Atlanta Falcons: Good Opportunity

YoureToast · #1 10-08-2005, 03:38 PM

Vick has been downgraded from probable to questionable. I have suspected all week that he might not play despite reports to the contrary. I think his likelihood of playing is no more than 10%. Even if he does, he won't be at 10%.

I liked the under 44 here even with Vick in. Without Vick, play this one hard. Anything down to 43.

Edit: This is the play right now; if you find out 10 mins before gametime that Vick is playing, hedge part of your bet (but not the whole thing).

#2 10-08-2005, 03:59 PM

Toast, do you suspect Mora was forcing Vick go through the motions at practice to trick Belichick into thinking he was playing?

YoureToast · #3 10-08-2005, 04:12 PM

Yes, I suspect some gamesmanship, starting with Vick standing on the sidelines in the 2nd half vs. Minn. I think the "probable" injury report was bogus. By the way, I don't really think Mora forced anything -- I don't think Vick did a thing all week.

#4 10-08-2005, 04:22 PM

Supposedly he was running in practice drills but *not actually catching balls from center*, something to that effect. That was a good one.

YoureToast · #5 10-08-2005, 04:54 PM

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Supposedly he was running in practice drills but *not actually catching balls from center*, something to that effect. That was a good one.

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yeah...I think he basically went on the sideline and just moved around for flexibility purposes....possibly even that was a ploy. here's why I think they knew he wasn't going to play: because Mora came our right away (on Monday) and said essentially that that he "was fine". Mora, like Belicek, is normally very tight-lipped about injuries until Wednesday. He may have just been trying to be optimistic, but the whole thing was just fishy, beginning in the 2nd half last Sunday.

#6 10-08-2005, 06:06 PM

If Schaub can play a relatively mistake-free game, I think your under call is a good one.

CCx · #7 10-10-2005, 11:26 AM

Followup to the Vick injury situation from Profootballtalk.com (easily one of the best football rumor/news sites on the web):

IMMORAL BEHAVIOR IN ATLANTA?

Folks around the league are questioning the manner in which the Atlanta Falcons and head coach Jim Mora handled the injury that ultimately kept quarterback Michael Vick out of Sunday's game against the Patriots.

Vick suffered a sprained knee on October 2, during a 30-10 win over the Vikings. For much of the week, it looked like Vick would play against the Pats -- especially when he was upgraded from questionable to probable after practice on Wednesday

And let's be clear on this. Although the media routinely describes "probable" as meaning that there is a 75 percent chance that the guy will play, the true definition of the term (per Steve Alic of the NFL league office), is that there is a "[v]irtual certainty that player will be available for normal duty."

Virtual certainty. As in practically certain.

But after a walk-through on Saturday, Vick was downgraded to questionable. A day later, he was in street clothes for the game.

So was it a situation where Vick's knee was healing and then all of a sudden it wasn't? Did a defensive lineman, for example, ignore the spirit of the NFL walk-through session and throw down The Franchise?

If something indeed happened to aggravate the injury on Saturday, it was news to Vick, who expressed disappointment at the sudden decision to hold him out. "I thought I'd play," he said. (Then again, it's possible that Vick was in on the ruse.)

In the wake of the game, which the Falcons lost on a late field goal after backup Matt Schaub led the team back from two double-digit deficits, some league insiders think that Falcons coach Jim Mora intentionally manipulated the injury reporting system in order to dupe the Pats into thinking that Vick would play (as we suspected while the events of the week unfolded).

Really, how does a guy go from probable after practicing on Wednesday to questionable after a Saturday walk-through? It doesn't make sense, and it'll be very interesting to see whether the league office does anything about it, given that NFL golden boy Rich McKay is the Falcons' G.M., who also happens to be the Chair of the Competition Committee, which crafts the very rules that Mora might have ignored.

An easy step for the league would be to order up video of the team's practice on Wednesday, especially since there are rumblings that Vick in fact didn't take a single snap this past week.

Get going on this one, real media. We don't expect The AJC to do anything about it, since they're so deep in Art Blank's back pocket that they know what he ate for brunch last Tuesday. Here's hoping that some other folks in the business with Atlanta connections will start poking around in the hopes of exposing what could end up being a major example of abuse regarding the injury reporting system.

And beyond the competitive advantage that the Falcons might have gained, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the truth might have ended up in the hands of a guy or two who might have been inclined to put some money on the Pats minus 2 or 2.5 points. Indeed, the real reason for the NFL's obsession with accurate and complete injury information is to prevent situations in which folks might conclude that they can get inside information for betting purposes by getting friendly with players, coaches, doctors, waterboys, etc. So if Mora gets a pass on this one, don't be surprised if lots of guys who look and sound (and eat) like Tony Siragusa start cozying up to those persons who are in position at any given moment to know the truth about the health of Falcons players.

YoureToast · #8 10-10-2005, 11:30 AM

Yup....the article pretty much sums it up I think. I think Mora should be fined...I think the whole thing was planned from last Sunday.

As for my under pick, little did I know Matt Schaub was the second coming of Tom Brady and the Falcons' pass defenders would be looking ahead to the tough Saints game coming up. Good lord did I peg this game wrong.

mmbt0ne · #9 10-10-2005, 08:22 PM

</font><blockquote><font class="small">En réponse à:</font><hr />
Yup....the article pretty much sums it up I think. I think Mora should be fined...I think the whole thing was planned from last Sunday.

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That's nothing. I still hold by my theory that Mathis tore his ACL before the Philly game, and then took one for the team against Trotter. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

#10 10-10-2005, 08:33 PM

The Falcons D looked terrible. One very underrated aspect, I believe, to Michael Vick's game is his predisposal to running the ball on broken pass plays, taking more time off the clock during Atl drives and giving the D more rest on the sideline. I'd love to see time of possession numbers with Vick in and Vick out of the lineup.