This was back in the dog days of August, in the teeth of those painful, sweat-soaked workouts at the Atlanta Falcons' training camp at Furman University:
Jim Mora, the boyish rookie head coach, lines up his team in the end zone at Paladin Stadium with South Carolina's Paris Mountain looming in the distance.
"Now, this is where the visiting tunnel is," Mora says briskly. "And this is where I want the captains. Hey, tighten it up in the back, there."
He is, as always, straight-ahead serious.
Kickoff for the Falcons' first exhibition game in Baltimore is still a day away, but -- and for some of the veterans this is almost laughable -- Mora has his players practicing the way they are going to come onto the field. He gestures to team photographer Jimmy Cribb and says, convincingly, "Go on, pretend to take the captains' picture."
Sure, it's Pop Warner stuff, but the game will be on national television. Mora wants his first impression -- and the 2004 Falcons' first impression -- to be a good one. He is 42 years old, but this will be his 20th season in the NFL. The funny thing? Even with those cheesy fake snapshots and 16,000 empty seats, the players are actually making an effort to hit all the right marks.
"We went through an entire mock game, starting with getting off the bus," Mora explained Wednesday from the Falcons' headquarters in Flowery Branch, Ga. "We took a knee in the locker room at the two-minute pre-game warning and said a prayer and hit the field. We had our coaches in the press box and the headsets on the field. Then we went through a 50-play walkthrough. It took about an hour, but it was well worth it."
And it makes you wonder. If Mora's attention to detail is this hyper-amped for a pre-game exercise, well, what are his game plans like?
About what you'd think. The Falcons are 3-0 for the first time since 1986 and, even though the three teams they've beaten are, in order, the 49ers, Rams and Cardinals, optimism radiates from the team's facility.
Born to coach
For the reason, with apologies to Michael Vick, look no further than the third-youngest head coach in the NFL. James Lawrence Mora, the son, is already starting to look suspiciously like father James Earnest Mora, who won 125 games with the Saints and Colts. The son was born to all of this, of course. At the age of 13, Mora was an attendant in the visiting locker room for Seattle Seahawks games when his dad was the defensive coordinator at the University of Washington. He was a 16-year-old ball boy at the 1978 Rose Bowl. He was 23 when the San Diego Chargers offered him a job in quality control. He worked for his father in New Orleans, but nepotism wasn't a factor when the 49ers made him their defensive coordinator at the age of 36.
Like Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, whose father was a coach at the Naval Academy, Mora grew up in film rooms and has absorbed and assimilated so many X's and O's that his fluency is astonishing.
"I guess it rubs off," Mora said. "Every meal I've ever eaten, every stitch of clothes I've put on my back my whole life is because of football. I've been lucky to be around a group of great coaches: Bill Walsh, John Ralston, Mooch (Steve Mariucci). And great players, too. I was in ninth grade and Ronnie Lott's in my house.
Being around Dan Fouts and Charlie Joiner and Kellen Winslow was something. Chris Doleman, Rod Woodson, Jerry Rice, Sam Mills -- and the list goes on.
"You see greatness, how they work, how they prepare. The mindset they have, their approach. I think it helps you as a coach."
A year ago, the Falcons were a defensive disaster. After Vick was sidelined for what turned out to be 11 games after breaking his right leg in the preseason, the defense was laid bare. Atlanta finished 5-11 and the defense allowed a franchise record 6,108 yards -- that's nearly 3.5 miles -- worst in the NFL. On seven different occasions, the Falcons allowed 400 yards in a game.
The bad news for 2004? Nine of 11 starters returned on the defensive side. Mora, who fashioned some nasty defenses in San Francisco, liked the aggressive tendencies of the Falcons -- they were better than average in sacks, interceptions and forced fumbles -- but took Wade Phillips' 3-4 defense and retooled it as a 4-3. By spreading out defensive ends Patrick Kerney and Brady Smith, he created more space for them to operate. Kerney had three sacks against the Cardinals and leads the NFL with five, while Smith and tackle Rod Coleman have three apiece.
Here is what a sound defense will do for you: Last Sunday, the Falcons scored six points -- and won. And while it was only Arizona, holding any NFL team to a mere field goal is an accomplishment.
By any measurement, the Falcons are far from last in defense; they're No. 11 in average yards allowed (293) and No. 3 in points allowed among teams that have played three games. Only Seattle (13) and Jacksonville (28) have allowed fewer than Atlanta's 39. The Falcons are No. 2 versus the run (61.3 yards per game) and one of only four teams in the league with a 3-0 record.
"Number one, you bring in Ed Donatell," Mora explained. "The last three years in Green Bay, he led the league in takeaways. Then you try to change the mindset by changing the scheme. The 4-3, it's an attitudinal thing. You preach effort, you preach technique. You play hard. Every day, you live it."
Greater expectations
Mora has taken a ribbing in the local media for his rah-rah attitude. After the victory over Arizona, he said of his defense, "They're unyielding. They had an edge to them, an attitude. They were knocking the dog out of the ball carriers and getting after it."
So far, even if the media isn't always buying into Mora, clearly, the Falcons are -- even if it means working a little harder than they did in recent years under Dan Reeves. Reeves is one of the league's great coaches, but sometimes teams need an extreme coaching makeover. Like the Giants' regime change that brought Tom Coughlin in for Jim Fassel, Mora threw a charge into a dormant team.
When Reeves learned that he would not be back in 2004 -- he left the team with three games to play last season -- the Falcons began casting around for their next leader. Mora was not among the leading candidates. The top three were thought to be LSU's Nick Saban, then-St. Louis Rams defensive coordinator Love Smith and Phillips, Atlanta's interim head coach. Mora had a terrific interview with general manager Rich McKay, but owner Arthur Blank was conferring at the time in North Carolina with Joe Gibbs, then a Falcons minority owner. Eight days later, Mora sat down with Blank. That second impression and testimony from 49ers leading lights like Walsh, Mariucci and Steve Young led to the Jan. 8 announcement that Mora was the Falcons' new head coach.
There were some immediate cosmetic changes: The locker rooms and weight room were painted. Four big-screen televisions were installed in the weight room, where players see a constant barrage of the NFL's greatest games and players. Mora had pictures of the Falcons' top players hung in the corridors and meeting rooms. The Falcons' uniforms were changed from black to red.
Practices have been tougher. Expectations seem to be higher.
The Falcons are not going to pass anyone under the table -- they've attempted only 61 passes, fewer than any other team, except Jets' 56 (in two games) and are No. 29 in passing yards. Still, the running game is No. 1 with an average of 177 yards per game and the maturation of Vick continues. Mora has an old-school mentality of run first, pass second, but he is aggressive, too. With the game against the Rams tied at 17-all in the fourth quarter, the Falcons faced a fourth-and-1 at the 2-yard-line. Reeves probably would have kicked the field goal, but Mora had Vick hand the ball off to Warrick Dunn, who scored a touchdown. Atlanta went on to win 34-17.
"I love being on the football field," he said Thursday, the energy coming right through the phone. "It's so fun.
"It's about momentum and emotion. A word I've been using a lot lately is conviction. It's knowing you're doing the right thing. I think we're starting to get that feeling."
Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.