Score Atlanta's Around the Dial sneak peek

For more of ME, pick up a copy of Score Atlanta at your local Kroger, Blockbuster, or QuikTrip in the Metro-area. Enjoy!

Did you hear? Michael Vick, now a member of the Eagles, came back to Atlanta over the weekend as Philadelphia visited the Georgia Dome. Before the season started, everyone figured that this game would be all of the talk the week leading up to the contest but strangely, this game seemed to fly under the radar. True ESPN and CBS made a big deal about a game over the weekend in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, but the game drawing the interest was the SEC Championship game between No.2 Alabama and No.1 Florida. The “Vick returns to Atlanta” story angle was really the fifth biggest story of the week on local sports radio the past week as Georgia beating Georgia Tech, Tiger Woods’ crash and subsequent affair revelations, Georgia Tech in the ACC championship and the SEC Championship game all pushed Vick’s return to the backburner. I might dare even say that Willie Martinez’s firing brought in more calls than the return of MV7. So interesting. I would say that people in Atlanta had turned the page until I started watching FOX’s coverage of the Philadelphia/Atlanta game. The FOX cameras did its best job to find ALL of the Vick supporters in the crowd wearing Falcons No.7 jerseys. When Vick entered the game in the first quarter the cameras panned out to show folks holding up signs in support of Vick and going crazy even after he ran for three whole yards. The crowd reaction seemed mixed, half cheering and half booing as he ran back off of the field. The camera crews would mix shots of Vick on the sidelines and the Falcons jersey-wearers throughout the first half and Vick played just two snaps in the first half. FOX seemed to be beating this dead horse into the ground when Vick scored in the second half, then the shots started up again with the crowd shots. As the Eagles went on to the big win, the crowd seemed to be more Pro-Vick as most of the Falcons fans seemingly left. When Vick threw a TD pass in the fourth quarter, the remaining crowd made up of Eagles fans and Vick fans exploded as few boos were heard. Crowd shots showed that most of the Red and Black crowd had left. ESPN.com and CNNSI.com as well as most other news outlet websites had Vick celebrating on the Georgia Dome field after the game. The reaction on the sports talk radio afterwards was mostly about how the Falcons might have blown their playoff chances and not Vick. Despite what FOX and ESPN want the story to be, it seems that Falcons fans have turned the page on the Vick era. The remaining Vick fans in Atlanta on the other hand…

Headline News and Turner Sports have announced the premiere of a new one hour special called With All Due Respect that is set to debut on December 20 at 10 p.m. on HLN. The new show will feature HLN anchor Robin Meade, to be joined by TNT’s Charles Barkley (NBA coverage), TBS’s Dennis Eckersley (MLB) and TNT’s Kyle Petty (NASCAR). This certainly is an interesting collection of personalities here. I’m not certain the extent of Meade’s sports knowledge and I’ve never been that impressed by Eckersley’s work on TBS’s sports coverage. As for Barkley, he is always good for a strong opinion, but I wonder if he is going to mail it in if this show doesn’t get off to a hot start.
Speaking of TBS, the network and Chip Carey decided to part ways after Carey worked the postseason and Sunday games for the network’s national game of the week. Carey is of course the son of former Atlanta broadcaster Skip and grandson of Chicago legend Harry. Carey has also worked the past few seasons with the Braves. He came under fire for a few errors in his calls this past postseason but I though overall he had a smooth call. He was folksy and perhaps TBS overreacted to a New York writer’s opinion on Carey. Either way though Carey will land on his feet with another big time gig.

Finally, the new Georgia Men’s basketball coach Mark Fox will be coming to a TV near you soon. Inside Georgia Basketball with Mark Fox will now air Sunday nights at midnight on WSB. This is the same time slot that the network gave football coach Mark Richt for his show. IGB will run fifteen weeks with Chuck Dowdle hosting. If you cannot stay up that late, catch the re-air on Sundays at 1 and 7 p.m. Sundays on SportSouth.