ie:missional teaching. glocalizing. living. serving. repenting. incarnating. loving. repeating.

are a train wreck.

I watched the Falcons last night on MNF just to see what would happen. It hurt. I actually feel sorry for those guys as players and as people. Taking the field week after week after week with virtually no chance of winning must be extremely disheartening. As I watched and contemplated the year to date for this team, some leadership thoughts came to mind.

Let’s assume for a moment (using Jim Collins’ analogy) that owner, GM and head coach are the right people on the bus and that they are in the right seats. At this moment, it would be hard to imagine it any other way: Arthur Blank owns the bus, GM Rich McKay was hand picked by the owner to drive the bus and head coach Bobby Patrino was hand picked by the owner and GM to sit in that assigned seat. Let’s further assume that the entire coaching staff (at least for this year) are supposed to be on the bus and are in their proper seats.

That only leaves the players (sorry, trainers and ball boys). The well chronicled woes of Michael Vick vacated the team of its star player, main draw, primary source of excitement and center of coaching plans. Imagine New England without Brady or the Colts without Manning, mere days from the start of the season, with only a journeyman backup and you get the idea. Then your most athletic back-up (DJ Shockley) is gone for the season with an injury leaving a fifth string as third string. In addition, the offensive line has suffered injuries, the secondary is typically porous and players have become mouthy about the coaches and each other. Sigh. Where to start?

We begin at the position around which the entire team rotates: quarterback. Joey Harrington is the perfect person to be in the slot for which he was hired–backup quarterback. Whenever Vick lost a shoe, got the wind knocked out of him or was beating a dog otherwise unavailable for a play or two, Harrington would come in and take a snap, hand the ball off to someone and return to the sideline to collect his check. I believe that Harrington is the right player, but he’s in the wrong seat. The problem is that he was forced into that seat when Vick jumped off the bus and then was run over by it. History informs us that Harrington is not a big time winning quarterback in this league, but when you have no options, you go with the option you have.

The running backs are also an issue for the Falcons. Warrick Dunn has dropped from over a hundred yards a game to 50 or so (I didn’t look it up) while 2nd year gazelle, Jerious Norwood, still averages about 5,000 yards per rush. I think that one of the problems is that the Falcons have changed their blocking scheme from smaller more mobile linemen to larger slower guys, who are supposed to be able to protect a less mobile, non-Vick quarterback, but Dunn is a small, stop and go runner who can’t really plow up behind a bunch of big butts for yardage. Norwood is on the bus, probably for a long while (unless he’s traded to move up in the draft, more to come) but they don’t have any idea what seat to put him in.

Every receiver the Falcons have are in the wrong seats–they should be defensive backs because they specialize in knocking balls to the turf. In defense of Michael Vick’s often poor passer rating and having watched the guy pretty consistently during his career, for every pass he threw that was completely uncatchable, two hit Roddy White, Peerless Price, Michael Jenkins or Alge Crumpler right in the chest or hands and were dropped. This year, Joey Harrington is suffering the same fate with passes being dropped at least twice a game, sometimes five or six times. Without a doubt, this is collectively the worst receiving corp to ever take the field in an NFL game. Most of them need to be thrown off the bus entirely. Less expensive guys can drop the ball with regularity. I’ll do it for $10k a game and save them all kinds of money.

I don’t have time to go through the defense, but suffice it to say that a few guys are in the right seats, but continuity and injury continue to be problems.

Now, as this bus is traveling the season’s road, there are certain considerations: First, what do you do if you are in the last year of a contract? Do you play as hard as you can to try and hit the jackpot as a free agent?

Second, what if you are in the middle of a contract? Do you play as hard as you can, risking injury, during a year that is and most likely will continue to be a disaster?

Third, will there be an effort to “give away the season” in order to secure the #1 pick and hope to get Brian Brohm from Louisville, who would doubtless be the choice of the head coach? Do you trade away one future (Norwood) to pin hopes on another (Brohm or Colt McCoy)?

Fourth, do you give rookies playing time at the expense of the veterans who know their shot at winning the big one has been put off for at least one more year and are already voicing the strain?

Fifth, how do you motivate guys to take the field and give their all in a season like this? If there are no incentives in the contracts, is it likely that they will continue to play hard?