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January 19, 2007 > Sports > Superdome and coaches link beleaguered bird teams

Superdome and coaches link beleaguered bird teams

By David Brown | Thresher Editorial Staff

Before the football season, I would have laughed if someone told me my Rice Owls would finish with a better record than my Atlanta Falcons.

Coming off an 8-8 season, the Falcons’ retooled defense, with the addition of John Abraham and a couple of real safeties, was supposed to finally give Michael Vick the boost he needed for a trip to the Super Bowl. The Owls, coming off an abysmal 1-11 season, were forecast to improve under their new coach and pick up a few more wins.

First came the unthinkable. The Falcons, fueled by as many defensive injuries as dropped passes and the now infamous Jim Mora radio comment, spiraled into a 7-9 catastrophe. The Owls strung together an unheard-of six-game win streak under visionary first-year coach Todd Graham on their way to their first bowl game in 45 years.

Then, the unbearable. Falcons coach Jim Mora was suitably fired, unleashing a rapid domino effect of coaching hires — and the last domino landed on the Owls, as Todd Graham punched Rice in the mouth on his way back to Tulsa.

I have tracked the doomed fates of my bird teams to the Louisiana Superdome.

In our first two games, all was perfect for the Falcons. They shut down division rivals Carolina and Tampa Bay, and their combined 558 rushing yards in those games were the talk of the league. Not to mention, the defense allowed zero touchdowns.

Then came New Orleans, when the Falcons headed to the Superdome for the Saints’ first game there since Hurricane Katrina.

There actually was a football game played that Monday night, but you wouldn’t know it from watching on TV. For that one game, Joe Theisman and Tony Kornheiser let off each others throats, held hands, and told one teary eyed vignette after another about the tragedy of Katrina, the city’s rebuilding — or lack thereof — and portrayed the Saints as just that: triumphal leaders holding together the hope of the downtrodden city.

For the Falcons to win would be something far worse than unpatriotic. When Steve Gleason blocked a Falcon punt in the second minute, the team gift-wrapped the rest of the game and handed it to New Orleans. Mora was the least unhappy losing coach in a post-game press conference I’ve ever seen.

From that point on, the Falcons never escaped the shadow of the Saints in the NFC South.

From the Little Woodrow’s on West Alabama, my Falcon-fan/rock-star bar friend Snit and I watched one Sunday afternoon collapse after another, including those against the lowly Lions and Browns. And of course, the Saints victories always seemed to air ominously on a nearby screen. For decades, the Falcons have sucked. But every year, they could at least claim bragging rights over the Saints. Not this year.

But throughout October and November, I had something else to brag about. “Hear about the Owls yesterday?” I would ask Snit sometime during a disastrous fourth quarter. He didn’t give a crap, and was usually drunk by then, but I told him anyway. The story usually involved a come-from-behind win, a miraculous Jarett Dillard catch and a reference to our hero of a coach Todd Graham.

There was one minor exception. At the time, the Tulane loss was frustrating but unalarming. But looking back, it was the missing link in an otherwise eight-game undefeated run. And when it came time to head back to the Superdome for the New Orleans Bowl, there was something unnerving about that Tulane game, not to mention my Falcons’ Monday night game of long ago.

Sure enough, I was watching my birds get romped in the Superdome again. Just like the Monday Night game, it was over in the first five minutes, when a Joel Armstrong pass landed in the hands of a Trojan defender, setting up an easy Troy touchdown that made the score 14-0.

Two days after watching my Owls fall to Troy, I sat bewildered in the Georgia Dome as the Carolina Panthers made a mockery of the Falcons, running the ball 52 times, converting numerous third downs with halfback DeAngelo Williams masquerading as their “quarterback” and quashing the Falcons’ lingering playoff hopes. I didn’t even wear my Vick jersey back to the car.

I thought the Superdome jinx was a fateful enough link between my bird teams. Little did I know the Owls’ taste of glory would be eclipsed by my Falcons’ plunge to failure.

The events unraveled swiftly. Just two days after the season ended, Mora was fired. In a week, the Falcons hired Louisville coach Bobby Petrino. Less than 48 hours later, Louisville signed Tulsa coach Steve Kragthorpe to replace Petrino. And two days after that, Graham took the money and ran.

I will conclude with a piece of trivia. Five of 32 NFL teams and 11 of 117 Division I-A college football teams have birds as mascots. Only ONCE has any of those teams won a Super Bowl or a national championship. The exception is among the greatest football flukes of all time: Trent Dilfer’s 2001 Baltimore Ravens.

At least Michael Vick recycles his weed canisters.

David Brown is a Brown College senior and editor in chief.

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