Who wants an over-priced NFL free-agent?  Wait - what am I thinking?  Who else?  The Falcons!  Hey Arthur Blank - have I got a deal for you.  Here's Michael Turner, the seldom-used back-up to LaDainian Tomlinson in San Diego for the last four years. 

He looks fast, doesn't he?  For a mere $35 million over six years, Michael can be a Dirty Bird!  I know - what a deal!  I totally agree with you - who cares if he's only rushed for 1,257 yards in his four-year career and we have no idea whether he can handle the load of being a feature running back in the NFL?  You're right - that 1,257 yards just means that he has "low mileage," not that you're throwing $35 million at someone who is essentially an unproven commodity.   Exactly - why would anyone wait for the draft to pick up a running back when you could get a deal like this?  Just because there hasn't been a free-agent running back who has made a highly successful transition to a new team in years doesn't mean it won't happen this time.  I believe you - it will be different for the Falcons.  I couldn't agree with you more - the fact that he's twenty-six, which has now typically become the beginning of the end for NFL running backs, doesn't mean a thing.  I know - "low mileage"!  You keep on repeating that, Arthur.  I like it.  Just do yourself a favor - make sure you remember that one when you're wondering what the hell you were thinking a few years from now.

Congratulations, Michael, on your winning lottery numbers.  Enjoy the bounty.

Even though it's early March and there's no NFL football being played, this time of year offers one of the starkest reminders of why good NFL teams are good and why teams like the Falcons are awful.  The NFL free agent signing period is in full bloom!  All over the league, desperate general managers of desperate franchises that have been mired in mediocrity for years pursue the hot free agents and open their checkbooks.  Each hopes to sign this year's Randy Moss and Wes Welker and transform their team into a contender overnight.  The lure of the quick fix is strong.  Why wait on the draft to acquire young talent, build a nucleus, and slowly develop a championship team when you have the chance to go out and buy one overnight? 

The problem, of course, is that Randy Moss and Wes Welker-type free agent signings are anomalies.  But knowing that doesn't stop the league's bottom dwellers, and it didn't stop the Falcons on Sunday.  Operating in complete denial, incompetent NFL management teams convince themselves that they'll be the ones to land this year's free agent prize.  Year in and year out, they go into free agency and spend absurd amounts of money on guys that will never produce the results that were expected.  The list is long and distinguished, so you'd think management would finally learn from their own mistakes, as well as those of so many other teams.  But they're desperate - you can smell it in signings like the Falcons' of Turner on Sunday - so they ignore what we all know to be true and roll the dice on another quick fix.   What's really sad is that instead of improving their teams, they end up making them worse.  Inevitably, the player doesn't perform up to expectations, they can't trade him because they've got him signed to some ridiculous contract, and they don't have the money left to hold on to some of their promising younger players when they become eligible for free agency because they overpaid for some guy who is on the downside of his career. 

Yup, you don't have to look much further than NFL free agent signings to see why some cities will be celebrating playoff football next January and others, like the Falcons, will be looking back on another 4 - 12 season and trying to figure out what went wrong.  

There's only one way the Falcons can compound this mistake and further cement their place at the bottom of the NFC South.  If NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell stands up at the podium in New York in April and utters the following words, the Falcons will have demonstrated that they can screw up free agency and the draft in the same year:

"With the third pick of the 2008 NFL draft, the Atlanta Falcons select Matt Ryan, quarterback from Boston College."

The only good news is that the season ticket holders will have a legitimate claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.  Actually, forget legitimate.  That's a slam dunk.