Ever sat there in your licensed Falcons easy chair, wearing your throwback Jamal Anderson jersey, pondering just how well the 1998 Falcons could do against an opponent on this year's schedule? Have you, like I'm sure reader orang3b has, sat there with your voluminous notes and play charts and stat sheets, dreaming of a chance to actually use the numbers you so lovingly analyze? Well, dream and ponder no longer. What If Sports has partnered with your favorite Falcons blog to bring you some awesome features.

What If Sports is, at its heart, a fully-functional fantasy simulator. You can build a "dream team" in any sport, drafting the players you choose from any year on any team or you can simply take, say the '76 Steelers, and pit them against the '07 Patriots. Or, if you're feeling particularly mean spirited, you can pit the '07 Patriots against the '07 Lions 10,001 times. If What If Sports can get away with simulating the Browns-Ravens MNF matchup 10,001 times, I'm sure you won't have any conflicts of conscience.

With all of this simulation, you're probably wondering where the "playing with the numbers" part comes in. You fantasy football nuts should zoom in right here -> What If Sports lets you build a fantasy sports team with your favorite players from any era, any team, any style of play and then puts your personal all-time pro bowl team in a league to play against up to 24 other stat mavens' perfect teams. The gurus at What If call this feature SimLeague.

Now, onto business. I plan to introduce a few new features on the site utilizing What If Sports' snazzy technology. First and foremost, I'll either be taking some classic teams of Falcons lore and pitting them against modern day foes, or taking our new look Falcons to battle against older foes that deserve a spanking or, in some cases, a re-spanking.

Also, What If was nice enough to provide us with a free 24 slot Falcoholic SimLeague. Yes, we now officially have a fantasy fantasy football league. Dave and I take up two slots, so that invariably means that 22 of you will be the lucky winners of some hot, free SimLeague action. You're welcome in advance. I'll run the raffle soon.

To kick off this day of forces joining, I decided to pit our 2008 surprise playoff team against our 2004 surprise playoff team. Both teams went 11-5, both went into the playoffs. Of course, the '04 Falcons made it all the way to the NFC Championship while our newer Falcons lost in the Wild Card. Apparently, that doesn't matter. Ryan and company completely demolished 'em 48 to 21. What a difference four years makes, eh? Check out the full boxscore

Okay, so technically these results are not going to get anyone elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Nonetheless, how awesome would it be if we pushed a couple of former Atlanta Falcons up to the top of the list?


I'm talking about the Van Heusen Pro Football Hall of Fame Fan's Choice (quite a mouthful, but we're not done yet) sponsored by JCPenny (okay, now we're done), which features a few Falcons among its choices. The winners will be announced on the NFL Network shortly before the actual Hall of Fame results are announced, but this is a real opportunity to highlight some guys who may otherwise not even register on voters' lists.

The guy I'm specifically highlighting here is OT Mike Kenn, who started every game of his 17 year career with the Atlanta Falcons. He made five consecutive Pro Bowls in the early-to-mid 1980's and played parts of three decades in Atlanta, where he was easily one of the best linemen in our history and frankly, one of the better tackles ever to play in the NFL. The guy has never really gotten the due he deserves, like a handful of other Falcons, and I think that it would be a good thing for him to be recognized in some way. Guys like Chris Doleman, Clay Matthews and a certain ol' coach named Dan Reeves could stand to get some dap, as well.

So if you've got the time and inclination, pop over to the link above and consider voting for a Falcon or two. Especially Kenn.

This is it, guys. After wading through the myriad trades, signings and Grady Jackson sightings, the games are actually here. I don't care if they don't count, they matter to me!

Let's kick this sucker off by willing the team to victory over the hated (?) Jaguars and commenting frequently.

Who? Atlanta Falcons at Jacksonville Jaguars, 7:30 p.m. ET

Where? Jacksonville Stadium, Jacksonville, Florida

Weather? Mostly clear and sunny, with a few clouds moving in.

Fun Fact? Maurice Jones-Drew saved my dynasty league fantasy team from the depths of awfulness the last two years, so I find it hard to root against him. Because it's the pre-season, though, I hope he piles up 18 carries for -12 yards.

Injuries? The Falcons have lost Von Hutchins for the season and Laurent Robinson is looking uncertain. A host of other minor injuries, too. The Jaguars may have some injuries, but who cares?

Odds? Who bets on pre-season games?

Foe? Check out River City Rage and his inexplicable anger over at Big Cat Country, the Nation's Jaguars' blog and a very talented blogger.

GO FALCONS! Declaw these cats!

Continue reading this post »

I just wanted to give you all a heads up about something new at SB Nation that I'm sure some of you are going to be interested in. This year, we're going to have a Falcoholic fantasy football league for the first time, allowing each and every one of you to bury me at the bottom of the standings.

We've got some more news coming down the pipeline about this, but for now please let me know if you're interested so I can get a rough idea of how many people will sign up. Leave 'em in the comments or e-mail me at davethefalconer@yahoo.com.

Sometimes you get the feeling a player just isn't interested in taking one for the team. This player might, I dunno, allegedly smoke him some weed, not show up for a mini-camp, then show up 15 pounds overweight. You know, hypothetically.

Or maybe Jimmy Williams is doing it.

I don't want to cast aspersions on Jimmy's character, but I do think it's time the team starts exploring a trade for him. With Coleman, Milloy, DeCoud, Stone and the pupu platter in front of him, a guy who reports to camp overweight and seems indifferent about it clearly isn't going to make a big contribution. I think it's time to see if the Falcons can get some kind of late round draft pick for him. Failing that, maybe getting him down to his playing weight and disciplining him would make him a little more motivated.

In other news:

• Aaron at FalcFans has a nice piece up on how a holdout from Matty Ice might affect the team. I don't think such a holdout is particularly likely given Blank's desire to get this done, but the team does have to work within the rookie pool. I'd give it a read and file it away as a nightmare scenario.
  
• Given our weakness at defensive tackle, I wouldn't mind the Falcons bringing recently released DT Josh Muse in for a look. He's got decent size and strength for a guy who was only an undrafted rookie, and we could use help there that might have some potential.
  
• As tom slick pointed out in his timely fanpost, Joe Horn wants out of Atlanta if he's going to be a third or fourth receiver. While I agree that his veteran presence was a nice thing to have, I wouldn't have trusted Horn to catch one of those gigantic beach balls last year. As is the case with Williams, we shouldn't be keeping guys around who aren't interested in fitting in with this time. Time to trade him and wish him well.

Figured this was as good a time as any to remind new folks to sign up and for my loyal old-school commenters to re-up their accounts, as well. With this new epoch in both Atlanta Falcons and The Falcoholic history, I want as many of y'all on board with me as possible.

If you're having any trouble getting things working, give me a shout at davethefalconer@yahoo.com. I'm usually good about getting back to you within 24 hours; if I don't, your pizza is free.

Whoa, this is awesome! Big ups to the SBN tech team for putting this all together.

I highly suggest you all read the post below to figure out how to claim your accounts, check out the new bells and whistles, and everything else you might do if you were confronted with something shiny and bewildering. We'll get back to regular Falcoholic business first thing in the morning. Until then, explore away!

As you've likely noted, I've been scarce around here recently. Lest my loyal readers think I've quit on our beloved yet bedraggled squad, I'd like to take a very brief post to explain.

For you see, I am joining the world of married men in early January. Planning the whole thing in a compressed time frame has gotten more and more difficult, so I'm afraid posting is going to lean toward sporadic for a bit longer. After the whole shebang and the honeymoon, I'll be back in business as usual. Until then, I'm going to try hard to lock down what should be a very weird game against the Seahawks, and I'll try to prep some posts to go up while I'm away.

In the meantime, I encourage you guys to do what you do well naturally: comment. Use the diaries, use the comments and discuss Falcon football. You've all got quality opinions, and this is a team that's bound to change drastically in the offseason. As per a suggestion from Hamburger, I'll be handing out grades for each position once the season finally wraps up. Until then, hang tight.

And please, don't tell me your wedding horror stories. I ain't got the stomach for it.