The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Race for City Hall
DICKENS CITES WAYS TO STOP BUCKHEAD CITYHOOD.
It was a busy, albeit quiet, week for Atlanta’s new mayor-elect. Andre Dickens made a few public appearances the week after his runoff election victory, but much of the action happened behind the scenes: in meetings and calls with city and state officials, current and future council members and — we presume — potential new City Hall hires.
Dickens has said that selecting his close circle of deputies and transition team is one of his top priorities. We’ll be watching to see who Dickens brings on as his chief of staff and chief operating officer, and who he keeps from Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ network of advisors and cabinet officials.
The appearances Dickens did make last week were telling: he stopped by several Atlanta police roll call meetings and greeted sanitation workers — two departments seeking to improve recruitment and morale.
And he stopped by two events hosted by groups opposing the Buckhead cityhood movement.
On Wednesday, he got a hero’s welcome at a big-dollar fundraiser hosted by the Committee for a United Atlanta, where business titans and local officials vowed that the “cavalry” had arrived to stop the secession push.
Our own Greg Bluestein has a recap of that event, where Dickens gave a well-received speech that laid out his three keys to stopping Buckhead City: A potent, well-funded public campaign; an efficient and responsive start to his mayoral term in January; and an effective political counteroffensive. He gave a shoutout to incoming City Council President Doug Shipman and several City Council members who were there, and promised to make a personal donation to the committee.
The next night, Dickens made an appearance at a kick off event for a grassroots pro- atlanta group called the“Neighbors For A United Atlanta .”
Up next on his calendar: A Monday afternoon meeting with members of the Buckhead real estate community and NPU leaders and members. (We suspect Buckhead cityhood and the contentious issue of zoning will come up.) Meanwhile, down at City
Hall, folks are preparing for over half of the council to depart at the end of the year.
As one council member put it, “office switch chaos is in full bloom” as outgoing members start to move out and newcomers get their first glimpse of their new digs.
Officials are predicting the new council will be more progressive than past iterations, especially on issues like policing and housing, but it’s too soon to know how exactly that could play out when it comes to voting on legislation.
Outgoing Mayor Bottoms
staffed the city’s newest executive department last week.
She announced she had selected Jacquel Clemons Moore to lead the city’s Office of Violence Reduction, which was started in response to the rise in violent crime and homicides Atlanta saw this year.
Bottoms also announced the city is planning to bring violence prevention and conflict resolution programs to areas on the Westside and southwest Atlanta.
Mayor-elect Dickens
doesn’t want his affordable housing plan to be based on the amount of money invested by the city. Instead, he’s setting a numerical goal: 20,000 affordable units.
“Dollars are a moving target in an escalating economy,” he told Atlanta Civic Circle last week. “The cost of housing continues to go up, so I’m just thinking about units and people.”
Last week we told you
former mayoral candidate Felicia Moore was asking for donations to close out the campaign’s remaining debt totaling $10,000. Moore announced Friday that she met that goal and was able to close out her campaign.
The more we watch these Falcons, the less we know. They’ve been outscored by 108 points over 13 games. Last year’s Falcons were outscored by 18 points over 16 games. The 2021 team is 6-7. The 2020 edition was 4-12. Make any sense? No? Buckle up, dear reader. We’ve only just begun.
These Falcons have played four games against teams positioned to make the playoffs. They’re 0-4. The margins of defeat were 23, 40, 25 and 13 points. For tiebreaking purposes, the NFL monitors the winning percentage of the teams you’ve beaten. The Falcons’ strength of victory is .333, the league’s third-lowest. Only the Colts and Bears are worse.
The Falcons haven’t beaten a team that holds a winning record. For the past few weeks, Football Outsiders has ranked them last — 32nd of 32 — in
Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, or DVOA. And not, we note, last by a little. They’re last by a lot.
DVOA assigned No. 31 Houston, which has won twice, a rating of minus-30.2. The Falcons were minus37.4. (Latest rankings don’t include
Sunday’s games.) The Falcons were 31st in offense, 29th in defense, 32nd in special teams. And here we come to the “and yet” part of our program.
And yet: With four games to play, the Falcons hold a 12% chance of making the playoffs, according to Fivethirtyeight. That’s up from recent weeks, when their chances were measured at zero-point-something. Should they win against San Francisco, they’d stand a 43% shot of qualifying for postseason. Should they follow that by beating Detroit the day after Christmas, their odds would swell to 51% with two games remaining.
To get to 8-7, the Falcons would have to win three games in succession. Only once have they won twice in a row, and that came with a bye between the games. They haven’t been above .500 this season. They’ve won only one “home” game, that coming at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which is in London. In six games at Mercedes-benz Stadium, they’ve been outscored by 97 points.
And yet, and yet …
As much as the Falcons might seem like a bad team, they’re more than competitive when they face an opponent of similar modest caliber. They’re 6-3 against sub.500 teams. They haven’t blown anybody out — their most sizable victory came Sunday, when they beat Carolina 29-21 — but they’ve hung around. Three times they’ve won on field goals at the end.
If ever there was a time to be mediocre, this is it. This is the year of the expanded-by-one schedule and the expandedby-one postseason. The NFC numbers six winning teams. Seven NFC teams will make the playoffs. The Falcons are among a gaggle of five at 6-7. They hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Saints.
They’d lose that tiebreaker to the Eagles and Football Team.
The Falcons have two games remaining against winning teams, though neither the 49ers nor the Bills have been as good as advertised. Both games are on the road, where the Falcons are 5-2. Split those two, beat Detroit here and then beat the Saints again, and this team is 9-8. That could/should be enough to make the wild card round.
This hasn’t been Matt Ryan’s greatest season. Stat-wise, it’s among his worst. He’s 18th in passer rating, 23rd in yards per pass. He’s also the reason the 2021 Falcons aren’t the 2021 Jets/giants/jaguars, all of which the Falcons have beaten. Had the under-new-management Falcons opted to dump Ryan and start over, they wouldn’t be 6-7. They’d be 2-11. That would have been better for drafting purposes, but the 2022 class isn’t a-swim with quarterbacks.
We say again: Arthur Smith is coaching the heck out of what he has. He has built a running game from Cordarrelle Patterson, who used to be a wideout, and not much else. For the first time in forever, the Falcons aren’t wasting talent. We eagerly await the moment when, to borrow a phrase from the outof-his-depth Urban Meyer, the checkers are equal.
These Falcons deserve a goodly measure of respect. Their immediate predecessors were skilled only at blowing leads. The 2020 Falcons were 2-8 in one-score games. This bunch is 6-2. Would it still be a surprise if this team made the playoffs? Yes. And yet: Deep into December, we’ve just spent 700 words discussing that possibility.