You want a robot? I'll give you a robot.  ¶ 3/31/2004 12:10:00 PM 0 comments

  Melo!
(AP Photo/Jack Dempsey)

Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony dunks against the Seattle SuperSonics during the third quarter in Denver Tuesday, March 30, 2004. The Nuggets beat the SuperSonics, 124-119.

Take that, LeBron. Carmelo Anthony scored a career-high 41 points Tuesday night, matching James for the most by a rookie this season, and the Denver Nuggets moved into a tie for eighth place in the West with the victory.

"I couldn't let LeBron get 41 without me getting 41," said Anthony, who had 18 points in a first-quarter shootout with Rashard Lewis and kept it going after Lewis cooled. Anthony finished 19-for-29.   ¶ 3/31/2004 10:19:00 AM 0 comments

  Opening Day in Japan? The Baseball season started today at 5AM Eastern Standard time in Japan. The Yankees lost. But seriously? That's stupid. Not only that, but there are still spring training games this week. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays who played today and won the game, still have spring training games to play. So they've already started their season, but still have spring training? That is really dumb.   ¶ 3/30/2004 03:37:00 PM 0 comments

  Goal for 2004... and beyond It's not too late to put in a goal for life and the year : I want to my pee to be clear.

I know, that sounds silly and a little gross.. But I want to keep myself well hydrated and that is the ultimate measure...The darker it is, the farther I am from my goal..

It's very important to remain hydrated. It's probably one of the most important things you can do to remain healthy. You should be drinking water all day, every day. If you aren't drinking at least a half gallon a day, you are chronically dehydrated. If you aren't pissing clear every time, you are dehydrated.

On a sidenote, I quit the YMCA yesterday and afterwards went with Sara to Friendly's for overrated sundae's.. Thought that was funny.  ¶ 3/30/2004 12:10:00 PM 0 comments

  Back in the Flesh Here I am. Back in the office after a five-day extended weekend.....

Gotta get busy now...

Might have more later.  ¶ 3/30/2004 10:35:00 AM 0 comments

  NCAA Tourney It's funny. Now that SU has lost, I don't care at all about the tourney. Good luck St Joe's, UCONN, and Duke!  ¶ 3/26/2004 04:30:00 AM 0 comments

  Planets Align Rare stargazing spectacle as planets align
Alignment won't happen again for three decades

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Five planets are arrayed across the evening sky in a spectacular night show that won't be back for another three decades.

For the next two weeks, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn -- the five closest planets -- should be easily visible at dusk, along with the moon.

The planetary lineup will be visible to the naked eye every night for an hour after sunset from around the world through early April. At the end of the year, the same five planets will reunite for a few weeks, but in the pre-dawn hours.

The orbits of the five planets take them to the same side of the sun every few years or so. The conditions have to be just right for all five planets to be clearly visible at dusk or dawn; Mercury is often tough to catch. Even rarer are so-called alignments, where the planets are clustered together in the sky; this is not one of those.

Stargazers should look to the western horizon just after sunset. Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn will be lined up in the sky with Jupiter close to the eastern horizon. They will span about 135 degrees. Saturn will be almost directly overhead.

Continue...  ¶ 3/24/2004 08:09:00 AM 0 comments

  Fallas

Firefighters hose down a fire as the city of Valencia celebrates the finale of its Fallas festival, which welcomes Spring and honors Saint Joseph's Day with the burning of giant elaborate sculptures and effigies of wood and plastic, in the early hours March 20, 2004. The finale sees the last day of the weeklong spectacle of processions, fireworks, music and dancing. REUTERS/Heino Kalis  ¶ 3/23/2004 10:58:00 AM 0 comments

  Good morning Hey good morning everyone.
I got my #21 tooth drilled this morning and my mouth is numb. Yee.
This weekend we are driving to Mount Pleasant, MI to check out Central Michigan where Sara will probably be going to school next fall. Yee  ¶ 3/22/2004 10:28:00 AM 0 comments

  Syracuse wins again!

Syracuse Orangemen forward Hakim Warrick stuffs a basket over the Maryland Terrapins in the second half of the NCAA (news - web sites) Division 1 men's basketball championship second round game in Denver March 20, 2004. The Orangemen went on to win 72 - 70 with Warrick the high scorer for Syracuse with 26 points. REUTERS/Rick Wilking   ¶ 3/20/2004 08:32:00 PM 0 comments

  Syracuse Syracuse survives scare. Beats BYU 80-75

On the right, Syracuse guard Gerry McNamara shoots for three points and BYU's Mike Hall attempts to block in Denver during the first round of the NCAA (news - web sites) men's college basketball tournament, Thursday, March 18, 2004. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

McNamara finished with 43 points.

Thursday, March 18 | First Round
ESPN's PLAYER OF THE DAY: Gerry McNamara, Syracuse
Sophomore guard Gerry McNamara scored 43 big points, and he was clearly the player of the day. He put on an offensive clinic in the first round. McNamara was clutch with key shots and big free throws all game long.   ¶ 3/18/2004 05:34:00 PM 0 comments

  The Orangemen Hakim Warrick, Gerry McNamara and the rest of the Syracuse Orangemen look to defend their NCAA Basketball championship today as they face BYU at 3:10 EST.

  ¶ 3/18/2004 09:19:00 AM 0 comments

  PhotoBlog Here is something that I just started and will be playing with > Photo Blog  ¶ 3/17/2004 10:29:00 AM 0 comments

  And the rockets red glare!!!!

Phish sings the National Anthem at the first ever nationally televised basketball game from Vermont.  ¶ 3/15/2004 11:41:00 AM 0 comments

  Join my NCAA Tournament bracket challenge --> In order to join the group, just go to http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com and click on the "Sign Up" button to create a team. After completing registration, or if you already have a team, click the "Create or Join Group" button and follow the path to join an existing private group. Then, when prompted, enter the following information...

Group ID#: 20723
Password: smith   ¶ 3/15/2004 11:15:00 AM 0 comments

  The Service Industry I hate the service industry. It just irratates me. All the time. It's to the point now, that I can't expect to get good service from anyone. When I do get good service its mind numbing and I end up tipping way over the tip scale. But generally speaking at the gas station I don't expect a hello back, at restaurants I should start bringing my own water cause the waiters usually care not to keep my pallet clensed, and I shouldn't even bother thanking the delivery person anymore. They never say welcome.

Take last night for example. And keep in mind, these things would not be a big deal, but they keep happening, and keep piling up on one another. I go to the corner store or whatever you want to call it and we order two sandwiches and get two drinks. 16 dollars later we sit and wait for them to be done. Now, I don't know really what we payed 16 dollars for cause it wasn't the friendly service. While in line waiting to order, we wait unacknowledged cause the girl at the register is on the phone. Yeah, I can see, she's taking an order, but a simple "be right with you" would have resulted in me being content and never making this first point. So then, we wait, and eventually hear what I think to be the names of our sandwiches mumbled by some useless dude behind the counter. Remember, we ordered two sandwiches.. and now we recieve one bag. You would think a normal question to ask this guy would be, which one is which, but maybe he wasn't born on this planet. So I ask, "which one is which?", and I swear, he looked at me like I was some sort of idiot or something. Like, I'm crazy for asking. He starts to open the bag and I say "never mind" and proceed to state very bluntly "Thanks Buddy".. AHH.

I don't know. It's not really a big deal, but its annoying. I wouldn't care if this happened just once and nothing like it ever happened. I'd still be annoyed but I probably wouldn't blog about it. However, it's annoying. and I don't have much else to blog about.  ¶ 3/15/2004 11:15:00 AM 0 comments

  Scatterbrains Two ducks flew over my head.
saw all the corruption down below
they flew safely high, swimming through the air.
they flew so high, avoiding much despair

always looking down, now watching where they go
flying high with no worries but the sun
i see them fly, people through the sky
free as a bird, and feeling so high

one day the clouds moved in, and blurred their way
flew down but the fog had lifted
with no options, they decided to fly upwards
the ducks scrambled to find their way

they flew so high, but not above the clouds
suddenly from behind they heard a loud rumble
the ducks panicked, there was nothing they could do
assess the engine, cut them in two

scatterbrains plastered all over the town
too many people fail to look down
scatterbrains plastered all over the town
scatterbrains cause our society to drown  ¶ 3/12/2004 10:56:00 AM 0 comments

  On Site, yeah right! What's up homeys. I am on site. Things are rocking. I'm in Brown Deer. This place rules. You should all come to Wisconsin for a day or two to see what's up. Everything is going great. So. On that note, I will soon leave and head back to NY.

Appearently I am someone who says "Yeah, right" a lot. I don't know if it has to do with the region in which I live, the people I associate myself with, or just something I say. It's a big time saying though, they caught me saying it at least 12 times last night.  ¶ 3/11/2004 11:42:00 AM 0 comments

  Migrating Ducks

Hundreds of migratory ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) fly as the sun sets in Palo Verde National Park in Bagaces, Guanacaste, some 200 miles northwest of San Jose, Costa Rica, March 9, 2004. This 20,000-hectare park bordered by rivers and a ridge of limestone hills is home to some 250,000 migratory birds, such as teal, geese and ducks that arrive from North America to winter in the park, making up one of Central America's largest concentrations of waterfowl and wading birds, both native and migratory. REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate  ¶ 3/10/2004 08:10:00 AM 0 comments

  I work in a library Not really, but sometimes it feels like one. Maybe its not that extreme, and I don't think I need to work at a preschool to get the other side of the stick. But a few monkeys running around hooting and hollering couldn't hurt. The white noise, although almost completely gone from my consciousness, still needs to go. Wo. Big Word. Tough speller... But anyway.. we need a little more color :) or I do.  ¶ 3/09/2004 05:48:00 PM 0 comments

  Yep So, I am off to Brown Deer, Wisconsin tomorrow. I plan to meet up with Roger Jones (bob's uncle). It's going to rock hard.

Leave Albany 3/10 @11:20 AM (flight 474), connection in Philly, arrive in Milwaukee @3:09 PM (flight 2825)
Leave Milwaukee 3/11 @3:40 PM (flight 2844), connection in Philly, arrive in Albany @9:33 PM (flight 228)
---I'll probably be on an earlier flight back so I wouldn't bank on checking the status for this one---  ¶ 3/09/2004 04:28:00 PM 0 comments

  Ricky Ricky Williams with his dreads shaved off

  ¶ 3/07/2004 02:19:00 PM 0 comments

  On This Day March 6 is the 65th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (66th in Leap years). There are 298 days remaining.

1480 - By the Treaty of Toledo, Ferdinand and Isabella recognize Afonso's African conquests, while he cedes the Canaries to Spain.

1521 - Ferdinand Magellan discovered Guam.

1808 - At Harvard University. the first college orchestra was founded.

1820 - The Missouri Compromise was enacted by the U.S. Congress and signed by U.S. President James Monroe. The act admitted Missouri into the Union as a slave state, but prohibited slavery in the rest of the northern Louisiana Purchase territory.

1825 - Beethoven's Opus 127: String Quartet No. 12 in E flat major was performed for the first time.

1834 - The city of York in Upper Canada was incorporated as Toronto.

1836 - The thirteen-day siege of the Alamo by Santa Anna and his army ended. The Mexican army of three thousand men defeated the 189 Texas volunteers.

1857 - The U.S. Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision ruled that blacks could not sue in federal court to be citizens.

1886 - "The Nightingale" was first published. It was the first magazine for nurses.

1899 - Aspirin was patented by German researchers Felix Hoffman and Hermann Dreser.

1900 - In West Virginia, an explosion trapped 50 coal miners underground.

1901 - An assassin tried to kill Wilhelm II of Germany in Bremen.

1907 - British creditors of the Dominican Republic claimed that the U.S. had failed to collect debts.

1928 - A Communist attack on Peking, China resulted in 3,000 dead and 50,000 fled to Swatow.

1930 - Clarence Birdseye's first frozen foods went on sale in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA.

1939 - In Spain, Jose Miaja took over the Madrid government after a military coup and vowed to seek "peace with honor."

1941 - Les Hite and his orchestra recorded "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise".

1944 - During World War II, U.S. heavy bombers began the first American raid on Berlin. Allied planes dropped 2000 tons of bombs.

1946 - Ho Chi Minh, the President of Vietnam, struck an agreement with France that recognized his country as an autonomous state within the Indochinese Federation and the French Union.

1947 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the contempt conviction of John L. Lewis.

1947 - Winston Churchill announced that he opposed British troop withdrawals from India.

1947 - The first air-conditioned naval ship, "The Newport News," was launched from Newport News, VA.

1957 - The British African colonies of the Gold Coast and Togoland became the independent state of Ghana.

1960 - Switzerland granted women the right to vote in municipal elections.

1960 - The United States announced that it would send 3,500 troops to Vietnam.

1962 - Frank Sinatra recorded his final session for Capitol Records in Hollywood.

1964 - Tom O’Hara set a new world indoor record when he ran the mile in 3 minutes, 56.4 seconds.

1967 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his plan to establish a draft lottery.

1970 - Charles Manson released his album "Lies" to finance his defense against murder charges.

1973 - U.S. President Richard Nixon imposed price controls on oil and gas.

1973 - John Lennon's visa extension was canceled by the New York Office of the Immigration Department. It had been granted only five days before.

1975 - Iran and Iraq announced that they had settled their border dispute.

1980 - Islamic militants in Tehran said that they would turn over American hostages to the Revolutionary Council.

1981 - Walter Cronkite appeared on his last episode of "CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite." He had been on the job 19 years.

1981 - U.S. President Reagan announced a plan to cut 37,000 federal jobs.

1982 - National Basketball Association history was made when San Antonio beat Milwaukee 171-166 in three overtime periods to set the record for most points by two teams in a game. The record was beaten on December 13, 1983 by the Pistons and the Nuggets when they played to a final score of 186-184

1983 - The United States Football League began its first season of pro football competition.

1985 - Yul Brynner played his his 4,500th performance in the musical "The King and I."

1987 - The British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized in the Channel off the coast of Belgium. 189 people died.

1990 - In Afghanistan, an attempted coup to remove President Najibullah from office failed.

1990 - The Russian Parliament passed a law that sanctioned the ownership of private property.

1991 - In Paris, five men were jailed for plotting to smuggle Libyan arms to the Irish Republican Army.

1992 - The last episode of "The Cosby Show" aired. The show had been on since September of 1984.

1992 - The computer virus "Michelangelo" went into effect.

1997 - A gunman stole "Tete de Femme," a million-dollar Picasso portrait, from a London gallery. The painting was recovered a week later.

1997 - Britain's Queen Elizabeth II launched the first official royal Web site.

1998 - A Connecticut state lottery accountant gunned down three supervisors and the lottery chief before killing himself.

1998 - Oasis' Liam Gallagher was charged in an Australian court after he allegedly headbutted a fan, breaking the fan's nose. He was released on $10,000 bail.

2000 - Foxy Brown crashed her car into a fence in Brooklyn, NY. She was admitted for medical attention and released the next morning. Brown was charged with aggravated unlicensed operation of a vehicle by police.

Birthdays

1475 - Michelangelo Buonarroti, painter, (d. 1564)
1619 - Cyrano de Bergerac, soldier, poet, (d. 1655)
1806 - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet, (d. 1861)
1831 - Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, theologian, (d. 1910)
1885 - Ring Lardner, writer, (d. 1933)
1898 - Therese Giehse, actress, (d. 1975)
1904 - Joseph Schmidt, tenor, (d. 1942)
1905 - Bob Wills, country music singer, (d. 1975)
1906 - Lou Costello, actor, comedian, (d. 1959)
1923 - Ed McMahon, television personality
1923 - Jürgen von Manger, cabaretist, (d. 1994)
1926 - Alan Greenspan, American economist
1926 - Andrzej Wajda, Polish film director
1927 - Wes Montgomery, musician
1927 - Gordon Cooper, astronaut
1928 - Gabriel García Márquez, writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1982
1929 - Günter Kunert, writer and lyricist
1930 - Lorin Maazel, opera conductor
1935 - Ron Delany, Irish athlete
1936 - Marion Barry Jr., mayor of Washington, DC
1937 - Valentina Tereshkova, cosmonaut
1941 - Willie Stargell, Baseball Hall of Famer
1944 - Kiri Te Kanawa, opera singer
1946 - David Gilmour, musican ("Pink Floyd")
1947 - Rob Reiner, actor, comedian, movie producer
1947 - Dick Fosbury, athlete
1947 - Kiki Dee, singer
1959 - Tom Arnold, actor, comedian
1972 - Shaquille O'Neal, basketball player
1979 - Brian Smith  ¶ 3/06/2004 08:53:00 AM 0 comments

  Yeee Haw!  ¶ 3/06/2004 12:00:00 AM 0 comments

  The Quarter

1979 QUARTER DOLLAR | PCGS No: 5906
Mintage | Circulation strikes: 518,708,000 | Proofs: 0
Designer: John Flanagan
Diameter: ±24.3 millimeters
Metal content | Outer layers - 75% Copper, 25% Nickel | Center - 100% Copper
Weight: ±88 grains (±5.7 grams)
Edge: Reeded
Mintmark: None (for Philadelphia, PA) on the obverse just right of the ribbon
1979 - Many people confuse the quarter with the new Susan B. Anthony dollar due to their similar dimensions, color, and edge. This makes the Susan B. Anthony one of the least popular American coins ever, and it is discontinued after 1981.  ¶ 3/05/2004 04:23:00 PM 0 comments

  Well Well, tomorrow is Shaquille O'Neal's birthday and I don't even know what to get him yet.  ¶ 3/05/2004 12:10:00 PM 0 comments

  Kobe hits the game winner Lakers win Shaq/Yao 5, 96-93.

Kobe had 7 assists in the first quarter. Shaq scores 28 while going 2-13 from the charity stripe. Recap



  ¶ 3/04/2004 10:01:00 AM 0 comments

  My Original Website
www.axanodus.com/original  ¶ 3/02/2004 09:48:00 PM 0 comments

  Search Engine results for "Brian Smith" The following are results from searching these search engines with my name. The number is the rank within the search results.

Google twobs.com - 3, axanodus.com - 5
Yahoo twobs.com - 4, axanodus.com - 2
MSN twobs.com - 2, axanodus.com - 4
Mamma twobs.com - 5, axanodus.com - 1
Dogpile twobs.com - 7, axanodus.com - 14
Metacrawler twobs.com - 9, axanodus.com - 6
Lycos twobs.com - 21, axanodus.com - 5
Altavista twobs.com - 40, axanodus.com - 1
Excite twobs.com - 15, axanodus.com - 6
Alltheweb twobs.com - 21, axanodus.com - 5
Hotsheet twobs.com - 9, axanodus.com - 11
Teoma twobs.com - 42, axanodus.com - 1

This makes me happy. I am working on being the most famous Brian Smith ever. (Well, at least on the Internet)  ¶ 3/02/2004 04:20:00 PM 0 comments

  The Two Ducks All Star Team This team kicks ass.

Garnett, Kevin (SF, F-Min)
Bibby, Mike (PG-Sac)
McGrady, Tracy (SG-Orl)
James, LeBron (GF, PG-Cle)
Boozer, Carlos (FC, PF-Cle)
Wallace, Ben (FC, PF-Det)
Martin, Kenyon (PF-NJ)
Kittles, Kerry (SG-NJ)
Jefferson, Richard (SF-NJ)
Artest, Ron (GF, SF-Ind)
Ginobili, Manu (SG-SA)
Hamilton, Richard (GF, SG-Det)
Laettner, Christian (PF, FC-Was)
Szczerbiak, Wally (GF, SF-Min)
Webber, Chris (PF-Sac)

Rank Team Name W-L-T Win % Games Back
1 2 Ducks 68-21-1 .761 -
2 Kobe_Style 60-28-2 .678 7.5
3 Los Desnudos 55-35-0 .611 13.5
4 Leroy 50-39-1 .561 18
5 Doug 38-51-1 .428 30
6 Saiamne 35-54-1 .394 33
7 lakebass 31-59-0 .344 37.5
8 Canadian Style 19-69-2 .222 48.5

I Rule.  ¶ 3/02/2004 03:22:00 PM 0 comments

  McKay follows Pats' model to retool Falcons (March 1, 2004) -- Rich McKay grasps the enormity and difficulty of the task ahead. By Vic Carucci, National Editor, NFL.com

"We've got a little work to do," the Atlanta Falcons' new president and general manager says, knowing full well there is nothing "little" about returning a team that finished with a 5-11 record in 2003 to the playoff qualifier it was in 2002.

Fortunately for the Falcons, McKay has an equally good handle on the necessary steps to improving a club that ranked dead last in the NFL in defense and near the bottom of the league in offense.

The Super Bowl ring that he owns marks the culmination of eight years of focusing on a single mission, which was to help transform the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from a laughing stock to a champion. But McKay's ability to see the NFL in the broadest of terms, to thoroughly understand the way the league works and how to build and maintain a successful franchise, is what makes him arguably the Falcons' best catch since drafting a certain quarterback who made football a whole lot more exciting in Atlanta and everywhere else he has taken a snap.

McKay didn't allow himself to be blinded by the glitter of his ring from the Bucs' magnificent 2002 season. Typical of the approach that has made him so effective as co-chairman of the league's competition committee, he didn't assume that he had all of the answers. Tampa Bay's former GM kept his eyes and mind wide open to all that was going on elsewhere in the NFL. He paid particular attention to the New England Patriots, who not only rebounded from their struggles in '02 but also managed to overcome a staggering number of injuries to win their second Super Bowl crown in three seasons.

What McKay saw, first and foremost, was an organization that truly recognized it is far more important to have a team than a team of stars.

"They did a great job -- starting with the head coach, obviously, and the owner and the management -- of creating a real team atmosphere, where they were able to plug in players when they had players injured and not miss a beat," McKay says. "I think that's obviously very important for the Atlanta Falcons, just considering what they went through last year with the loss of Michael Vick for most of the year and the plunge that we took.

"You can have individual stars on your team, but it's very rare that a guy's going to make it through a 16- or 20-game season without missing a game or a practice or part of a game. I think (the Patriots' approach) emphasizes for everyone how important the team concept is."

The new management in Atlanta will try to help star QB Michael Vick avoid injury.
Make no mistake. The Falcons have every intention of continuing to take every advantage of Vick's enormous talent as a passer and a runner. McKay understands what was underscored by the quarterback's broken leg in the preseason -- the Falcons are a far better team with Vick than they are without him.

But in an effort to end the team's 38-year history of never putting together back-to-back winning seasons, he has made sure the Patriots' model is always close to the new Atlanta blueprint. Jim Mora, who replaced Dan Reeves as the Falcons coach, certainly had no problem embracing it. As a former defensive coordinator, he is well versed in the idea of having someone other than the quarterback constantly serve as the engine that constantly drives a team. Along with McKay, he is determined to build the Falcons into a club that can lean on other elements of the offense and, when necessary, the defense to carry the load.

It is a message Mora plans to preach whenever he has his players' ears.

"For us, there's so much emphasis on Michael Vick that we have to find ways to divert the attention to other players that are also valuable to our success," Mora says. "That way, players on our team don't feel that the successes that we have are completely connected to Michael Vick, that they realize that there's importance in every position, importance in the team playing well together.

"We'll get that done. You've just constantly got to pound it in their heads."

It also takes developing schemes designed to work well with interchangeable parts. That, perhaps, is one of the biggest reasons Patriots coach Bill Belichick and his staff deserve to be recognized as the best coaches in the NFL.

Not to take anything away from two-time Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady, but offensive coordinator Charlie Weis has maximized Brady's skills by having him work from a playbook that emphasizes high-percentage passing and doesn't ask him to do it all with his arm or his legs. Maybe another signal-caller wouldn't enjoy the sort of success Brady has had for the better part of three seasons, but the Patriots offense is quarterback friendly and somehow manages to succeed despite the absence of superstar receivers or a strong running game.

New England's defense has plenty of good players, but it, too, thrives every bit as much from its structure as it does from its talent. Belichick and defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel do a masterful job of changing fronts and disguising coverages. They have baffled some of the brightest quarterbacks in the game, including Peyton Manning, who runs an offense that is supposed to allow him to make the last-second changes to avoid such confusion.

Those lessons have convinced the Falcons to make Vick a West Coast-style quarterback. New offensive coordinator Greg Knapp, who followed Mora from San Francisco to Atlanta, will spend the offseason and training camp teaching Vick the finer points of an offensive system that will give him many safer throwing options than he has had previously and help discourage him from too frequently choosing to run and exposing himself to injury.

"I think that it'll be a good thing for Michael," McKay says.

Mora and new defensive coordinator Ed Donatell, formerly of the Green Bay Packers, are switching the Falcons from a 3-4 to a 4-3 scheme that they believe is a better fit for the core of players they have inherited on defense. They also plan to add players who can thrive in what they are convinced will be a more aggressive, playmaking approach.

"New England doesn't get enough credit for what a good job their coaching staff does and their personnel staff does in understanding what they're all about -- the schemes they play, the players that fit those schemes, how those players fit -- so when a player does go down, the guy that comes in actually fits the scheme and he might not be at the same level, but he fits," McKay says. "And one thing we've tried to emphasize in the last four weeks in meetings is making sure the staff spends a lot of time with the scouts and all the personnel people, taking us position by position through the team and what the definition is of that player at that position. I think you can't spend enough time doing that."

It is that sort of thinking that should allow the Falcons to feel comfortable that their team is in good hands.   ¶ 3/01/2004 12:25:00 PM 0 comments