Sometimes you just have to let go.

Take Keith Brooking, for example. An Atlanta Falcons icon for years now, Brooking's play on the field has steadily gone downhill. While I still love him as a person, I've viciously turned on his inability to cover a completely useless tight end in a playoff game.

Not that I am overly bitter, of course.

But it's useful to remember that even icons have to go sometime, because Jeff Schultz at the AJC believes the Falcons shouldn't ditch Lawyer Milloy. While I normally respect Schultz's opinion, he's out of his freakin' mind on this one. Milloy looked old and slow for large stretches of the season, he wasn't very healthy, his DUI arrest hung over him for weeks and he capped the whole thing off by looking like he couldn't tackle a fly against the Cardinals. It's complete lunacy to keep a guy aging that rapidly in front of talented kids like Thomas DeCoud.

All of this would be moot if Milloy was willing to assume a backup role, which would keep his legs fresh and allow him to work that leadership mojo that he's nearly universally praised for. If this team is serious about improving, however, they'll either let DeCoud have a chance or draft another safety who can bring some energy to the position.

It may sound like I'm being harsh with Milloy, but I just don't believe in maintaining the status quo at positions that are clearly becoming a liability. What do you guys think?

I suspected Mike Smith would win this award from Week 1 onward.

That might sound like hyperbole, but the way he had the Falcons playing early on showed a complete transformation in the team's character. While guys like Tony Sparano in Miami are very deserving for the honor, the complete homer in me has favored Smith all season long.

To take a team as young as the Falcons and turn them from a busted up toy airplane to a dragon mounted with a minigun and rocket launchers requires a coach with the patience, fire and skill to effect such a change. Thomas Dimitroff presided over a roster gutting and restocking that left the Falcons with a talented young bunch of offensive players and a ton of holes on defense, close to the absolute best he could do in one offseason. Smith supplied an aggressive coaching scheme, a great group of coordinators and position coaches and an entirely new philosophy from the years of Bobby Petrino and Jim Mora.

To boil it down, he was a breath of fresh air. He really did some great things with a roster that still need some help, and it should truly frighten the league at large that he'll have a (hopefully) better roster next season. The level of planning was there all season, and I never once went into a game believing we'd get blown away. The Coach of the Year award reflects the progress the Falcons made from doormat to upper echelon, and I truly believe that no more than a handful of coaches in the league cook up a better game plan than Smith (this last game, perhaps, notwithstanding.)

It's a testament to Smith's excellence this year, and it is richly deserved.

Let me pose you a couple of questions.

You, through a bizarre combination of a mad scientist's machine and a stash of hallucinogens, have switched places with Thomas Dimitroff. After patting yourself on the back for a job well done this last season, you're heading into 2009 looking to improve the team.

What is your absolute first priority? What is the very first move you make? Do you encourage the press corps to call you Comrade?

If you'd like to talk draft, check out SG Standard's FanPost. This here is specifically for first priorities, whether that be picking up a rookie offensive linemen this spring, signing a hulking defensive tackle or extending Roddy White in the next three days.

Discuss!

via redpath-museum.mcgill.ca

It didn't end the way we wanted it to, but what a season it was. I'm extremely proud of the Falcons, from Arthur Blank down to the towel boys, and all of the fans who made this season so enjoyable for us all. You guys are fantastic, and we'll be keeping on top of Falcons news and analysis all off-season long.

For now, vent about the game, soak in the entire season or just talk Falcons in general. This was a great one for our franchise, and there's a very good chance that it's only going to get better from here.

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This is it, guys. Everything the Falcons have worked so hard for comes down to this. Lose and go home with a successful season under our belts and a general sense of satisfaction. Win and continue a season that's been so magical that it makes Merlin like a boring old fart.

I'll be here with you guys to talk game, so hopefully you'll all show up. We've got a million angles to talk about, but hopefully the really important one comes to the forefront: the win. It should be a great game, either way.

If you want to see what Cardinals fans are up to, check out my good friends over at Revenge Of The Birds.

GO FALCONS!!!!!!

This is it, friends. Time to treat every game like it's the contest that decides the fate of the human race. Time to cheer, to drink, to yell like tomorrow is the most nebulous promise of your future. You never really know when we'll be back here again, so let's hope the Falcons come out of this game with tufts of red feathers sticking out of their helmets.

Now is the time to discuss every possible angle for the game. Will the Falcons effectively bottle up the Cardinals' passing game? Will Michael Turner get untracked and run for hundreds of yards? Will these questions lead to meaningful discussion?

Talk amongst yourselves in the comments!

The following is a scouting report from Redbirds to the SB from Revenge Of The Birds, who was kind enough to answer my request for a report concentrating on the Cardinals' running game and defense. Give it a read, and then head over to the discussion thread to weigh in on tomorrow's game. Big thanks to Redbirds to the SB!

The running game for the Arizona Cardinals has been an exercise in futility for most of the season. They've started three different backs and tried running from every formation including the ever-popular wild-cat formation. For the most part, the results have been below average to simply embarrassing. It's hard to point a finger at any certain person, personnel group or offensive philosophy though because I don't think any of them are suited for a strong running game. The offensive line is built to and conditioned to protect the quarterback. The running backs seem like a good mix of complimentary backs with no real 'workhorse.' Edgerrin James has been that 'bell cow' back for his entire career but earlier in the year he looked like a 30 year old back with almost 3,000 career carries. He was replaced by Tim Hightower, a fifth round rookie, and he had one good game (22 carries 109 yards vs STL) before combining for 157 yards in the final eight games of the season. J.J Arrington seems like the only back that has a defined role. He's fit in well as the 3rd down back who can pop a good gain on a draw or take a quick swing pass for nice gain. The offensive philosophy seems to also hinder the running game at times because the passing game flourishes when they've got three or four wide receivers on the field. Obviously not having a tight end or fullback or both on the field will slow down a running game at times. It's also worth noting that getting down by multiple touchdowns early in games has a way of neutralizing the running game and that's certainly something that the Cardinals have suffered from this season.

The Arizona Cardinals defense takes alot of shots during the season and for the most part, they're deserved. I don't think they're as bad as the 26.6 points per game they've given up (28th in the league) would suggest though, but they do have a small margin for error. What I mean by that is that they're a capable unit as long as the offense doesn't put them behind the eight ball. Case in point, in every single game this season that the opposition has scored more than 25 points (6 times), the offense turned the ball over at least twice (a total of 19 turnovers). Some good news for the defense this week is that they should be close to full strength when Travis LaBoy and Gabe Watson return. LaBoy is one of their better pass rushers and he's been slowed by a variety of ailments for most of the season. Watson is the anchor in the middle of the defensive line and he's never fully recovered from a fractured knee cap in the offseason. He seemed close to regaining his starting job until he experienced some swelling and sat out of practice and the game last week. The secondary has been terrible at times this season but the emergence of Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Antrel Rolle settling into the free safety spot is give them some stability. The front seven is a athletic group that plays much better with a lead considering that most of them are better pass rushers than run stoppers. They can be exposed if the opposition is able to run right at them for four quarters.

There's so much going on right now that I can scarcely keep up with all of it. In lieu of several in-depth posts which would take so long to write that I'd get fired from my job and miss New Year's entirely, let's try the quick hit news roundup. Consider this a catch-all thread for any news that pops up during the afternoon hours today, as well.

Here we go:

• Our first item was ably handled by runningback in a FanPost, but I thought I'd touch on it. Police were called to the home of one Michael "The Burner" Turner due to a domestic disturbance. Whether or not you subscribe to the belief that Turner did something wrong, you have to admit that this is not the kind of thing the Falcons need right about now. Turner is the star of the show out there, and any off-field distractions (particularly ones like this) that slow him on the field are big trouble.
• Congratulations to Matt Ryan, who was voted the Rookie of the Year for the NFL by The Associated Press. There were a lot of excellent candidates this year, but Ryan blew them away from the first play of his career. The fact that he has so much room to grow should scare the living daylights out of every other team in the league, quite frankly. Three cheers for Ryan!
• Rich McKay has been given permission to interview with the Browns, and good for him. I don't share the same overpowering hatred of McKay that some of you have, but he's pretty much just a high-up aide to Comrade Dimitroff at this point and should be pursuing other avenues. The Browns might want to keep him from signing any free agents, though, as he was spectacularly bad at that during his stint with the Falcons.
• The Falcons are going to need a true team effort to beat the Cardinals, according to the AJC. I'm inclined to agree with that, because a weak offensive effort will doom us just as surely as our secondary and pass rush going all weaksauce on us. About the only thing the Falcons don't have to worry about is the Cards' rushing attack, and I even hesitate a little before that. I hope we see some of the good ol' fashioned aggression that Coach Tophat has become known for.
  
• I have to give enormous props to some of our team record holders. Roddy White has quite simply cemented his place in Falcons history by running together a pair of transcendant seasons, capping it off by setting the single-season receiving yards record. John Abraham was a vicious, heart-devouring reaver of all things quarterback, easily setting the team's single-season sack record. And big kudos to Michael Koenen, who I maligned much of the year, for putting it together in the latter half of the season and improbably helping to get the Falcons the NFL record for fewest punt return yards. It's been quite a season.
• Last but not least, please be sure to visit Revenge of the Birds, our fine-feathered Cardinals blog, for all things Arizona. I'll be putting together a scouting report for his site, and he's graciously done the same for me, so we'll be running that here at The Falcoholic on Friday.
  

Thoughts?