Pffft

Air goes out of Falcons' balloon with Vick injury

So much for Falcons Fever.

With Mike Vick's broken fibula Saturday night against Baltimore, this season's NFC playoff picture just got considerably less predictable. The big winner at first glance? That would be the New Orleans Saints, one of the Falcons' biggest rivals in the NFC South.

Last season, the Falcons beat the Saints twice, which proved to be the difference between Atlanta making the playoffs at 9-6-1 and New Orleans missing out at 9-7. With Tampa Bay still the favorite to defend its NFC South title, the Falcons and Saints figured to again battle it out for one of the conference's two wild-card spots.

They still might, but without Vick, the man whom the Falcons' entire franchise resurgence is built around, the advantage has to shift to New Orleans -- at least in the season's first half.

Just last Saturday night, before the Falcons' preseason-opening loss to Green Bay, I stood with Atlanta owner Arthur Blank on the sideline at the Georgia Dome and asked him if it made him nervous to contemplate how much of his team's fate rested on Vick's talented young shoulders? How much air would go out of the Falcons' balloon, I wondered, if Vick would be lost for any significant amount of time due to injury? Blank was realistic and yet hopeful.

"I think a certain amount of air would come out," Blank said. "There's no question about that, and I think anybody on this roster would admit that. Of course you worry about it. I spoke to [NFL executive vice president/COO] Roger Goodell just Friday about some matter, and I reported to him that No. 7's in good health. I told him that's important for Atlanta, but it's also important for the NFL. And he said, 'I agree with you, brother.'

"Having said that, you know that great teams go on and win even without their No. 1 quarterback. Look at Philadelphia last year. [Donovan] McNabb had a horrible injury and then their next quarterback [Koy Detmer] had a horrible injury, and they went on to win with their third-string quarterback [A.J. Feeley]. You've got to be able to do that in the NFL. So, it's going to happen to us at some point. We're going to have to win at some point without No. 7."

That point arrived sooner than Blank or any of us expected. And now that it's here, Atlanta is at least in better shape than many teams would be in a similar situation. Backup quarterback Doug Johnson is no slouch. He won a key road game against the Giants last year when Vick was knocked out of the lineup.

Johnson, and the job that both Detmer and Feeley did in Philadelphia last season, at least gives Atlanta some hope of not being buried by the time Vick comes back. But that's going to be made more difficult by the Falcons' first-half schedule, which is very challenging in spots.

Atlanta has to open its season at Dallas, in what will be Bill Parcells' first game as the Cowboys head coach. That already was going to be an emotional game for Dallas, and now without Vick, it's going to be even tougher for the Falcons to get out of Texas Stadium with a W.

Also, in the season's first half, Atlanta also has tough home games against Tampa Bay, which beat the Falcons twice last year, New Orleans and Philadelphia, sandwiched around difficult road dates at Carolina and St. Louis. If the Falcons can go .500 without him, they're going to be in decent shape for a healthy Vick to resume his magic.

Not that Atlanta fans need a reminder, but in their first 37 seasons of existence, the Falcons have never posted back-to-back winning seasons, let alone consecutive playoff trips. All told, the Falcons have managed a total of just nine above-.500 seasons from 1966-2002, with six playoff qualifiers in that span. Without Vick in the first half, those discouraging trends might continue.

"We have a league with rules to protect the quarterback, but having said that, you always run the risk," Blank said last week, of a potential Vick injury. "We're fortunate to have a great backup in Johnson. We have a lot of good feelings about him and [third-string quarterback] Kurt Kittner."

Those good feelings may start kicking in on Sunday, day one of "Life without Mike." On Saturday night, all of Atlanta had to be feeling like it just took a swift kick in the gut.

Don Banks covers pro football for SI.com.

 

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