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What a farce.

Hold a team to field goals, no touchdowns.

Run 41 times for 228 yards.

Bijan Robinson gets red-zone carries. Fewer breakdowns on D. Allow no sacks. A 92-yard pick-6. Overcome a couple expected INTs. Break a home losing streak against a hated rival.

Horrible, just horrible. Send all the Falcons to Canada.

* Pause *

By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

Like that impersonation of Falcons watchers? Yeah, hard to call a chunk of em “fans.” Can call them a lot of things, though.

Atlanta is tied for first. Dear Atlanta watchers: This is a good thing. It’s kind of the point. Go upgrade the meds, or get some.

The Falcons are 5-6. Should, yes, be 8-3. What if they play 8-3 football the rest of the way? Or, 4-2 or 5-1 ball the rest of the way?

Note that Atlanta’s record matches the Rams, the Saints, Packers, Bengals – yeah, remember them? – and is a half-game or game behind that of Buffalo, Indianapolis, Denver, Minnesota, and Seattle.

And it’s better than 11 teams.

No, the NFC South isn’t going to get a wild-card, so maybe just think about winning the division, and roll the dice in the playoffs while recognizing that everybody except Philadelphia has at least three losses.

And there are some atrocious games and losses out there, none of which – in reality, sorry – can be claimed by Atlanta. None are in the, eh top 15 of the worst losses in the NFL this season (like Chicago breaking an 0-28 NFL streak of teams not winning without scoring a TD, doing so at Minnesota).

Of course, we still can’t much figure out what Atlanta is. There was improvement during the bye week, even if Desmond Ridder threw two more picks. That still has to improve.

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And the defense still gave up too many yards. But none of the three phases lost the game for Atlanta.

That’s a start.

Last week’s surprises/upsets

Macon County went on the road as a solid favorite, and was handled by Telfair County, for the Trojans’ biggest win of the year over a playoff or playoff-caliber team, and third-biggest win overall.

The Trojans are now 3-1 against ranked teams.

All of the other area games when basically as predicted.

Had Duke Watson not re-aggravated the ankle injury that never went away, we might be talking about Mary Persons knocking off Cedar Grove, even if the Saints had to resort to some gimmicks to score and pull ahead.

At some point, Warner Robins was going to lose before the final game of the season. This time, Creekside didn’t give away any gifts, and the Demons didn’t quiiiiite have enough to take some.

Loughdmouthings

Central Georgia started the GHSA playoffs with 26 teams.

One remains.

A year ago, one. We were preparing this week for, of course, Warner Robins, which was hosting Cartersville. Cartersville is still alive, hosting Coffee. The magic dust of the past several years on South Davis Drive finally ran out.

Some may have found its way to the corner of Park Ave. and Parkway Drive to the southwest in Perry.

And yes, Perry can beat – dumbest question in the world is “can ____ beat ____” when they’re close in ability, etc., like “can Alabama beat Georgia?” etc. – Starr’s Mill on the road.

Not that the Panthers can look ahead, but we can. The other two teams left in 4A are Stockbridge and Benedictine, and the 4A championship game is - *sigh* - set for Tuesday – Tuesday – Dec. 12 at 4 p.m.

No, no no no. Championship games in midweek? That’s a sellout. Go back to Turner, well, Georgia State – or QUALITY REGIONAL FACILITIES – if that’s the only way to play on a weekend.

As it should be. …

          Tell me you don’t know much about football or you’re a puddinhead without telling me you’re a puddinhead or you don’t know much about football:
          “Man, Bobo is just an idiot.”
          Doesn’t mean you’re not a nice person. …

It’s easy to write off FCS playoff newbie Mercer playing at No. 1 and defending national champ South Dakota State.

But remember: defense travels, and Mercer’s got a pretty good defense. And as of Tuesday, it’s not much warmer in Macon than it is in Brookings, S.D. Saturday will be snow-free and around 40, so some nighttime practices here while it’s cold will help.

Gut feeling here isn’t quite the expected rout. …

On Saturday, a national media dingleberry wrote that Ohio State’s Ryan Day – owner of a 56-7 record – should consider going after the Texas A&M job because, well, OSU lost to Michigan for a third straight time.

First, that’s as dumb and knee-jerk as anything a fan would say, and the word “jerk” goes with “fan” like “tailgating” goes with “Saturday.”

Yeah, 56-6 and he should carry his butt elsewhere. Wow.

Tell folks to bookmark/favorite The Sports Report, and follow on Facebook/ Twitter-X, account or not. Stay informed.

〰️

Tell folks to bookmark/favorite The Sports Report, and follow on Facebook/ Twitter-X, account or not. Stay informed. 〰️

Holy crap. Makes you want Day to leave and the Buckeyes lose to Indiana and Purdue a little bit and bring misery to the miserable.

Second, this is the same national media dingleberry who told us in September:

“It took Deion Sanders nine months, one rushed recruiting cycle and a single game to turn 2023 — at least temporarily — into the Season of Prime, of Boulder, of the Buffaloes, of ‘We Comin’’ and ‘I ain’t hard to find’ and “Do You Believe?”

And: “Sanders says Colorado has already arrived, and perhaps they have. No one should doubt the man’s ability … turning a team with a 1-11 record and just a single winning season in 17 years into an overnight national contender.”

After one game.

Yeah, September as it turns out was “National Butt-kissing Media Hyperbole Dingleberry” month when it came to college football and a new mouthy head coach off to a start against teams that didn’t make a bowl eligible while failing to become bowl eligible itself when dingleberry’s wrote of a conference title.

The records of the opponents vanquished? 5-7, 5-7, 5-7, 3-9. So, yeah, but noooooo. September, when credibility of national media took the month off. …

Alabama can beat Georgia. Is an underdog for a reason. Alabama could’ve lost to Auburn if Auburn – repeat after me – COVERED SOMEBODY.

Well, and caught a punt, and rushed more people at the end.

Georgia struggling with Georgia Tech is a good thing for the Bulldogs. For all the public comments – and media lapdogs eating it up like free pizza – college teams can use a humbling week, and Georgia got one.

Just in time. Alabama’s close call was much less inspiring than Georgia’s.

The Tide will have to reach into the bag of tricks to beat the Bulldogs. Of course, if they repeat the past – AND DON’T PROPERLY COVER PEOPLE AND NOT LET THEM ROAM – Georgia will find a way to lose it.

That’s highly unlikely. …

Speaking of the mountains and football, when will there be a reading of the receipts of 2023 we heard about? Any mention of the record-breaking comeback-allowed loss, or the longest losing streak, well, since last year when they ended the season with six straight losses.

Yessir, a big turnaround. Not much, though, from the 4-8 season twooooo years ago. Reminder: one season’s record doesn’t define the program’s status. …

The NFL division with the worst non-conference record is not, not, the NFC South. It’s the NFC West, which is 4-10. South is 6-10. Also under .500: NFC North (5-10), and AFC East (7-8). Best is AFC North at 11-2. …

Our Friday kickoff weather – with no mentions of the Falklands or Greenland jet streams or impressiveness or re-checking in 7 minutes - in Central Georgia isn’t pretty, as per a weatherman in Quahog, Rhode Island:

It’s gonna rain (that’s the milder version of Ollie’s scream). Odds highs and lows, less than 10 degrees apart and in the 60s. Daytime rain chances 80 percent, lessening at night to around 50 percent.

Things will be wet, but maybe minimal rain during games.

Let’s hope.

What they said/wrote

“Indiana fired football coach Tom Allen w/ $(15) million buyout.

“Texas A&M paid $76 million buyout to fire Jimbo Fisher.

“(Tommy) Tuberville only got $5.6 million when Auburn fired him.

“Tommy’s a bad Senator but maybe $$$ will tempt him to leave Senate & try to be fired again as bad coach?”

- Left Coast Sports Babe