ATLANTA — It's possible the Falcons won't win again until November, but even if they don't we can see the wisdom in their method. Thomas Dimitroff set out to rebuild a dilapidated roster with an emphasis on the whole, as opposed to a few glittering parts, and the nicest thing anybody can say about Dimitroff's Falcons through three games is this:
They look like a real football team.
 CURTIS COMPTON/Cox News Service Falcons owner Arthur Blank gives wide receiver Roddy White a congratulatory pat in the final a seconds of the victory against the Chiefs. After last season's disaster, Blank hired GM Thomas Dimitroff, who made sweeping changes. For a larger, high resolution image, click HERE |
Maybe that sounds like faint praise. It shouldn't. Sporting News picked the Falcons to win one game; Sports Illustrated tabbed them to win two. Even if this promising start has been built on victories over lousy opponents, it's worth noting that the Falcons, once thought to be lousy themselves, have twice beaten bad teams the way a decent team should.
Dimitroff was asked Monday if he'd yet raised a we're-already-twice-as-good-as-the-Sporting-News-predicted toast. "I don't feel like celebrating," he said, laughing. "But I am encouraged by the direction of this team and by Mike Smith's coaching and the way these players have responded. That feels good."
The Kansas City game had to be especially delicious. The Falcons beat the Chiefs, who drafted Glenn Dorsey, whom many Atlantans preferred to Matt Ryan, by 24 points. If you're Dimitroff, what's it like watching players you've acquired — Ryan, Michael Turner, Sam Baker, Curtis Lofton — make such a massive splash?
"I don't know if I feel vindicated," Dimitroff said. "It's more a validation for all the time we spent analyzing and watching film. We made very calculated moves, and we feel like we're moving in the right direction. Our decisions on whom to draft have been positive."
A case study: Once the Falcons decided to draft a quarterback with their first pick, they knew they had to find a left tackle, too. That led to the decision to trade up and take Baker. And Baker's success in preseason essentially made a tough choice — whether to start Ryan in Week 1 — easy.
The only way the Falcons wouldn't have gone with Ryan was if they thought their lampooned line couldn't protect him. But anyone who deigned to watch the exhibition games closely saw the line was holding its own. And Baker, deemed a reach by some, has been concussed at Tampa Bay but not yet overmatched.
The move to draft Ryan was also a function of Dimitroff's first key free-agent signing. Turner leads the league in rushing, and the best way to nurse a young quarterback is to let him hand off more than he drops back. Put all this together — good young quarterback, improved O-line, splendid big back — and you have the makings of an offense.
Said Dimitroff: "I'm proud of our acquisitions. Not only were they possessive of the requisite skills, but they fit into our system."
That's no small thing. The focal point of the Falcons' offense under Jim Mora was never clear — Greg Knapp's dinky passes? Alex Gibbs' cut blocks? Michael Vick's improvisation? — but it's crystalline now. This team wants to run first and ask questions later. This team, while still a work in the early stages of progress, is being constructed not by whim but by blueprint.
Dimitroff: "It was a question of timing. We had to see how this whole bunch of new players and new coaches came together. And I've been encouraged."
He should be. We all should be. Even if this team winds up 5-11 after starting 2-1, there's real hope here. "We're better than the prognosticators thought we'd be," Dimitroff said, and that constitutes one small step for a franchise. Can the giant leap be far off?
Mark Bradley writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: mbradley AT ajc.com.
