A 2010 Falcons Retrospective: A Tough Loss To The Steelers

a low scoring game but one of the most exciting of the past season. I thought the birds should have won that game. I also looked at that game and said if the Falcons should meet the Steelers in the SB they would know that they have a good chance to win.

The last 3-4 games with the Steelers have all been very exciting to me and 2 or 3 of them going into overtime, always exciting to watch.

I live about two hours from Pitts. My cousin is somewhere in the chain of Falcons higher-ups, thus I was the guy running around giving the in-between-plays pictures that are printed after every series. Basically the Falcons (and all other teams) take two pictures on every play. One before the snap (to see what formation the opponent is showing) and one after the snap (to show what formation the opponent is really playing). They get printed out on a giant system located on the sidelines (all this equipment BTW is hauled to away games). My job was to take said pictures and staple them two to a page, and hand that to the corresponding coaches (IE: Def Cord, ST Cord, OF Line coach, ect..) in between series. Its a lot of work just keeping track of where the coaches are, much less getting all pictures correctly stapled and not getting run over by the giant camera that rolls around the sidelines.

I did not get to see the game, got yelled at a bunch by the coaches for being slow (although I was told after the game I did very well for my first time), and got to be in the huddle so to speak while players were on the sidelines discussing things from the last series.

A few things:

1) I don’t think anyone has any idea how much work is put in to producing a show like an NFL game. I’m talking about the “little guys” not the GM, coaches, refs and such. A lot goes on behind the scene that is never shown on TV or anywhere in the media.

2) If you think these guys are big in the NFL, you have no idea how big they really are. I mean they are huge (well except Weems and Grimes).

3) Matt Ryan gets really fired up. I mean really. He yells more than the coaches, and that is saying something.

4) Most of the players are very very nice. I mean just after a score, a few of the Def players were a little pissed, and came running off the field and basically ran me over. Almost all of them (Grimes, and Abe for sure, I couldn’t see the rest for being on my a$$ in pain) took the time away from their pity party to make sure I was OK; which you might not expect from rich professional athletes in a big game that just made a mistake and gave up a TD. That IMHO says a lot about the character that has been built on our favorite franchise. I doubt some teams athletes could give a shit less about a dude on the sidelines under game circumstances.

5) Paul Boudreau can be a real dick when he’s coaching. After getting yelled at a few times for crap that really wasn’t my fault, the un-uniformed Garrett Reynolds came over and told me his coach is an a$$ sometimes and just give the book to him and he’d take care of it (another example of good-quality individuals on this team).

6) Aurthur Blank is as nice a guy as he is said to be. He came over and shook my hand before the game, and thanked me for being a fan. What millionaire do you know that would do that? I mean really, i don’t know any millionaires to compare him too, but it has to be a small amount that could give a crap less about a normal dude.

like I said I didn’t get to watch the game, but I knew it was bad cause of all the cheering. lol.

the weaknesses in the O. Against really good D’s ATL’s offense struggled, both in rushing and passing. The O was too predictable on first down and the passing game was too short. Also, RW did not have any help because MJ was hurt.

Other than the long run given up late, the D played more than well enough to win this game.

If we would have had JJ then we wouldn’t have stalled?

Best part was that after the game, the Falcons message board was full of “we suck” threads. Headed over to the Steelers board…and it was filled with “we suck” threads.