LT’s 2011 Final Football Thoughts and Then Some

Opinion, Team FYN Sports

The Super Bowl has come and gone, Eli “More Rings” Manning, beat Tom “Marsha” Brady and Bill Belicheat to claim the fourth super bowl for the New Jersey Giants. “Slick” Saban beat “Time” Les Miles for the SEC’s sixth straight Bull Crap System National Championship. The Super Bowl is always bittersweet for me, because on one hand it’s the biggest game, and on the other it means FOOTBALL IS OVER.Well the season never ends for a true football fanatic, the draft is right around the corner and so is free agency. So it is with those thoughts in mind that I turn to my beloved Falcons and our needs this off season. Number one is the offensive line, I’m tired of watching Michael Turner getting tackled by linemen and hit in the backfield. I also would greatly appreciate not seeing Matt Ryan running for his life like some kind of prison escapee. O-Line will most likely be addressed in the draft, of course not in the first round due to the Julio Jones trade.

The number two need is a massive defensive upgrade, which brings me to free agency, which is where I think the Falcons will most likely need to address this. Former number one pick, Mario Williams of the Houston Texans is a free agent and so is Osi from the Super Bowl champs. I wouldn’t mind seeing either of those guys doing “The Dirty Bird.”

As far as the Falcons own free agents are concerned. Out of the 17 we have, we need to keep three. Brent “Optimist” Grimes, Curtis “The 5.0” Lofton, and John “The Predator” Abraham, in that order. Grimey is one of the best corners in the league, ask Calvin, who I refuse to call “Megatron,” Johnson. Lofton is the heart and sole of the defense, a stout run defender and okay in pass coverage. Hopefully Mike Nolan will actually blitz some and go with some man coverage to help the coverage.

On a side note, at the time of this writing rumors abound that the Falcons are hedging bets at the middle linebacker position with former F.U.F. star and Miami Dolphin, Channing Crowder. To this I say please no, Mr. Dimitrov, we don’t need Channing Crowder arresting our development. Resign Lofton and Grimey, and if Abraham is not trying to break the bank, him too.

Normally I look forward to the draft like a kid on Christmas; however, this year without a first round pick for my “Dirty Birds” I will be holding my excitement until day too, when hopefully we get an offensive lineman.

With football being on the back burner, I have been able to turn my attentions to by beloved Atlanta Hawks, who despite starting the season 16-6, have lost three straight, none of which were close. Before the injury to All-Star center, Al Holford, I thought that my Hawks might be on the verge of something special. It looked as though the guys were finally playing to their potential. Josh Smith stayed inside the three point, Jeff Teague was leading the team, and the defense was tenacious. Now I see the same team I’ve seen the last few years, and I just don’t know.

It befuddles me to no end. In this lock-out shortened season, I thought we had a chance to sneak up and take the East’s number one seed, forcing a second round match up with Boston, a team we match up well against, and despise, as well as the Bulls and Heat to square off in the second round. Now I have to resign myself to the likelihood that, to paraphrase Dennis Green, “we are who we thought we were.”

One last thought, to Rob Barker and all those national pundits who constantly crap on Atlanta sports fans, because this is a family site I can’t actually paraphrase the great Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and tell you to “shine your opinion up real nice, turn that son that son of a (gun) sideways and (place it in your candy posterior);” I would like to offer a challenge, and ask some questions.

To all those who say Atlanta is such a bad sports town, I challenge you to find an empty sports bar on any Saturday in the fall. I won’t even ask yall, yes I said yall, to find a sports bar for a random college team, because that would simply be too easy.

I would like to ask, why are we given such a bad rap, for not supporting our pro teams like LA, NY, and Boston. Yes we lost two hockey teams, but it’s not our fault that in a southern city a hockey team, that never won a playoff game run by bunch of morons, lost the fans’ support; plus LA LOST TWO NFL TEAMS!!! How is that even possible?

In NY, Tom Coughlin was on the hot seat two months ago despite just having won a championship four years ago. Boston ran out the architects of two World Series Championships, after almost a century of futility, and NY ran out a Joe Torre, who won four World Series. So tell me again why these sports fans so great.

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