Atlanta Falcons Season Preview 2013: Offense

The Atlanta Falcons enter this season with high expectations. Coming a half short of a Super Bowl trip, the Dirty Birds are poised to take the next step with a revamped secondary and a new running back to get those tough yards.

Matt Ryan played extremely well last season and with all due respect, he should have. Weapons like Roddy White, Tony Gonzalez and the explosive Julio Jones, its no wonder why the Falcons were in the top half in the league in passing and points scored.

The inability to get the short yards is what ultimately did the Falcons offense in. Third and short, or goal line situations were return to sender. Jaquizz Rodgers not having enough punch and an out of gad Micheal Turner kept the Falcons from moving the ball and burning out the clock with a lead.  They have signed a replacement for Micheal Turner in Steven Jackson who is a strong power back with some left in the tank and should be able to grind out the yards that Turner left on the field. He is also a great blocker and a very good receiver out of the back field.

The OLine took a hit when we released veteran T Tyson Clabo. The injury to T Mike Johnson puts us in a dire situation upfront which could impact the running game and more importantly the timing and health of newly resigned QB Matt Ryan.

All, in all, the Falcons look to air it out early and often and i'm sure SJAX will get a ton of carries especially in short yardage and to milk the clock. Closing out games in the playoffs was ugly, we got lucky against Seattle and blew it against the Niners.

New Beginings

  My relationship of more than seven years ended two months ago.

I don't know why that sentence was hard to write but there it is.  Roller coaster wouldn't give it justice but we certainly had our ups and downs. I want to say that i regret nothing because everything happens for a reason but i will say there are a lot of things i wish i did different and things i wish she did different.

Here i sit on the computer on her birthday as she celebrates, i also celebrate. I celebrate new beginnings. I celebrate every new day i spend with my girls, i celebrate the new challenges that will surely be placed in my path and i celebrate whatever comes my way because things that come to end signal another to begin and I await what's in store for me.

Knicks Season in review

The Knicks had a very good season. A season i think most would agree was surprising especially the torrid start. Jason Kidd was gelling and create for the Knicks, Felton was back to the Felton of old and even Rasheed Wallace was giving the Knicks some good minutes and some toughness.  

If you would tell me in the preseason the Knicks would finish with the second seed in the east and win 54 games i would have called you crazy. I expected mid 40s and maybe fighting for 4-6 seeds. I wonder if that makes me a pessimistic fan or a realistic one.  How ever you deem the Knicks season the playoffs is where teams really show what they are made of and we folded like a WWE chair :/  Melo played as hard as he could with the help he got, which is to say not much at all. JR Smith is still missing, Felton was stunted and our shooting was nerfed. I won't even mention Jason Kidd's funk which i believe has forced him into retirement. 

The Pacers played great. They played strong, fast and decisive. I don't want to take anything away from them especially the play of Roy Hibbert and Lance Stephenson. The Knicks had no answer and the Pacer shooters made their shots. The Knicks played good to great defense but we just couldn't score. JR didn't get going, Amar'e just couldnt get a roll going due to his limited minutes, Kidd was horrible and Novak didn't even play. The Knicks best players were Prigioni, Melo and Chris Copeland. Tyson Chandler was just abused. 

I hope we can draft well and hope that Kidd retires, Amar'e comes back full strength and Melo comes back healthy. We got close, but we could have played a whole lot better!