Former Atlanta Falcon Keith Brooking: 'It was a stupid play on my part.'
Keith Brooking in a Dallas uniform.
The thought of the 11-year Atlanta Falcons linebacker leaving town and wearing another team's uniform was something many Falcons fans never thought they'd see for Brooking, an Atlanta native.
In the 2009 season it will have to be something to which they'll adjust. In addition to simply not having him in Atlanta, in Week 7 they'll have a face-to-face meeting with Brooking on the other sideline, donning the famous Dallas Cowboys star.
The 33-year-old linebacker appeared on Atlanta's AM 680 (The Fan) on Monday to discuss his new home, leaving his old home, and a few things in between.
When Brooking signed a three-year deal with the Cowboys on February 28 it marked the end of an era in Atlanta. The five-time Pro Bowler saw some of the most memorable and forgettable moments in Atlanta Falcons history during his 11 years with the Falcons.
In his rookie season in 1998 he played valuable minutes in the nickel linebacker slot during the team's improbable Super Bowl run, a game in which they lost to the Denver Broncos 34-19.
He saw the drafting of Michael Vick in 2001 and the excitement it created, followed by the ushering in of a new owner the following season in Arthur Blank, an enthusiastic man who vowed to create a winner.
Then from 2002 to 2008 he played for four different head coaches, from the highly-regarded Super Bowl coach Dan Reeves, to the young, impressive, and fiery, but ultimately imprudent Jim Mora, Jr., through the mercurial Bobby Petrino, ending up with the even-keeled and stable Mike Smith in his final season in Atlanta.
Unfortunately despite all the good Brooking did for the Falcons franchise, many will remember him for one play.
Third-and-16 has become almost synonymous with Keith Brooking. His role in allowing a completion in the waning minutes of the '08 playoff loss to the Arizona Cardinals, one of the more stinging losses in recent franchise history, allowed the Cardinals to turn the lights out on the Falcons bounce-back season.
Brooking, always a player of high character and generally honest about his performance acknowledges that it was a mistake, but contends that wasn't the sole reason the Falcons lost the game. But he agrees a player of his experience shouldn't have made such a mistake and the timing of his error was vital to the outcome of the game.
"I should have never bit up on that particular play-action. It was just stupid," Brooking said on 680 of his role in the season-ending gaffe.
But he adds, and hopes, that single play won't be how fans remember him. He at least thinks it shouldn't be that way.
"Hopefully it doesn't really speak for the sum of all the parts--everything I did in my career in Atlanta. Open up the media guide, my first 11 years, look at my resume. I think that speaks for itself. One play, it was a stupid play on my part."
A few weeks after the playoff loss earlier this year, Brooking appeared on another Atlanta radio station and the frustration regarding the play was evident in his voice.
On Monday he sounded much more at ease, obviously coming to terms with the play and perhaps secretly believing that a move at this juncture in his career, especially following third-and-16, was the right move.
"Until someone brings it up, I don't think about it. I've moved on from it, that's just the way I operate. That's the way I do things," Brooking said.
In Dallas he pairs with a former defensive coordinator in Wade Phillips. The link to Dallas' Head Coach Phillips likely played a role in his decision to sign with Dallas.
Phillips, the defensive coordinator in Atlanta from 2002-03, coached Brooking to two Pro Bowl seasons, arguably the two best seasons of his career.
With the Cowboys he'll serve as the weakside inside linebacker in the 3-4 scheme, the same position he played with the Falcons under Phillips. It's a position with which he's familiar and comfortable and he feels he has little adjusting and learning to do in Dallas.
Brooking has not made secret his desire to be inducted into the Falcons' Ring of Honor when his career concludes. Leaving Atlanta was a difficult decision not simply because it's been his home for all of his life (he played his college football in Atlanta at Georgia Tech), but because he feels the franchise is finally positioned to succeed for the long-term.
When he signed with Dallas, he released a statement through the Atlanta Journal-Constitution sharing with fans that he believes he gave everything he could in his play, adding "I also leave here with the peace of knowing that the Falcons are poised for great success in the future."
On Monday he expounded on why he believes that's the case, first pointing to the drafting of Matt Ryan. With Ryan, Brooking believes the team has that franchise quarterback they've searched for and that every successful franchise needs.
Top to bottom he believes the Falcons are on a roll, making the right decisions drafting and bringing in high character players and are on track to be a contender in the NFC for years to come.
"You've got to give Dimitroff a ton of credit for the guys he's brought in there and the impact they've made. ...I think that franchise is on very solid ground. ...They are in great hands."
Statements like those show Brooking's true colors, a player willing to give respect where it's due, even if it's in the direction of an executive and a team that chose not to re-sign him. Fans of the team and Brooking alike probably wish the franchise had been on similar solid ground for more of his career with the Falcons.
The forgotten season of 2007 for Brooking and the Falcons began with the hiring of Bobby Petrino from the University of Louisville.
"Mistake, mistake, mistake," Brooking said of the move.
He described a locker room of players seeking only to avoid their head coach. Any camaraderie or sense of coming together in the wake of the Michael Vick saga was lost with a head coach who was uncomfortable speaking to people and as Brooking said, had "no personality whatsoever."
He cited a situation following the first preseason game under Petrino when the head coach said he could tell who was going to play well by the way they conducted themselves in the pregame meal. The situation escalated to the point that Petrino's rules mandated that there not be any talking at pregame meals.
Brooking explained that the players typically responded by simply getting their food to go and returning to their rooms to eat alone, just to avoid their head coach.
"He would not change," Brooking said of Petrino who abandoned his team mid-season. "If you went and talked to him it was like pulling teeth. It was crazy."
He was more kind to Petrino's predecessor, Jim Mora, Jr. but said Mora deserved to be let go when he was.
"I think Jim made some mistakes after his first couple of years. If Jim would have just stayed the way he was his first year when he came in and the accountability was there and there wasn't all the things going on within our locker room. ...If he would have stayed that way, he would still be there and there's no telling what we would have done."
He says Mora learned his lessons the hard way in Atlanta and given another chance now in Seattle he believes his head coaching tenure there will be longer.
"I'm always changing and evolving, learning from past mistakes, past failures, and past success. I made a lot of mistakes in Atlanta...ones that were public and ones that were private...but I had three good years. Hopefully, I'll be smart enough to take those lessons learned and apply them next time."
All of that is in the past now. Atlanta has found its head coach (a coach the linebacker fully endorses) and Brooking has moved on to Dallas and its enormous new stadium.
Goodbyes are never easy and ends of eras are usually not scripted as Hollywood would write them. Third-and-16 will forever be a part of Brooking's Atlanta legacy but so will some of the brighter moments of his time in Atlanta. As he said: the whole career is better than the sum of its parts.
Perhaps it was best described by team owner Arthur Blank in his statement issued following Brooking's departure.
"Keith defined the Falcons in so many ways: his tenure, his leadership on and off the field, his commitment to excellence and his many resulting accomplishments, his love for Atlanta, and so much more."
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Former Atlanta Falcon Keith Brooking: 'It was a stupid play on my part.'
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