Michael Vick is still the most talked about athlete in Atlanta and he isn’t even in the damn city! Since last Saturday there’s been a big debate about why the fans in Atlanta are not happy about the Matt Ryan pick at number 3.

All of the Falcons fans I’ve talked to (diehard and casual) that don’t like the pick only dislike it because they are not convinced Matt Ryan was the best player available when the Falcon’s pick came up. It’s no secret the Falcons need a quarterback, but it’s also no secret that the Falcons need to build the defensive and offensive lines. Most fans thought if Glen Dorsey was still on the board when the Falcons pick came up they would jump on him. That didn’t happen, and some of the fans are a little pissed about it.

All football fans know defense wins games. Look at what the New York Giants did in the Super Bowl. Their defense on Tom Brady made up for the fact that Eli didn’t have a great game. A quarterback is extremely important, however if you ask some of the most recent Super Bowl winners what got them there they’ll say defense.

Yesterday one of the radio shows had a big discussion about the fans not accepting Matt Ryan because he’s not black. White people pulling the race card, imagine that. CBS 46 anchor Gil Tyree sort of got the ball rolling on this debate.

This is a sample of what he had to say to Peter King after the draft:

“This city’s history is built on racial divide,” says Gil Tyree, sports anchor for WGCL-TV in Atlanta. “Michael Vick had a hold over this city that no athlete will ever have again. Everybody wonders, ‘Is Mike coming back?’ Or ‘When’s Mike coming back?’ These people won’t forget him. He’s a messiah here.”After Ryan was picked, Tyree led his sportscast by saying, “It’s now officially the end of the Michael Vick era.” Afterward, when he was asked how area fans would receive their new quarterback, Tyree said, “No matter what Matt Ryan will do, he’ll never be accepted.

Will he get a fair shot?

This is a little shortsighted for a number of reasons and I’m surprised Gil would paint so many fans with such a broad brush. While Mike Vick has had a tremendous impact on Atlanta and the NFL as a whole, he didn’t have every Falcons fan of color wrapped around his finger.

In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I am not really a Falcons fan. I watch them because I live in Atlanta and I’m forced to, but they are not the team I root for.

My personal rooting interest aside, I’m offended that all of the African American fans of the Falcons are being accused of hating Matt Ryan just because he’s white. While there is a large group of people who have decided to support Vick for better or for worse, there are a lot of fans who support the team above any of its players. These people are getting unfairly lumped into the same category as the others.

I know this may be hard to believe, but not all African American Falcons fans believed Vick was the be all, end all at the QB position. As far as I can tell, most Falcons fans (black, brown or white) fall into one of three groups where Mike Vick is concerned. There are about 40 % of the fans who loved Vick and everything about his game. They thought he was the perfect man to get Atlanta back to the Super Bowl. There are about 40% of the fans who thought Vick was playing the wrong position. They fancied him as a running back or a wide receiver. Then there’s the other 20% of fans who saw Vick for what he really was, a pretty good quarterback. They don’t think he was as great as those who loved him thought he was, nor do they think he was as bad as those who hated him thought he was.

There are some fans that choose alliances based on race, but they aren’t the majority. Most fans aren’t that ignorant. A lot of African American Falcons fans genuinely root for the team and not just one player as they’ve been accused of doing time and time again.

People are constantly making it seem like all African American Falcons fans aren’t as passionate about the team as they are about Mike Vick. That sort of thinking couldn’t be more ridiculous. Mike Vick did/does have a lot of fans, but his fan base is not exclusively comprised of people who are only pro Falcons as long as he’s on the team. There are a lot of fans who are old enough to have rooted for the Falcons when Steve Bartkowski was the QB. They also remember rooting for the team when they drafted Brett Favre. Let’s not forget about the people who rooted for the team back when Deion Sanders was a member of it. These are just some of the people that get lost in the shuffle of all this race related nonsense.

The implication that all African American Falcons fans can’t see past race is offensive and it needs to stop. Matt Ryan is going to have the same opportunity any other quarterback would with the fans in Atlanta. If he comes out and produces, real Falcons fans will love him. If he doesn’t produce, they’ll hate him. They’re pretty much going to treat him like the fans in other cities treats their quarterbacks. At the end of the day he won’t be judged by the color of his skin so much as he’ll be judged by wins and losses.