The Season Ain't Over Yet - Its the Pro Bowl!

Sunday afternoon the Falcons will be handsomely represented at this year's Pro Bowl by RB Michael Turner and WR Roddy White. The NFL's version of the All-Star Game will be held once more in beautiful Hawai'i. Big names like Manning, Peterson and Fitzgerald will lead the charge, while highly deserving names like Rivers, Ryan, and Romo will be watching at home (or probably not watching like the rest of us).

I don't know about you guys, but what intrigues me most about any All-Star break is the various forms of skills competition. The NBA has their Slam Dunk and Long Distance Contests, baseball has the Home Run Derby, and the NFL has a skills competition as well (pretty sure its called just that). The NCAA does this as well, and its always interesting to see how the top players in the world measure up against each other. We can argue all day about which Manning has the better fundamentals, but what if Eli went out there and smoked Peyton in the skills contest? Or The Burner blew past Adrian Peterson? Or Larry Fitzgerald was proven not to be the fastest player in the game? These are great fun to watch, and speaks directly to the reason we watch professional sports to begin with - they are the best players in the world. We don't turn on NFL games to see 30 incompletions and six interceptions, or an NBA game to see a team shoot 12% from the field. As far as I'm concerned, its all about being caught up in seeing the greatest atheletes in the world perform at the highest level. Its fascinating and awe-inspiring every time. So sure I probably won't be watching most of the Pro Bowl (gotta at least give love to Turner and White though), but I'll be staring at the skills competition wondering how on earth Drew Brees managed to throw a football into the hole of a moving target twenty yards downfield.
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Dirty South Pride

Its been quite a year for Atlanta fans... the Braves' demise, the Falcons' rise and the Hawks' surprise (and at least the Thrashers try). But another year come and gone without bringing home a major championship. Sure it'd be fun to live in Boston with the Patriots, Celtics and Red Sox, but we can't all enjoy that kind of well-rounded success. The rest of us have to find other reasons to have pride in our teams. Things like damn good hot dogs or kiss cams or Marta access. But seriously Atlanta fans, when some joker from Boston or Florida starts giving you the business about how irrelevant our teams are... here's six good reasons to laugh in their face:

• Michael Turner
• Roddy White
• Joe Johnson
• Ilya Kovalchuk
• Chipper Jones
• Brian McCann

These are your Atlanta All-Stars. These six players were named the best of the best this year. No Bostonian can come into the dirty south and claim we have no good players or we have no good teams. With two playoff teams and six all-stars, I'd say we're sitting pretty. There's 30+ teams in these leagues, and only one can win the championship each year. And its been a long time since that team was the Yankees, Cowboys, or Lakers. Sports isn't all about the championships. Sure it'd be nice to have a couple more World Series titles and a Super Bowl win, but its hard not to feel proud about our boys when you go into the stadium and see those banners hanging: division champions, conference champions, league champions... or when you turn on the All-Star game or Pro Bowl and see your boys taking the field alongside the game's best players... or when you read preseason discussions about which of your guys could win the Heisman, league MVP, or Rookie of the Year.

We may have down years, but our teams - our players - are never out of the discussion. Matt Ryan was the NFL's Offensive Rookie of the Year, Michael Turner was the league MVP's runner-up, Jonathan Dwyer ACC Player of the Year, Matt Stafford could be the top pick in the draft, Chipper Jones won the NL batting title... times are good in the Dirty South boys and girls, even if we're not hoisting championship trophies like they are in the northeast, that doesn't mean we aren't proud of our players' accomplishments year in and year out. If you keep putting talent on the field, the titles will come.
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Color Me Confused-AFC/NFC Championships Set

Well I never would have been able to predict this, Philly has to go into....ARIZONA....in order to win the NFC. The AFC at least makes a bit more sense, two teams with insane defenses, Pittsburgh and Baltimore, will faceoff next weekend for the AFC title. When I first thought about it, I thought, whoever wins the NFC is going to be crushed by whoever comes out of the AFC. Then I remember, Philly actually is good, they have a defense and their offense seems to have gotten their head on straight from their mid-season collapse. Arizona on the other hand still confuses me...how...I mean what....where did....I just don't know. They were like a Big 12 team with all that fire power down the field and a defense that was lacking. Two straight weeks of stopping up the leagues second leading rusher in Michael "the burner" Turner and then the two headed demon of Williams and Stewart. I always knew that Fitz and Bolden were two of the best receivers in the NFL, but I never expected the WHOLE team to come together after the way the season ended.

For anyone who saw my earlier playoff predictions when I said that it was going to be the Falcons over the Jets, I sure hope you didn't place any bets...cause your gonna be losin some fingers. My new prediction out of shear confusion and curiosity is this, more upsets. Baltimore will go into Pittsburgh and the Ravens D will outplay the Pittsburgh D, leaving it to the Quarterbacks. Rookie Joe Flacco will out duel Big Ben with a final score of 17-14 Baltimore. One defensive touchdown per team.

As for the NFC, I am going to have to take the Cardinals simply because I want the team that took out the Falcons to prove that it was not just a fluke and we were beaten by an actual good team. One more week the Cardinals will step up and show surprisngly good defense keeping Westbrook to under 100 yards and picking off McNabb twice. Fitz will run all around the Philly secondary at will causing havok and eventually leading to a bruising late hit out of bounds by Brian Dawkins giving the Cards the ball on the Philly 5 yd line with under five minutes to go in the game. The Cards will win this game 35-20 and head on to the Superbowl.

Or how about this, the ridiculous saftey call against the Falcons from Wildcard weekend is reviewed, and ruled that it was wrong and Turner would have scored a touchdown, eventually leading to a Falcons win. By virtue of how bad the Panthers are the Falcons are given the win over them from this past weekend, and Philly has to come to Atlanta for the NFC Championship. It's possible...

Superbowl pick will come shortly after Championship weekend so stay tuned.

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Roddy and The Burner off to Hawaii

Atlanta Falcons WR Roddy White and RB Michael Turner have been named to the NFC Pro Bowl roster as reserves. White is polishing off his second straight 1,000 yard season, the first Falcon to do so in ten years. In fact he has over 1,300 yards, good for second-best in the NFL. Turner, up over 1,400 yards, was the big free-agent acquisition and is paying off completely (his total is good for second in the NFL as well). These two are definitely deserving, and congratulations to both of them.

Now then. Where's John Abraham? Matt Ryan? Are you really going to tell me that Eli Manning is having a better season than Matty Ice?

Sure Manning quarterbacks the best team in the NFC, but the numbers don't add up:

Manning: 2938 yards, 20 td, 10 int, 60.3% comp, 86.4 Rating
Ryan: 3146 yards, 14 td, 9 int, 62.2% comp, 90.0 Rating

Besides touchdowns, Matty leads Manning in all categories. In fact, Eli is ninth in the NFC in quarterback rating, behind other snubs like Donovan McNabb, Aaron Rodgers, Jeff Garcia and the league leader, Tony Romo. (in fact the AFC leaderin QB Rating, Philip Rivers, was left out too...) Its all very sad. But all will be remedied when Matt Ryan walks away the Rookie of the Year and MVP hardware after the season.

Now then, look at the NFC defensive ends. John Abraham is third in the NFL in sacks with 15.5. That's 3.5 more than starter Justin Tuck (NYG). Tuck does blow Abraham's tackle totals out of the water, and even has an interception and touchdown to boot. But seriously, third in the NFL in sacks, and don't make the Pro Bowl. Its a shame, without Abraham our defense would be struggling week after week. But here we are, with 9 wins and actual snubs to complain about. That alone is good enough for me.

Falcons travel to Minnesota to take on the Vikings this Sunday. The matchup pits the NFL's top two leading rushers in Adrian Peterson and The Burner himself.
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