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.

As a fan, I play favorites. I can't lie to you. My personal preference is to see D.J. Shockley succeed over Joey Harrington and Chris Redman. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I don't think like that. But I will tell you that I'm also an Atlanta Falcons fan first, and I desperately want to see this team succeed. If Harrington is magnificent as a starter or Redman makes an inspiring comeback, I'll be the absolute last person to complain about it.

That aside, it seems a little unlikely that Chris Redman is going to be the #2 QB. This is a guy who always had suspect arm strength and battled injuries. To think he's going to go from selling insurance ("Hi ma'am, I'm Chris Redman with Prudential!" "Who?") to being one injury away from starting...well, that's a bit much for me. I admire the guy's confidence, but I have to pray he earns that job and doesn't just get it because Bobby Petrino has a soft spot for him. Then again, I don't really see our new Pet Rhino being that kind of guy, so it should work itself out. I hope you're successful, bud, but you'd better earn your way past Shock.

In this same article from Craig Custance, we see the Falcons signed Arena League star Ben Nelson to fill Fred Gibson's roster spot. Nelson's claim to fame is that he's big (6'3") and fast, and if he can catch at all he might stick. I'm not sold on him being much more than a camp body, but then again, the Falcons could use a little bit of help at receiver. So he's got that going for him. On top of that, Demorrio Williams should be ready for contact soon, Rod Coleman's on schedule, and Michael Koenen doesn't have to kick, punt, throw, and cook this year. As a result, I expect his net yardage and salmon recipes to rise this year.

Don't let anyone tell you that's not a good thing.

Interesting article at the AJC from Terence Moore, who I almost never agree with. I don't here, either, but I think his reasoning is quite sound. Moore's assertion is basically that Vick is the face of the team in so many ways. More precisely, the Falcons are Vick's team even now:

This is where I disagree. Vick was a media and fan favorite because of how flashy he was, but the NFL is a minefield. Now that his reputation has blown up in his face, he's starting a very quick descent into the land of ruined promise. I realize that the Falcons will always be about Vick to some people, but I think that's missing the forest for the ultra-mobile tree. This is a team with a lot of character guys. Joe Horn stays late to sign autographs, Alge Crumpler is all around charitable, and Warrick Dunn gives money to build houses for low income families. This is a team with some high-level talent and some nice guys. To suggest that the Falcons are going to be damaged beyond repair by this? It won't happen.

That's not to say Moore is entirely wrong. As noted, Vick has become so much larger in the public mind that most fans probably can barely tell you who's on the team beyond him. People from the northern woods of Maine to the southern tip of Florida were parading around in Vick jerseys, and they were much more concerned with the name on the back of those flashy red threads. I just put a lot more faith in the cogs of the NFL machine than Moore does, I think. If Vick spends this year suspended and nowhere near the Falcons, your average fan won't be thinking about him unless some spectacular detail pops up in his trial. This league more than any other tends to punish wasted potential and shun its transgressors. Just ask Odell Thurman how hard it is to get back on the field in the Goodell era.

So while it's easy to become convinced by it if you're just trolling websites and newspapers, Vick isn't this team. When I think of the Falcons, I'll always think of 1998, Andre Rison, Jamal Anderson and the victory over the Packers at Lambeau. Once the season starts, I don't expect to think much about our scrambling QB unless he's out on the field. Contrary to what Terence Moore and others are saying, I don't think the franchise is doomed because of Vick's mistakes. You can say he was enabled because of his treatment by the team, but you can't say he wasn't responsible for his own actions. Guilty or not, Vick dug his own grave thanks to his associations with dogfighting.

I just don't think he's burying the Falcons, too.