导出博客文章One team is hoping to prevent a second-half slide like the one that derailed its
season a year ago.The other is just trying to keep its head above water, knowing
that one more loss could effectively end any chance it has left of making the
playoffs for a third straight year.That and more are on the line Sunday at the
Georgia Dome when the Arizona Cardinals (4-5-1) visit the Atlanta Falcons (6-4)
in a pivotal NFC battle.This marks the seventh time in the past 11 years that
the teams met, with each splitting the previous six meetings.Its a chance for
the Falcons to extend their slim lead in the NFC South over the Buccaneers,
Saints and Panthers. Its a chance for the Cardinals to possibly salvage their
season -- at least for another week.Asked if his team had a sense of urgency,
Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians, who had to spend a night in the hospital
because of chest pains following his teams latest loss -- a 26-20 defeat at
Minnesota -- just scowled.Oh yeah, he said. If you dont have one right now you
dont belong in the business, and you damn sure dont belong in this locker
room.The Cardinals have been searching for answers all season after a 13-3
regular season a year ago in which the offense set multiple franchise records
and quarterback Carson Palmer was in the conversation for MVP candidacy upon
setting several career firsts.Palmer and the offense, however, went missing in
2016 and other than second-year running back David Johnson, who ranks third in
the league in rushing with 863 yards, there hasnt been any of the same
consistency Arians and the Cardinals are used to enjoying.Palmer said theres
only one thing on the teams mind as it gets ready for the Falcons.To win one
game, he said. Cant worry about seeding or standings or division records;
nothing matters other than this game. As leaders, as the older guys in the
locker room, you just keep everybodys focus on one day at a time, finishing
today. Weve got the practice part done. We have a lot of meetings and a lot of
tape to watch. You finish day after day after day, and thats the mindset that we
have.As for the Falcons, they still have last season on their mind. Atlanta
began 6-1, but scuffled their way to a 2-7 finish over their last nine games to
finish 8-8 and miss the playoffs for the third straight season.Another
second-half collapse wouldnt only be punishing, it could lead to more changes
once again for a franchise that hasnt been able to finish what it started. Head
coach Dan Quinn acknowledged that still resonates across the organization, but
that last seasons second-half fail could propel the Falcons moving forward.Well,
we certainly hope so, Quinn said. The scars that you get when you finish poorly,
they definitely leave a mark. Were a way different team than our 2015 team --
our mental toughness, our resilience; were just tighter, were better, were more
complete in that way.Thats, I think, the biggest difference. Although we didnt
finish all of them like wed like to this year, I would say were quite a bit
different outfit than we were at the end of 2015.Atlanta boasts one of the
leagues best offenses. Its ranked first in points per game (32.0), yards per
play (6.7), passing yards per play (8.9) and touchdowns scored (36). Overall,
the offense is ranked third, averaging 416.6 yards per game.Quarterback Matt
Ryan is enjoying one of his finest season to date, ranking second in passing
yards (3,247), third in passing touchdowns (24) and fourth in completion
percentage (68.2). His favorite target, wide receiver Julio Jones, leads the
league in receiving yards (1,105) and has been difficult for everyone to slow
down.Jones had 10 receptions for 189 yards and a touchdown in his last game
against the Cardinals two years ago, torching Arizonas All-Pro cornerback
Patrick Peterson. That was the season in which Peterson, however, was dealing
with diabetes and it had to be diagnosed, which led to his worst season in the
pros.Peterson is a completely different player now, however, and Jones can see
that on film.He dropped that weight, looks like hes in better shape, Jones said.
Hes always a good athlete, a guy who can make plays. He can pretty much do a lot
of great things.Peterson will shadow Jones throughout the game, something other
teams have tried and failed to do against Jones this season.Teams have been
trying to do that, but theyve been playing a lot of two-man while they were
doing it, Jones said. Theyll take their OK corner and put him over me and then
just have safety help, and try to put the better corner on the other side, try
to let him lock that side down. Pat P, its just usually one-on-one. Its always
been great matchups between us.The Cardinals get Tyrann Mathieu, their
playmaking safety, back this week after the Honey Badger missed the last two
games because of a shoulder subluxation. His addition could make the leagues
top-ranked defense, which is allowing a league-low 287.4 total yards per game as
well as the fewest passing yards per game (190.2), that much more dangerous.As
good as Arizonas defense has been, Mathieu said it hasnt been good enough.I
think we could play better, he said. Every game, theres like three or four plays
where were just giving up touchdowns or giving up big plays. Weve got to
continue to create turnovers, weve got to create more turnovers, weve got to
find a way to score and shorten the field for our offense.Mathieu said the
Cardinals will have their hands full with Ryan, Jones and Atlantas running back
tandem of Davonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman, who is finally healthy.Theyre a
dominating offense, obviously, he said. Matt Ryan is playing tremendous right
now, Julio, it goes without saying, and theyve got two running backs that are
definitely going to try and hurt us in the run and the pass game, so our front
has to play well, our linebackers have to play well and then on the back end,
weve got to do a good of containing Julio.
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Online . Speaking to the Chicago Tribune at baseballs Winter Meetings in
Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Boras called the former home of the Expos a
"tremendous environment" for baseball. In the six weeks after Muhammad Alis
death, thousands of autographed items flooded the market, with sellers hoping to
capitalize on the demand.But the quantity of items, and, in some cases, the
cheap prices associated with them, has ignited one of the more hotly contested
battles over whats real and whats fake. The debate also includes who is
supplying the autographs, who is authenticating them and who is selling them.For
years, Alis signature has not only been among the most expensive, but also among
the most forged. (Autographs thought to be legitimate on 8-by-10s even before
his death were hard to find under $150, with his autograph on a boxing glove in
the $2,000 range.)There are thousands and thousands, maybe hundreds of
thousands, of fake Ali signatures out there, some are fresh and some are from
the [FBI bust] Operation Bullpen days in the late 90s, said Harlan Werner, who
managed Alis marketing exclusively for 19 years, ending in 2006. You couldnt buy
a real Ali signed glove for less than $1,000 over the past decade, and you
certainly cant buy one for that now. Yet real fans are buying them every day for
these insanely low prices.Werner, who had a huge stash of legitimate Ali
signatures, said he began liquidating years ago when he realized the fake Ali
market was compromising those who had real signatures.Scott Mahlum of Mill Creek
Sports, who has an exclusive deal with Russell Wilson, among others, has been
investing in pre-1990 signed Ali autographs for years.So many of these
autographs we are seeing now are all great, in the perfect spot, and theyre on
photos that no one had access to when Ali had a signature that even looked close
to this, Mahlum said.Alis might be the most complex signature of all time. Each
year, it seemed to decline in clarity, beginning in the mid-90s, when the
effects of Parkinsons disease began to take hold. Because Ali signed many of his
photos with a date, its possible to piece together what Alis autograph looked
like over time.Thats exactly what Shawn Anderson did when he found out he was
duped with a fake Ali signed photograph more than 10 years ago. He started
buying up dated Ali signed items and strung them together on a website to show
Alis autograph from the 1960 through 2003. Over time, he became an expert in Ali
signatures.In the last 10 years of his life, Alis autograph was not good because
of what he was going through, Anderson said. People today are looking for a good
clean autograph. You can get one, but if its cheap, its more likely than not
that its a fake.Anderson, Mahlum and Werner all say that, in their opinion, one
of the companies that has been authenticating Ali signatures sold after his
death has been authenticating fakes.That company is GFA. Stephen Rocchi, who
founded and runs the company, says he stands by every signature that GFA
authenticates, and if someone claims what they bought was fake, hell buy it back
from them. Hes only had to do that once since 2011, he says, with a Mickey
Mantle autograph that he still believes was authentic.Rocchi says his company
gets bashed because, unlike the leaders in the industry, he said he doesnt let
politics get in the way of authenticating pieces.We dont pay attention to how
many autographs someone brings to us or who they are, Rocchi said. We make it
only about the autograph. We have exemplars, we match the autograph in front of
us to the exemplars and have 15 points of authentication and if it matches, we
call it real. We dont have deals with auction companies like the other guys do,
and we dont know dealers. Its better that way.When told that competitor JSA
failed a GFA-certified Ali signature at a recent show, a signature that had been
bought on eBay after Alis death, Rocchi said thats because our competition will
fail anything with our sticker.Rocchis competition also includes industry leader
PSA/DNA, a company Rocchi was the president of in 1999 when it essentially
invented autograph certification for the industry. Rocchi asserts that its in
PSAs and JSAs best interest to hold down populations of what they deem to be
real Ali autographs so values stay up and their higher authentication fees can
be justified.PSA, for example, says it authenticates more than 500,000
autographs a year. Rocchi says GFA does fewer than 20,000.Rocchi also says he
will put his lead authenticator, John Gorajcyzk, who worked for nearly two
decades as a forensic scientist for the Phoenix Police Department, up against
those at JSA and PSA.When told of Rocchis comments, PSAs lead authenticator,
Steve Grad, dismissed claims that competition and clientele lead to
authentication bias.GFAs Ali signatures, which weve a lot of recently, are
failed by us for one simple reason -- they dont match any exemplars of any
previous Ali signature, Grad said. They are a created hybrid of many things Ali
did, but the flow and the pressure in them is all wrong.Grad said, in his
opinion, it looks like the GFA-certified Ali autographs were signed by a woman.I
watched more of Ali sign over the last decade than any authenticator, Grad said.
These are juust not close.ddddddddddddThe battle between the authenticators over
Ali got even nastier when Authentic Brands Group, which bought Alis licensing
rights in 2013, entered the fray.ABG has formally objected to hundreds of
postings on eBays auction pages since Alis death asking that they be pulled, ABG
attorney Bridgette Fitzpatrick confirmed.She said that the company, with the
help of an unnamed reputable authenticator, goes through the postings every day
and alerts eBay to stop auctions with Ali signatures that they believe are
frauds.Outside the Lines found that at least 200 of those pulled included
GFA-certified Ali signatures.EBay does not pull auctions itself, as certain
legal rulings have established that the marketplace does not have any legal
liability if a person buys a fake on the site. The site does however have a
program called the Verified Rights Owner program VeRO, where established rights
holders can apply to have the authority to, with cause, work with eBay to pull
infringing items.Julien Dudouit, eBays global intellectual property manager,
confirmed to Outside the Lines that the site was working with ABG on Ali and
that items are being taken down quickly.EBay maintains that less than .025
percent of its listings in 2014 were identified as being potentially
counterfeit, but in the case a counterfeit claim is justified, Dudouit said the
site offers a money back guarantee.Outside the Lines traced the movement of some
of the Ali-signed photographs that were posted on eBay.Many of the Ali
autographs, which were then authenticated by eBay sellers by GFA, come from
South Florida dealer Tony Podsada, who runs a company called SCM.At one point, I
had about 18,000 Ali autographs, Podsada said. I have about 3,000 left, mostly
on 4-by-6 and 5-by-7 photos.Podsada said he obtained the Ali signatures from
1988 to 1993, when his business, My Favorite Players, was one of the
heavyweights in the industry.Podsadas items do not come with a certificate of
authenticity. Disenchanted with the authentication business, Podsada said he
merely offers buyers the assurance that its a decorative item only.I believe
what I have is real, but I dont guarantee anything because I know too much,
Podsada said.Podsada will sell a 5-by-7 plaque with an Ali signature for $19.99
because he says that the leading authenticators, PSA/DNA and JSA, will fail his
items simply because of the quantity he has. That makes it harder, he says, to
make a greater margin.Technically, Podsada is losing money on the deal. He said
most of the signatures he obtained came when Ali was charging $7 each. Factor in
inflation and the cost to store them in what he says were vacuum-sealed bags in
a dark storage facility and its almost a wash.I sell it cheap because I have to
eat like everybody else, Podsada said.What Podsada said he can guarantee is that
PSA and JSA have failed some of his Ali autographs which he says he personally
witnessed. He also said that he talked with ABG when they first bought the
business and they told him that the d was off in Muhammad in the Ali signatures
he had.They might have known only one type of d, Podsada said, there were six to
eight different ds that he made.One of the buyers of Podsadas Ali signatures has
been Rod Iman of RBI Sports Inc. in North Carolina. He has sold more than 9,800
items on eBay and estimates that 2,500 a year are autographs which he then gets
authenticated by GFA, by far the largest seller of GFA certified items on the
site.Iman had some of his best days in business on eBay in the days following
Alis death. But it came to a halt on June 10, the day of Alis funeral. Thats
when Iman said his eBay account was frozen and he wasnt allowed to post new Ali
items for a week, after eBay informed him that ABG had asserted its rights as a
rights holder and alleged trademark infringement.All 21 of Imans active listings
were taken down, and he hasnt sold an Ali item since.I called eBay and asked
them, What case did the Ali people make? Iman said. They couldnt give me good
answers.Iman says he believes all the Ali items he has sold are authentic. If
you were going to forge Ali, why would you forge when he had a good signature?
Iman asks. Wouldnt it make more sense to forge the scribble?Even so, Iman, like
Rocchi and Podsada, said he will give back money to someone who contests the
signature, which he has done in recent weeks.Those who claim that certain Ali
signatures are fake often bring up the prices that these autographs have sold
for after his death, a time where the value should jump.In the past month, 55
GFA-certified items have sold on eBay. Those items have sold for an average of
$106.41 Include the GFA price of $25 for authentication, $20 to Podsada and
eBays 10 percent take and a sellers margin on Ali items, before shipping, is
less than $46 per autograph.Rocchi said hes proud of the low cost that is being
delivered to the consumer, saying this is the way its supposed to be. ' ' '
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