammates have even more of an obligation to step it up than he does. If Ryan’s the man who’ll lead them to the promised land, the best thing they can do for their young quarterback is to help him put Vick’s Falcons legacy to rest.
There may be some players on the Atlanta roster who enjoyed playing with Vick, like him as a person and/or are captivated by his comeback. That’s all good – but when the lights go down, it would behoove them to expend every ounce of energy in their beings to try to make his night as miserable as possible.
The Falcons’ internal tally counted 17 missed tackles against the Bears. On
Matt Forte’s(notes) 56-yard catch-and-run for a touchdown, he bounced off a shoulder shot from linebacker
Sean Weatherspoon(notes), causing coach Mike Smith to throw a sideline tantrum. Later,
Devin Hester(notes) caught a screen pass and raced to a 53-yard gain on which cornerback
Dunta Robinson(notes) slipped and safety
William Moore(notes) and linebacker
Curtis Lofton(notes) took bad angles.
The defense has to get it together.
Everyone had better be better. What’s best for Ryan is what’s best for the Falcons, and this is a moment he needs to seize.
Ryan, a native of nearby Exton, Pa., absorbed a 31-17 thrashing from
Kevin Kolb(notes) and the Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field with Vick sidelined by a rib injury last October.
The aura of invincibility Ryan once enjoyed at home has been compromised: After winning 19 of his first 20 starts at the Georgia Dome, the quarterback has lost two of his last three.
Now he faces a quarterback who remains oddly revered by a not-insignificant sector of his former fan base, even as Vick publicly tries to downplay any lingering connection.
“No, that’s not my house,” Vick told Atlanta reporters earlier this week, in reference to the Georgia Dome. “That’s Matt Ryan’s house. I’m just a visitor.”
The last time Vick visited, he trotted off the field with both arms raised, blowing kisses in all directions, as thousands of fans chanted his name. I can only imagine how nauseated Blank was by such a scene.
Blank, the man who anointed Vick as the face of the franchise, paid him handsomely and enabled his excesses – even pushing the injured quarterback around the Georgia Dome turf in a wheelchair before a game, causing some of the owner’s peers to cringe at the indignity – doesn’t want to see
that guy celebrated by his paying customers.
Reid’s decision to showcase Vick in that setting still strikes me as curious. Imagine if the Cowboys, just after signing
Terrell Owens(notes), had gone into Philly and made a point of getting the reviled receiver a garbage-time touchdown in a triumphant return to The Linc. I’m fairly certain that wouldn’t have gone over well, and I’m confident Blank would agree with that analogy.
I believe Blank sincerely likes Vick and appreciates the quarterback’s efforts to turn his life around, but given
Vick’s subsequent admissions that his dedication was lacking during his time in Atlanta – that he was “lazy” – how can the guy who was shelling out millions not feel burned?
Put another way: If anyone in a Falcons uniform doesn’t believe this game is personal, he should understand that it is
very personal for the man who signs the checks.
For that reason alone, I expect everyone on the home team to do everything in his power to ensure that by the end of Sunday night’s game, Arthur Blank’s house is, indisputably, Matt Ryan’s house.
The time has come for the Falcons to slam the door on the dude who used to live there, or at least die trying.
