I once had a very wise man tell me “Some stuff you just can’t figure out”. Trust me . . . I’m hip.

I spent my Sunday afternoon (as I always do) watching the Atlanta Falcons play. In this case, being a road game, I found myself viewing the contest at a sports grill owned by a friend of mine.  It was a mixed crowd of Falcons and Buccaneer fans and as you would expect, there were some Matt Ryan admirers and some Matt Ryan skeptics. Only in Atlanta, however, would you find that all of the skeptics were wearing Falcons jerseys….some of them with Ryan’s number 2 on them. It seems to be almost epidemic these days….turn on sports talk radio and you will hear caller after caller ranting and raving about how overrated and useless “Matty Ice” is. Being the inquisitive guy that I am, I felt compelled to investigate by initiating a conversation with one of the “Anti-Matt” minions….it went something like this…

Don’t you remember 2007, when Mike Vick went to jail, Bobby Petrino quit and Joey Harrington, Byron Leftwitch and Chris Redman combined for yearlong clinic in how NOT to quarterback an NFL team? And let’s not even talk about this franchise for the forty years prior.

Yeah, but we could have waited for Vick to come back.

So instead of drafting a guy who is smart, low-key, media-savvy and by all accounts a great leader and teammate, we should have sacrificed three seasons to wait for a guy in Federal prison?

All I’m saying is that Vick is a better quarterback then and now than Ryan.

Didn’t we just beat Philadelphia with Mike Vick last Sunday night…if memory serves, Matt Ryan threw four touchdowns?

Lucky. If Vick doesn’t get a concussion we lose.

Are you aware that Matt Ryan has more wins since 2008 than anyone except some guy named Peyton Manning?

Big deal. Ugly wins. Lucky.

SO… the fourteen come from behind wins in the fourth quarter or overtime were all lucky games against bad teams?

Yep.

OK. But he also has better numbers for his first three years than anyone except Dan Marino.

All 10 yards at a time. Dink and dunk.

OK. So you do know that the Falcons have had three winning seasons in a row (never even had two before) and in three years Matt Ryan has led them to the playoffs twice. The same number of times Mike Vick got them there in six years. In fact, we had the best record in the NFC last year…13-3.

Yeah but he can’t WIN a playoff game. 0 and 2 buddy.

All right. I’ll give you that.  He hasn’t won one YET. But you have to admit that Green Bay was unstoppable last year and in Arizona it sure wasn’t Matt Ryan that was out of position and gave up a huge third down at the end of the game. Right?

Should have had a lead. Wouldn’t have mattered then. It’s always the same. He can’t throw the ball down the field…

At this point in the conversation, as if on cue, Ryan completes a long pass to Julio Jones.

I thought you said he can’t throw the ball down the field?

No, what I meant to say is he WON’T throw the ball down the field. One read and then dump it to the check-down receiver.

Fast forward to fourth and one Tampa at the end of the game.

Everyone in the stadium (and viewers worldwide) knew that the Bucs would attempt a hard count to draw our defense offside. And strangely, it worked. To the collective groan of fans all around me, Kory Peters jumped and that was that. Game over. Tampa 16, Atlanta 13. As Jeff Van Gorder (the Falcon’s defense coordinator) raged on the sideline and owner Arthur Blank grimaced, my new friend turned to me, snarky smile on his face and said…

 “See, that’s what you get with a dink and dunk quarterback”.

Someday, when the Falcons win a Super Bowl (and although I am admittedly biased, I truly believe they will), I will pause and think of my partner in this conversation and his call-in show soul-mates. I’m sure that they will be watching the game somewhere as Matt Ryan hoists the Lombardi trophy…and I can almost hear the comment that will follow….

“See! He can’t lift that thing above shoulder height….I told you he didn’t have any arm strength…!.”

 (AP Photo/Steve Nesius)

Anybody remember the bad old days? The days when all you heard on sports talk radio and television were terms like “stalemate”, “appellate court” and “player run workouts”. They say misery loves company and it sure seemed that way as we commiserated over a beer and talked about “Billionaires arguing with Millionaires”. We lamented the possibility that we might actually have to think about what to do with our Sundays this Fall and Winter and when we heard about plans that included a scenario for a shortened season, we had had just about enough. We cursed the commissioner, we vilified the Jerrys (Richardson and Jones) and we stopped following our favorite players on Twitter. If Chad Ochocinco wants to be rodeo cowboy we’ll root for the bull. We were absolutely, positively, eye-popping, insanely mad.

Then it happened.

As suddenly as it had arrived, the lockout was over. In the blink of an eye the world spun upside down. And if you ever had any doubt about the power of the NFL, then consider this; in roughly a 72 hour period, Roger Goodell and his minions managed to completely erase and reprogram the memories of millions of fans. It was like “Men in Black” without the funky pens.

The next thing you know, players were hugging owners, the commissioner was hugging the head of the players union, rookies were hugging veterans, Packers fans were hugging Bears fans….OK; maybe not that last one. All we needed was a campfire and an acoustic guitar and a hearty round of “Kumbayah” might have broken out.

Quickly, the talk turned to fantasy drafts and the stores were overrun with shoppers seeking tailgate supplies and logo merchandise. Training camps were swiftly opened, stadiums across our fair land scrambled to get ready for action and almost universally; sports bar owners rejoiced.

A frenzied whirlwind free agency period ensued and for 7 days, we were all mesmerized by the pace of the moves. Haynesworth and Ochocinco to the Patriots…Ray Edwards to the Falcons…the Eagles just signed who? And WHO ELSE? It was electrifying. By the time we caught our breath pre-season games were upon us. Too bad nobody cares about the pre-season. But wait…not so fast my friend.

You see; this year we did. As a matter of fact these are some of the biggest pre-season ratings ever. In the spirit of full disclosure, I was able to sell two of my personal pre-season Falcons tickets…for actual money.  Believe me when I tell you that is a first. I am beginning to shudder to imagine what that first weekend will be like when things open up for real. Tell Hank to dust off the guitar and Faith to warm up the vocal cords and let’s bring on the Packers versus the Saints. I only wish both of them could lose. But that’s a “me” thing.

If it’s true that forgiveness is divine, then there are a whole lot of blessings being tossed in the direction of the NFL and its fans. Maybe just maybe some good can come out of a lockout after all. Perhaps the NBA can find some hope in that….but I doubt it. They ain’t the NFL. Not even close.

Are you ready for some football….? I’m guessing you are.

Let me ask you a couple of questions and you tell me what you think.

-If you had a dead body in front of you, how much time and money would you spend on administering medical treatment post-mortem?

-If the engine in your car locked up and rendered it un-drivable, would you still spend the weekend washing and waxing it?

Despite what you may be thinking after reading these, I promise I haven’t been drinking or indulging in any mind-altering drugs.

Now let me set up a different situation for you and you tell me if it’s any less crazy…

It’s a very busy time for the investigators over at the NCAA. They are, in fact, so backlogged that pending investigations into improper and/or illegal behavior in Division I football and Basketball programs have to wait in line to be addressed. At times, this process bears a remarkable resemblance to the arcade game “Whack-A-Mole”. Heads pop up…heads get whacked down. More heads pop up…lather, rinse, and repeat.

While the moles are whacked, everyone from University presidents to the fans wait and wonder what the outcome will be. Sometimes, like in the case of USC, they wait so long to hand down a verdict that the principle player involved has to move his NFL Superbowl ring out of the way to get to the Heisman trophy he has been asked to return. I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I have my doubts as to whether the vacating of wins in record book somewhere is causing sleepless nights for a guy who is now a world champion and a multi-millionaire. As a matter of fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it might not even be bothering the former coach…who is also a multi-millionaire and now coaches an NFL team who won their division last year.

You know who is losing sleep? The school.  That’s who is left to deal with the scholarship losses and post-season bans. Additional case in a point….a basketball coach, we’ll call him “Coach C”, makes his way from U to U making teams instant NCAA tournament contenders. Unfortunately, after he has moved on, there is strange pattern of those appearances being struck from the books. How many times have the schools been punished? All of them. How many times has Coach C paid the price? None of them.

But on the other hand, let’s examine the tale of another coach…we’ll call him “Coach T” and imagine he is wearing a sweater vest. Not since Satan was cast of Heaven has there been such an immediate and drastic swing of public opinion about someone. In less than a month, Coach T went from being regarded as an absolute paragon of virtue, who cared only about his players and their character to being a two-bit liar who cared only about winning and ignoring the truth. Meanwhile the University that was quick to staunchly defend him a few months ago, quickly reversed field and happily held on to the scabbard as Coach T fell on his sword. Will the sacrifice be enough to reduce the punishment the NCAA will eventually hand down? We don’t know….but wait around for a really long time and we might find out.

And then there are the players. Guys who generate untold millions of dollars for their schools and college sports in general. Guys who have to balance athletics and academics (OK…sometimes) and can’t go out and have a job, yet are expected to watch as everyone else gets paid. It’s easy to forget that these are young adults…maybe even kids, and that they are going to act the part once in a while. I mean, really….if you get a jersey playing in a bowl game, can’t we assume you now own said jersey? So what is the big d*&% deal about selling it for a little pocket cash? Even an all-star QB wants to buy his girlfriend a pizza once in a while. I’m not suggesting that these kids should get cars and envelopes stuffed with money…I’m just suggesting that we get out of fantasy land and start looking at the situation realistically.

I could go on for days with more examples, but I think the publishers of this site would prefer I stick to my space. So while the NCAA investigators continue to rack up the frequent flyer miles and the hotel nights, I’ll leave you with this simple question …

If it takes this much effort to police, maintain, investigate and enforce the system, how can it possible be the right system? And further, shouldn’t the NCAA be looking at how to cure the disease instead of moving straight to frequent amputations? I don’t pretend to have the answers, but at least I’m asking the questions…

Time for me to go now. All of the heat this summer already killed absolutely everything in my yard. Think I’ll go water it for a while….