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.

What can I say? We've needed a game for a while now, and even if it's a game where half the players are too useless to pick up a football and run in the right direction, it's still a football game. I'll be at a funeral and a charity softball game for quite a while, so discuss amongst yourselves until (and after) I get back. Bring it on!

7:00 P.M. EST
Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
Slightly crappy with a chance of smog
Non-roster player warning
Fun Fact: When we played the Jets in 2005, we beat their asses handily by a score of 27-14. Let's shoot for 54-7 this time.
ATL -8, O/U 41

Let's cause significant delays for these Jets!

If you're like me, you were sitting at your computer at 12:30 in the morning wondering just how Noriaki Kinoshita was doing. Thankfully, Kaz Nagatsuka of The Japan Times tells us how he's doing. Unfortunately, Kinoshita sounds a bit frustrated with his play so far. I can't say I'm surprised by that, given that it's a pretty big jump to the NFL from NFL Europa. It's even bigger when you played football in Japan before that, which is not exactly known as an international hotbed of pigskin.

If the Falcons could carry six receivers (and given Petrino's elaborate schemes, I won't rule that out), Kinoshita would have a pretty good shot. His main use is obviously going to be as a kick returner, but if the coaching staff sees more receiving talent from Jennings they almost have to go with him. The football fan in me desperately wants to see Kinoshita make the team, but if he's even admitting he's struggling he's probably in trouble. On the other hand, if Joe Horn says he has great speed and good hands...well, that's a more glowing endorsement than Petrino saying he can catch. So let's wish him luck, if for no other reason than that it'd be pretty damn cool to have the first Japanese player on our roster.

Here's Craig Custance from camp, spreading lies:

Let me highlight the relevant part of that paragraph for you:

Once more, in crappily translated Spanish:

Where the hell was this last year, Roddy White? Don't get me wrong, I'd be incredibly grateful to see you showing up to camp looking like a legitimate NFL receiver, but seriously. It took you this long to say to yourself "gee, maybe I use my hands to catch the football?" Jesus H. Christ on rubber crutches.

If White continues to impress, Jenkins could be in slight danger of losing his #2 slot. More than likely it'll go exactly the way everyone is predicting it will, which is to say Horn, Jenkins, White, L-Rob, and Jennings, in that order. Anything else would be a fairly large upset considering that White was awful last year and Robinson's still just a rookie third rounder. That being said, this is shaping up to be the biggest battle at camp, and it should be a lot of fun to watch. Pardon me if I don't get excited about Chris Crocker and Jimmy Williams, as that's a job Williams should win with an eyepatch on. I'd be very thrilled, however, if Roddy White managed to become a capable slot receiver. Given how he seemed cooked last year, this could be a big upset.

We're on the verge of history here, folks.

We promise less dogfighting and more PitCOCK fighting tonight on the SB Nation Sports Report, the official podcast of SB Nation!

Who is on tonight?


Dave The Falconer of The Falcoholic has been clincially depressed since news broke that his quarterback was indicted for being a pitbull lover. Thankfully, we will talk to him less about dogfighting and more about the NFC South. Does Atlanta have a chance without Vick?

What else will we cram into an hour?
Tony Stewart won the Brickyard, and usually he who wins the Brickyard (or the AllState 400, or whatever they call the race now) wins the "chase for the cup." How does this affect the points race? Does Stewart have a good chance of winning?

Oh yeah, and there were some baseball games played today. And some NFL Training Camps opened up. Maybe you heard. We also remember the late, great Bill Walsh.

Is it BYOB?
Tequilla is not the drink of choice for the SBNSR, because if you shoot down those shots while listening to host BigBlueShoe murder somebody's name on air, you'll be hugging your toilet 15 minutes into the SBNSR. Stick with whiskey... or perhaps a good bourbon.  

All that and more tonight at 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific, on the SB Nation Sports Report at Now Live.com!

Update [2007-7-31 22:33:8 by Dave the Falconer]:: You should be able to listen to the show in the archives if you didn't catch it. I believe I actually openly contradicted myself about the receiving corps at two different points, but I guess that's only appropriate. For the record, I do think we're improved but this still isn't the best group of receivers in the world.

Good times.

Going from being denied that extra steak to being bulky and straight-up blocking can be a difficult adjustment. Gaining enough weight to hang with the big boys is difficult enough; my days as QB for the backyard team were marred by my tendency to get all 100 pounds of me planted so deeply I could see how the carrots were growing. Fortunately for me, I discovered the joy of anabolic steroids, but I don't encourage our linemen to take the same path.

But in all seriousness, it must be difficult to just pick up a new scheme just like that. According to the Official Site, however, that's exactly what our ragtag collection of o-linemen are doing. The Alex Gibbs zone blocking plan that brought the team so much rushing success over hte last couple of years is gone. It's being replaced by a scheme that's so complex that Pet Rhino can only describe it in fragments. I like to think of it as the Face of God himself, which probably favors the Falcons. So while everyone adjusts to this new plan, I thought it might be fun to take a look at the O-line. Do we have the personnel to execute these crazy schemes?

LT: Wayne Gandy is the easy favorite here. He might be old and ineffective, but damned if he isn't a big dude! Gandy was once a pretty terrific tackle, but those days are gone and he's probably just keeping a spot warm for Frank Omiyale. I hope. Given that left tackle is suddenly a more vital position with Vick out of the picture, I really hope Gandy has something left in the tank.  Hideous man-beast Leander Jordan is also in the running here, but I don't really expect him to overtake Gandy.

LG: In my mind, Justin Blalock is the obvious choice here. I can't recall ever being quite so high on an offensive lineman before, though I was pretty thrilled with Kynan Forney. But that's more or less irrelevant. The important there here is that Blalock fits the system and has a good head on his shoulders, which means he should definitely start unless Toniu Fonoti devours him whole. I'd put the chances of that at less than 50%, incidentally.

C: It has to be Todd McClure. I like Doug Datish quite a bit, but I doubt he's ready to step right in. McClure's been through three systems in Atlanta already and he's shown he's perfectly capable of adapting. A no brainer, in my mind.

RG: Probably Forney here, as Tyson Clabo is nothing more than a nice insurance policy. Forney will have to re-gain some of the weight he was forced to lose and battle through any lingering injury concerns. I still think he's adaptable enough to start at guard again this year, especially because it's no longer the QB's weak side.

RT: Todd Weiner is the likely choice, but I'd be pretty surprised if the coaching staff wasn't grooming Quinn Ojinnaka. Ojinnaka seems to me to have more projectable size, but we'll see. If all else fails the team can just trot Ovie Mughelli out over here; he seems big and immobile enough.

So those seem like the likely choices. You'll also notice those are the projected starters on the Official Site, which doesn't bode well for our depth. Oh well.

Yes, Vick was on the radio today. He's so embattled at this point that he had nothing to lose, and to his credit he did sound contrite. As we know, though, contrite doesn't do you much good when you're under this much legal pressure. There's also nothing new to report; Tony Taylor is clearly throwing his co-defendents under a bus, but it remains to be seen how much damage his testimony will do. So let's turn to something more fun.

As my SB Nation batterymate Skin Patrol noted in a diary today (check out the diary section), someone has filed one of the hilarious lawsuits ever against Vick. You can find the letter summing up the allegations here at Above the Law. This is absolutely hilarious stuff from a guy who's probably not-so-hilariously unbalanced. When you put a letter like this out in the world, however, you're asking to be scrutinized.

For instance, "microwave testing." Does this mean Michael Vick had Johnnie Lee Riches come to Sears and test microwaves with him? Did Vick actually place him in a microwave oven like popcorn? Or the drugs in school zones bit. Is he trying to tell us that Vick was smoking up outside an elementary school, or is he so crazy that he considers an airport a school zone? If these things are true, of course, there's no doubt Riches deserves the $63 billion in damages he's requesting.

This also highlights one of the basic dangers of celebrity, which is that every crazy in the country gets to read about you and watch you every day. If someone with a bad case of dementia or schizophrenia can link with some of their delusions, the end result can end up as a letter like this. There's no question that it's a sad and frightening thing, but there's also no debating that Riches has given the world one of the single most absurd lawsuits ever.

I'm looking forward to the book deal, myself.