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3 months ago: Atlanta Falcons' head coach Mike Smith watches as his team practices during NFL football training camp in Flowery Branch, Ga., Saturday, Aug. 1, 2009 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

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Now that the fine has been handed down, please go here if you're so inclined. This fund, set up and run by Falcons fans, is a symbolic gesture in support of Mike Smith and is set to go toward a charitable foundation, though one has not yet been selected.

Buckle up.

Today, the NFL announced that our coach is being fined $15,000. That's twice as much as Albert Haynesworth was fined, bizarrely, for coming to the aid of one DeAngelo Hall. You may remember Hall as the guy who talked himself out of Atlanta despite his talent and the guy who slammed the Falcons throughout the week leading up to the game. The fine is also three times as much as LaRon Landry, whose late hit on Ryan wasn't all that egregious to begin with.

Guess who didn't get a fine? If you said DeAngelo *&@#$ing Hall, you would be correct.

This is absolute garbage. I kind of expected Smith to be fined, and it's clear that as awesome as his player protection skills are, he overstepped his bounds on Sunday. A group of fans are raising money which will go to the charity of Smith's choice and as a gesture for him, which I support. If a charity can benefit, at least something good comes out of this. I know he came in with a shove, but Haynesworth's fine seems excessive to me given that he was trying to bail out a guy who had gotten himself in way over his head. More to the point, it seems excessive because Hall made it out smelling like a loud, contact-avoiding rose.

Watch this again. Hall goes over to the sideline to get Landry out, supposedly, and yet Landry and Matt Ryan take off on their own accord. Your view on what happens next may vary, but Hall supporters would say he's held there against his will by an ever-growing group of Falcons, while those who either do not like Hall or are familiar with his history suspect he's getting into a trash-talking streak with the Falcons. At more than one point, it looks like Smith may have swung at Hall, tried to get his arm free, or tested the tensile strength of his helmet. At another point, it looks like Hall might be gearing up for a swing or trying to get his arm free.

UPDATE: Director of Athletic Performance Jeff Fish fined $2,500, according to Adam Schefter.

My point is, it's not extremely clear what happened on that sideline. A reasonable person could argue that Smith was a villain, Hall was a villain or they both were at fault. Occam's Razor states, roughly, that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Thus anyone in the league office assigned to review this fracas and come up with a fair decision probably should have decided on the simplest expanation: DeAngelo Hall should not have been on the sideline stirring up crap as he is wont to do, and Mike Smith should have defused the situation and not contributed to it. That brings down fines for both parties, and whether there's a difference in how much Smith gets and Hall gets or not, at least it recognizes that this kind of incident does not happen in a vacuum.

Instead, the league has chosen to go a route that creates its own Occam's Razor, by making everyone involved but DeAngelo Hall a bad guy. I would have preferred that Haynesworth got little to no fine and that some of that had headed Hall's way, but there's no chance that'll happen now. The only bright spot in this is that Hall is left to wonder why his teammates took so long to come to his rescue, something I doubt the majority of Falcons fans have to think very long and hard about.

Your thoughts?

Let's face it, gentlemen. Michael Vick is going to be released.

As noted by tom slick, who took a break from racing blimps to come inform us of the news, the Falcons are the Falcons are shopping Vick. The problem is that nobody is biting, with the Bucs and Lions among the teams who have already gone way out of their way to disavow any interest in the former Falcon quarterback. You may say to me, "Dave, put down your bottle. Those are only two teams." Guess what? Nobody's going to bite on this.

If you're a team that could use a dynamic playmaker, perhaps in the suddenly popular Wildcat formation, you may be tempted to make a play for Vick. Then again, if you're also aware that the Falcons are almost guaranteed to release him at some point in the future, you're not going to be stupid enough to give away decent draft picks for that guy. Our only hope is that the Raiders or the Redskins, who have two of the most trigger-happy owners in sports, decide it is worth it to throw some conditional picks at us.

I'd be very happy if we managed to get his contract off the books and actually get something in return, especially considering it wasn't that long ago that he was playing the torpedo to our battleship. It's not a fun problem to have, and I guess we have to hope that someone will want to roll the dice on a guy who mixes incredible potential with equally incredible off-the-field troubles. I'm pretty convinced the Falcons will release Vick before we ever get something for him, though.

Thoughts?

I'm ready to put this on the side of a milk carton:

Credit: Getty Images

I ask because I cannot believe--cannot!--that the three guys Mike Smith has competing for the nickel job are Chevis Jackson, Antoine Harris and Blue Adams. Jackson is a totally legitimate choice for the position, and I'm obviously rooting for the new draft pick to do well. But the other two? Let's check out the AJC here:

Harris played in 13 games last season, mostly on special teams.

Adams, a five-year veteran, was signed on Saturday. He played in 13 games last season for Cincinnati.

Antoine Harris is exactly as he's described: a capable special teamer. I'm frankly surprised he made it all the way to training camp, but whatever. Blue Adams has a great name but was just cut by the Bengals and wasn't expected to catch on anywhere; the Falcons snapped him up days later and suddenly he's in the running to be our third cornerback. That's terrific. Good for them.

But where in the name of Chris Miller's successful Tecmo Super Bowl career is David Irons?!

I ask because Irons seemed to have a legitimate shot at the nickel job this year at the end of last season. He did well on special teams, performed capably on the field when he got there and just generally looked like a hell of a lot better of a bet than Antoine Freakin' Harris. After the draft and Von Hutchins came about, it seemed like he might get buried. Now he's so far down the depth chart that he's not even competing for the nickel spot against the likes of Harris and Adams. Hell, where is Wilrey Fontenot? Why is undrafted corner Glenn Sharp suddenly signed as well?

This can only spell doom for David Irons in Atlanta. Frankly, if the Falcoholic favorite isn't even going to get a fair shot at nickel back, what's he doing on the roster? Surely the team could just cut him and pick up a veteran to anchor the back end of the cornerbacking corps, couldn't they? At least then they'd have leadership instead of a young guy rotting on the bench.

If I sound a little angry about this, it's because I haven't heard word one from the team or any other outlet as to why Irons seems to have fallen so far down the depth chart. I really thought he had a good chance of providing value somewhere in the rotation, and it's inconceivable to me that he's falling behind special teamers and freshly signed former Bengal special teamers who were known for committing fouls. Clearly, he's not fitting into the team's new philosophy. 

What do you guys think? Is David Irons out of the rotation entirely, or am I overreacting about a camp battle?

Delightful article by Tony Barnhart over at the AJC, wherein Bobby Petrino whines about how tough it was to abandon a team that he got paid millions of dollars to run into the ground. I have such sympathy for him, too.

I think the best of the entire article is this:

Petrino did leave room for a little humor before he left. One media member suggested that his Falcons experience was like a bad dream sequence from a television show like "Dallas."

"That's not the show I thought of," Petrino said. "Did you ever see the movie 'Misery?' "

I brought this article with me tonight only because it illustrates how completely socially inept our former coach truly is. He just doesn't get that dashing back to college after less than a full season in the NFL was a monstrous betrayal to the franchise, his players and the fans, to say nothing of the stupid typewritten note he left behind.

We bloggers are often accused of overreacting to moves made by those in the big leagues, but let no man tell me Petrino doesn't deserve every harsh word he gets. I hope the people of Arkansas never have to see the same side to him that we did.

In the world of the National Football League, there are times you win in the long haul by not winning right away. Some of the greatest players of all time had a little time to sit, absorb the teachings of those older and wiser and then break the doors down with a competent team around them. History--and the rigors of the league--have not been kind to those who are thrown to the lions.

Yet according to the NFL Network's Adam Schefter, the Falcons have not learned from the grievous afflictions of the past. If Schefter is to be believed, the Falcons aspire to have Ryan starting the first week of the season. This, mind you, comes long before Ryan has had a chance to prove anything on the field. Signing someone to a huge contract and then feeling obligated to start them because of that contract is the hallmark of bad team management, and is exactly the opposite of what should've been done. If need be, the Falcons should've waited to hammer out something slightly less costly and should not even be considering starting Matt Ryan at the beginning of the season.

The performance of Ryan aside, what good will it do this team to trot him out there? With the line constructed the way it is now, the chances of him making it through the season without get his brain rattled and basically nil. And with the defense the Falcons will likely be trotting out there, he should have plenty of opportunities to get out there and get destroyed. While I can talk myself into believing that Ryan will be a good quarterback in this league with time, I cannot reach into the vast abyss of logic and pull out anything to support this move. It's completely and totally indefensible.

Compounding the problem is the fact that this could turn a training camp battle into a complete formality, alienating Joey Joe Joe and Redman. I'm pretty sure Joey's not going to want to stick around to be a third stringer one way or the other, but that could easily be the last straw. Shockley may in fact start the season on the roster.

These are just some vaguely educated guesses on my part, of course, but I do not like the sound of this at all. As a team with an awful lot to prove, the team shouldn't be giving away gobs of cash and a starting spot to players who haven't earned it. Sadly (or perhaps typically), some lessons never quite stick.

Those of you who aren't aware of Pulitzer-winning journalist Buzz Bissinger's complete and total freakout on Deadspin editor Will Leitch can get caught up to speed here, here and here. I don't want to waste a lot of your time with this one, but I do want to ask a question that has plagued man since he first learned the use of primitive tools: Where's the beef?

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It's finally happened.

Like putting that one block too many in your Jenga tower, my vaguely rosy expectations have collapsed for good. I'll still watch, of course. I'll still obsess over every little move the team makes. The difference now, after a hellish offseason and nightmarish season, is that this team has ceased to make me happy in any way, shape or form.

Part of being a fan is finding the silver lining. Tonight, that silver lining was clearly Chris Redman, who looks like the only real choice to start games from here on out. Normally the sight of him slinging actual passes down the field would be enough to make me smile even as I swore a blue streak about every other aspect of the game. As I watched Aaron F'n Stecker dismantle the defense on his way to 100 yards rushing, I couldn't lie to myself.

I'm a Falcons fan, and I'm miserable.

I hate that this whole season was basically submarined before it started because Michael Vick didn't give a crap about the team he played for. I hate that Blank hired the most stubborn head coach I could possibly imagine. I hate that that same coach refuses to give more carries to Norwood than Dunn even though Norwood ran six times for 21 yards and Dunn only managed 3 yards on his six rushes. I hate that we can manage to be embarassed by a Saints team that's notoriously weak defensively and is playing without its two starting running backs. I hate that it's this late in the season and there's still rookies who are inexplicably not getting playing time. More than anything, I hate that the Falcons are so crappy that I can come up with a whole list of things I hate about them.

The Saints are simply a better football team, as are almost all of the other teams in the league. I don't hate the Falcons; as you all know, my heavy man-crushes on some players are an open secret. Still, I can't help but wonder how we keep getting worse. I say we because I've been a fan of the Falcons for 20 years now, and I've rarely if ever been as ashamed of my fandom as I am right now. Living up in the land of Patriots fans has made it so none of my friends even want to talk football with me for fear I might throw myself out a plate glass window. They pity me, and that's an awful realization for any fan.

When this sorry season finally wraps up, I'll take away Chris Redman's sudden emergence, Roddy White's brilliant play and Michael Boley's excellence. I'll hope they all continue into next year, somehow. I'll take some solace in the fact that this season was doomed from the start by injuries and a particularly memorable legal struggle. I just wish I didn't have to struggle to remember those in the face of everything that went so wrong this year. I wish it wasn't a terrible game against the Saints which finally crushed my gentle spirit.

None of it will stop me from blogging and being excited for next year. I just haven't got any smiles left for 2007.

ESPN put together its power rankings today, putting the Falcons just above the Jets and the Dolphins. There's one gem in here that I'd like to note:

Oh, this is rich. Take a lot at a Len Pasquarelli column from the offseason:

I put these side by side not because I don't believe the Falcons would score more points with Vick (though with this scheme, they might not), but because I'm pretty sure Pasquarelli has a heavy hand in writing these Power Rankings comments. You can't be part of a hard-nosed journalistic team that continually tells your readers that Vick is overrated and then, when that same team struggles without him, turn around and act like he's the difference.

The point is that it's impossible to say whether he would be or not. This has been a frustrating season by any measure, but Vick is simply not a part of this team anymore. I think the lack of scoring might have plenty to do with having Harrington or Leftwich at QB, but it also has to do with Norwood not getting any carries, an extremely conservative gameplan and an injured and ineffective offensive line. It's unfair--and typical--for ESPN to reverse course like this, even if it is a Power Rankings comment.

Okay, I'm done ranting.