Falcons Were Led Down Wrong Path

It’s a little more than 21 hours before Super Bowl XXXIII, the most important game in the Atlanta Falcons’ history, a game that will be televised in 180 countries to 800 million people, a game that will be previewed by the Fox network for a record seven hours before it starts and reviewed by media and fans for years after it ends.

This is the night Eugene Robinson chooses to get arrested?

Timing is everything.

OK, I know the Falcons’ All-Pro free safety didn’t choose to get arrested for soliciting an undercover policewoman at 9 p.m. EST Saturday night. When I first heard about it two hours later, I thought of several innocent explanations he might offer.

He was asking directions. He was offering a ride to a young woman who was in a bad neighborhood after dark. He was giving his Christian testimony. (The only person in the United States last week who spoke more about God than Eugene Robinson was the pope.)

But no matter what excuse he might offer, I knew there was no good reason at that hour for doing anything but passing through the intersection in downtown Miami at 22nd Street and Biscayne Boulevard, a sleazy area known for the prostitutes and drug dealers who hang there.

Atlanta Coach Dan Reeves knew it too. I can only imagine the conversation they had Sunday morning, but his first question to Robinson probably was similar to the famous one Jay Leno asked Hugh Grant.

“What in the hell were you thinking?”

If Robinson had an answer for that, neither he nor Reeves shared it with the media later. After the Falcons lost to the Denver Broncos, 34-19, Sunday night at Pro Player Stadium, Robinson, on the advice of his attorney, refused to discuss details of the arrest, although he apologized profusely to his wife and two children, said he had prayed for mercy and predicted that he will be found innocent in the eyes of the law but not necessarily righteous in the eyes of God.

Reeves seemed to accept that. So did his teammates.

Cornerback Ray Buchanan said the Falcons had quickly forgotten and forgiven, concluding of the episode, “That was the devil working.”

That’s it? The devil made him do it.

I think Robinson got off lightly.

Nobody would suggest that Robinson was the reason the Falcons lost. That wouldn’t be giving enough credit to the Broncos, who were the better team, or enough blame to the Falcon offense.

Robinson, however, was responsible for one of the crucial turning points of the second quarter. One play after Falcon kicker Morten Andersen missed a 26-yard field goal that would have narrowed Denver’s lead to 10-6, Robinson let wide receiver Rod Smith get behind him for an 80-yard touchdown pass play from John Elway.

One moment, the Falcons were on the verge of making it a four-point game. The next moment, they were down by 14.

“That was huge,” Reeves said.

But he added, “You’re going to get beat back there sometimes,” and concluded that, overall, he felt Robinson played well, especially when considering that he played much of the third quarter and all of the fourth with a broken little finger on his right hand.

“We lost,” Reeves said. “So more will be made of this than it should.”

In a less guarded moment in the Falcons’ dressing room before he met the media masses, however, Reeves acknowledged that Robinson created turmoil on a day when his team least needed it.

“To say it wasn’t a disruption, [well] any time something like that happens it hurts you,” he said.

The irony is that one reason the Falcons signed Robinson, 35, to a two-year contract as a free agent last summer was because of his leadership skills. They felt particularly blessed to have him on the week of the Super Bowl because he had been through it the last two seasons with Green Bay.

On several occasions last week, he spoke of the importance of the Falcons focusing on their work with no distractions. He said that anyone who was thinking of creating one would have to go through him. It was clear that he was guarding the door.

“The time to party is after we win,” he said.

That is one reason that the Falcons were shocked to hear of Robinson’s indiscretion. The other is that he virtually had become the soul of the team, leading his teammates and coaches in prayer and reciting scripture from memory whenever the occasion called for it.

The players nicknamed him “The Prophet.”

On Sunday, a few hours before the Super Bowl, they had to deal with the possibility that he was a false prophet.

Fighting back tears during an interview at the team’s hotel, Falcon linebacker Henri Crockett said, “Anybody but Eugene.”

But it was Eugene. That is all the more reason that Reeves should have benched him. With 800 million people watching in 180 countries, he had the opportunity to send a powerful message about responsibility and commitment.

Instead, he punted. He let Robinson decide whether he played.

Maybe Reeves felt it was punishment enough that Robinson has to answer to his God, his family, his teammates and to all the NFL players who voted him the winner of this season’s Bart Starr Award. That award, which he received here Saturday morning, goes to a player each year who exhibits high moral character.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com