Thats One In A Row (2002 pt 2)

In his first year as our starting QB, Mike Vick becomes Superman.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hello Falcons fans. Welcome to Curse of the Falcons podcast. I'm Sonny. I'm Dan. And we're first cousins. Actually married into the family. Yeah. And so now I'm, you know, for the past uh many generations here, uh many decades, I should say. I've been part of this family, and uh and Dan and I are just such great friends and just so glad to be in the middle of this Falcons thing. We've lived this nightmare since 1966 of being Falcons fans. So before we get going on this week's episode, a quick reminder everything you hear on The Curse of the Falcons is strictly our opinion. We're not affiliated with the Atlanta Falcons or the NFL in any official way. This podcast is just for us the fans, so please enjoy the show. That's right. Yes. Uh how you during.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

I'm doing okay, Mr. Sonny. I'm uh getting through the getting through the summertime blues like like we all do down here in Georgia every year. And every year it gets hotter, and every year we complain about it getting hotter, and every year we stay here.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Well, this is the part of the uh the part that we endure because really the spring and the summer are s I mean the spring and fall are just fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

The fall in particular without the pollen, it's it's so clean and beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

But probably more than anything else for me are the mosquitoes. Oh I um um they won't be in heaven. At least this not not this variety, you know. They're they're just oh it's horrible.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Well, you and my wife both, Miss Lauren cannot stand a m mosquito, and if she hears one with within a mile of her, she's going inside.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Oh yeah, absolutely. Uh well anyway, it's uh but hey, but we're just glad to be here. Um glad that we can uh uh uh have some things to talk about here. Um so um Dan, tell us a little bit about where we're going tonight. What are we what are we how are we picking up here?

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Well, we left off with uh episode 60 was the first part of the 2002 season. Um it was the first one that Michael Vick was starting, and uh we had moved on from some of our old Superbowl Super Bowl heroes from three years pre or four years previous. But we pick it up midway through the 2002 season. We've got a five and three record, and we're we're going to Pittsburgh next on the calendar. It's our first season having moved past the heroes of our Super Bowl team of ninety-eight, as I said, namely Chris Chandler, Jamal Anderson, Terrence Mathis, Tony Martin, they're all gone. You know, there's a brand new team here four years later. The game in Pittsburgh is often referred to as the team's finest performance or the comeback tie, if anybody remembers that game. You'll you'll if you know what the comeback tie is, you go straight to it. We're trailing 34-17 in the fourth quarter in Pittsburgh, and we scored 17 points in a seven-minute span and tied the game with under a minute to go on an 11-yard run by Michael Vick. Born Dunn ran for 129 yards on 20 carries and a touchdown that day. Vick threw for 294. They were monstrous. I can't think of a tie game that Falcons fans remember with more pride. I just can't. Next up was a 7-2 division leading Saints, and they were coming into town at the Georgia Dome. The final score was 24-17 Atlanta. But we had a double-digit lead throughout the bulk of the game. A Saints CD with under a minute left made it appear closer than it actually was. Keith Brooking led the defense with 11 tackles, 10 of the solo variety, and a fumble recovery. Beating those guys never get sold. No. And it makes no difference if they're good or bad. So now we're 6'3-1, heading into late November and the holidays. It looks pretty good. I think I forgot to mention this is the first season of a long overdue division realignment. This is the first year we're finally in the NFC South. Gone are the annual road trips for certain losses to San Francisco. We don't have to make that trip every year now. Uh we're in the NFC South, and the league's divisions are the same ones we know today. They have not changed since. We go to Carolina next. This was fun, and beat them like we mean it, 41 to nothing.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Oh, that's sweet.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Yeah. Add that to the score of our previous meeting with the Panthers earlier in the year. And for eight quarters of football, we beat them 71 to nothing.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Yeah. This was a good team. And so who was uh do you remember who was playing on the Panthers team?

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Oh on this Panthers team, it may have been Jake Delome at that point in time. Yeah. Um I'll have to go back and look at that for for uh the next episode, and I'll let y'all know. But um, I don't have that down here. No problem. But we'll look for it. Uh at this point, though, we're 7-3-1. And that's after starting 0-2. We've only had one loss in nine games, and that came at the hands of the eventual Super Bowl champion, Bucks, of John Gruden. That was a nasty defense there. Make that one loss in ten games as the Falcons went to Minnesota, home of so many good Falcons memories, including our first ever win in 1966, and our Miracle NFC Championship victory in 1998. If you're listening to our little podcast, then doubtless you've seen a Michael Vick highlight reel. And if you've seen a Michael Vick highlight reel, you've seen the play that ended the 30-24 Falcons win, where he drops back on what appears to be a designed pass play, quickly takes off running to his left side. It might very well have been a quarterback draw, it's hard to tell. If it was, the fake was flawless. Anyway, he gets his motor going full speed from around midfield, run past their line and linebackers, down close to the 20, where two Vikings, one from either side, have an angle on him, go for the tackle, and run right into each other because Mike is gone. He's so daggum fast. He scores. Falcons win again. We're 8-3-1. We've clinched a winning record. We feel pretty good about our playoff chances. Uh that team Tampa had put together was waiting to eat us down by the bay, and they surely didn't bring us back down to did bring us back down to Earth 34-10, holding us to just 181 yards for the game. Man, were they good? They were fast enough to spy and contained Vic, which was the secret to that whole thing. That defense was really fast. They held him to nine rushing yards on six carries. And remember, that was a Tampa team that had Warren Sapp on it, um, had John Lynch, you remember, the safety. And he was the guy they usually put on Vic to spy him. You weren't getting past John Lynch. He he was I think he was in the Hall of Fame.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

So other teams are looking at how Tampa was able to shut down what we had going on.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

And so did that affect the rest of the season for how the teams approached us, or we're gonna find out here.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Yeah, we will find out here to a degree, yes. Um it showed what you're supposed to do. Um, but just like Buster Douglas in Tokyo, not everybody's gonna beat Mike Tyson just because they know the right things to do. You actually have to execute. That's right. And if you don't have the guys, I'm sorry, Mike's gonna run past you and score a touchdown. Awesome. Yeah. An overtime loss to Seattle at home, a 30-24 upset came next. Then we took out our anger on a bad Detroit team in our final home game, 36-15. Vic Torched him 337 passing yards, another 42 on the ground. Warwick Dunn ran for 132 and a TD. Quentin McCord had a had a career day, caught seven balls for 182 yards. Good night. And a score. Thanks, Detroit. We closed out the year again in the cold in Cleveland against the playoff bound Browns team. That sounds funny to say, and lost late 24-16 after having a fourth quarter lead. The loss finished our regular season at 9-6-1, good enough to earn a wild card berth, and a trip to Lamborough Field, where the Packers had never, in their long history, never lost a postseason game. And this game was as big of a beatdown as you'll see this time of year. The Falcons received the opening kickoff and drove it down 76 yards downfield, cutting through that Packers defense like a hot knife through butter and capping it with a 10-yard vic to Sean Jefferson TD pass, and we lead early 7-0. On the Packers' ensuing possession and Brett Farv's second pass of the game, Atlanta's Keon Carpenter intercepted the ball in Packers territory, giving us another shot. We bogged down and punted, then kept the Packers pinned down with their backs to the end zone on fourth down. Green Bay's punt was blocked by Mark Simoneau and recovered by Falcon's special teamer Artie Ulmer at the one taken into the end zone for another TD, 14-0 Atlanta first quarter. Falcons fans, if you're still wondering when the beatdown is going to start, would it shock you to learn that it already has? This is Atlanta beating down the Packers. I neglected to tell you that. By halftime we lead 24-0 and cruise to a 27-7 win. Vic played well within himself, didn't try to do too much, going 13 for 25, 117 yards and a touchdown while rushing for 64 on 10 carries. No picks, no sacks, no fumbles. When he had to play solid, he played solid. His counterpart on the other side was intercepted twice, sacked twice, that's Brett Favre, ladies and gentlemen, and lost a fumber, fumble. Our guy looked like a wily veteran while theirs was looking for answers and running for his life half the night. Playoff win in Lambeau Field carried on the capable shoulders of Mike Vick and a spectacular performance by the defense represents one of our highest and most hopeful moments in time. A loss to the Eagles in the divisional round is something most fans don't remember, including me. I have no recollection of losing twenty to six to Andy Reid's Eagles, except to say I remember it being pretty cold. It was a fun year to be a Falcons fan, and we had hope for a bright future. The team was young, fast, physical, and looked like they were finally ready to make the next few years a great time to be a Falcons fan. Can we really have a great run like that? Life doesn't always do what we think it will do, does it? This is Curse of the Falcons.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Curse of the Falcons. It's coming back, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Oh, it it seems to always come back, man. High tide, low tide.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah. Well, but you know, that's part of what we're doing here. We're reliving things, and one of the things that we want to do is figure out how we reverse the curse. And um and so I don't know what's gonna happen this year for our 2026 season, but uh I know there's a lot of uh Falcons hopeful, you know, around and uh and here's two of them right here. So I agree. I'm pretty excited about it. Hey, uh one of the one of the things I want to tell you guys about and is um we're gonna uh before too long here, uh just a couple three more episodes, we're gonna have some uh an opportunity to have uh some guests with us, and I think you guys are gonna be pretty excited about it. We'll just see how this comes about. But um just to give you a little taste, it's gonna be good. It's gonna be people who have been involved with um the Falcons and um and are involved in uh pro football, college football, and uh have a a great understanding of what's going on. Um so I'm I'm excited about this.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

I am too. I am too. There'll be a lot to learn from people like that. And um, you know, I sit here as a fan. I I know things because I've been watching them, but these guys are next level that you're talking about, and uh I I look forward to the opportunity to pick pick those brains a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Yeah. Well, I've learned a lot uh just being part of this from you and from Chuck. And uh I you know I'm I'm learning more and more all the time, even just going back and listening and really looking at the past and see what happened and how we've you know hopefully been able to grow. So uh and I hope that's been good for all of you that have been listening. And by the way, uh do we have any folks uh who all's been listening lately?

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Well, we we had we had a bunch of local folks listen to the to the last episode we dropped. Woodstock, Marietta, Atlanta, basically, it's it's uh been all local there. Um now we we did have the fella hanging on from Bellingham, Washington. Uh haven't seen him in a couple of weeks. Hopefully he comes back. But um you know it it's it's sparse here and there. And frankly, our our output hasn't hasn't been consistent uh due to circumstances beyond our control. So, you know, we're we're working on um we're working on doing doing a better job.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Being consistent. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Well, good deal. Well, all right, well, Dan, read us out of here, bro.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Oh, you got it. Thank you all for listening. Curse of the Falcons is produced by Sonny Lawlessett, recorded by Sonny and me, Dan Cox, and created by Chuck E. and me. Theme song Reverse the Curse, written, produced, and performed by Sonny and the Reverse the Curse Dirty Bird Rock and Roll Band. We'd appreciate any positive clicks such as file follows, likes, or five-star reviews that can help people find us. You know the algorithm and all that stuff. If you like what you hear, tell your friends. You can correspond directly with the show by email at curse of the Falcons at Yahoo.com. Let's keep building this community so together we can reverse the curse. Far as that team down in Louisiana goes, we eat them for snacks. Curse of the Falcons is produced and recorded at Studio A la Carte, located in historic Old Country, Smyrna, Georgia. This has been a cruise control production.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

See you guys soon. Bye.