| Falcons should’ve tried to get Johnson
The Falcons’ collection of draft picks this spring weren’t bad. In fact, they were pretty good.
You can start with exceptionally quick Jamaal Anderson at defensive end. You can move to Justin “Big Bank” Blalock as a welcomed giant among dwarfs along the offensive line. You can continue with the nice potential of cornerback Chris Houston, wide receiver Laurent Robinson and linebacker Stephen Nicholas.
Mostly, you can envision seven, eight or maybe nine of the Falcons’ 11 picks overall starting someday.
It’s just that the Falcons didn’t get Calvin Johnson.
They didn’t even try.
“I mean, how in the world could you not even try to get this guy?” said Shawn Jefferson, the former Falcons wide receiver, who isn’t exactly displeased with his old team’s negligence. Jefferson is entering his third season as an offensive assistant with the Detroit Lions, and his new team did get Calvin Johnson in the NFL draft.
The Lions have had the all-everything wide receiver from Georgia Tech via Sandy Creek High School in Tyrone for slightly more than a month. Even so, they’ve seen enough of Calvin Johnson in mini-camps and organized team activities (OTAs) to determine that the league’s worst team over the past six seasons just got that much closer to the middle of the pack and beyond. They’ve discovered what many of us have known forever, and that is, Calvin Johnson, the person, is as sensational as Calvin Johnson, the player.
No wonder Jefferson spoke of Calvin Johnson as if he were his second son.
“We all knew he was an exceptional talent, but he’s better than we thought, and he’s a great young man,” said Jefferson, the Falcons’ vocal leader during his three seasons with the team through 2002. “If a meeting starts at 8 o’clock in the morning, Calvin is there at 7:45, just waiting on everybody else. He’s always the first to arrive and the last to leave. What a role model and a perfect individual to build your team around.”
Translated: The suddenly image-damaged Falcons blew it.
Big time.
Maybe you’ve heard about Michael Vick and this dogfighting thing. Well, with the gifted Calvin Johnson and his brilliant smile on the Falcons’ roster, this latest and ugliest in a string of controversies for No. 7 isn’t barking as loudly.
The Falcons could have used a combination of their No. 8 pick overall during the draft and their two second-round picks to grab that No. 2 pick overall from Detroit. They could have proceeded to get one Michael Jordan instead of several Sam Bowies. They could have gone from a pretty good draft to a pretty great one. They could have gotten Calvin Johnson, and remember the words we just typed. Then again, you won’t be able to forget them: The Falcons could have gotten Calvin Johnson. You’ll hear that often during the next few weeks, months, years and even decades.
That’s because Calvin Johnson has the size, speed and skills to reach Canton as more than a visitor. In part, the words below Calvin Johnson’s bronzed bust should read, “And even though he was an Atlanta native and did many miracles at Georgia Tech and dreamed of playing for the hometown Falcons, he was drafted by somebody else.”
Jefferson still is pinching himself, along with his bosses. They’ve been doing so since their phone never rang in their war room during the 15 minutes they were on the clock for the first round. They didn’t hear from the Denver Broncos, Washington Redskins or Tampa Bay Buccaneers, three of the several teams who hinted before the draft of calling. Most strikingly, they didn’t hear from the Falcons who needed Calvin Johnson for so many reasons. “They really could use a big-time wide receiver, couldn’t they?” said Jefferson, already knowing the answer to his question.
Nobody knows the answer to this: How loudly will Falcons fans scream every time the guy they could have had does something greater than great?
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