ATLANTA - Time heals all wounds, yes, but so do touchdowns.

Eleven months ago, the Atlanta Falcons threw up — and yes, that is an apt description — a pathetic postseason performance against the New York Giants in a first-round playoff game. Behind three Eli Manning touchdowns, the Giants demolished the Falcons on that January afternoon 24-2. Manning was so generous on that day that he even gave Atlanta their only two points, on an intentional-grounding safety. It was an embarrassment, one that haunts the Falcons to this day.

[Also: Packers run mindless trick play against Bears, win anyway]

Atlanta and its fans know that they'll be forever judged as a second-rate pretender of a team until the Falcons can manage to play deep into January. That Giants game was a perfect encapsulation of the book on the Mike Smith-Matt Ryan Falcons: solid regular season presence, zero postseason game.

As a result, Atlanta has had this date and this game circled on its schedule ever since January. Winning

In volleyball terms, a "six-pack" is when you get hit in the face by a spiked ball so hard that you're left dizzy ... you know, as if you'd just downed a six-pack of beer. What we have here is that rarest of beasts: the volleyball triple-six-pack.

Our scene: a match in Germany's volleyball Bundesliga, or national league. VfB Friedrichshafen (in white) and Berlin Recycling Volleys (in orange) were playing a semifinal match in Friedrichshafen. This was the third match in a best-of-five series, and Berlin was about to put the finishing touches on a 3-0 match rout when Friedrichshafen uncorked this ... what would "triple-six-pack" translate to in German? Pay attention to the player in white in the lower left of the frame, then watch the ball pinball around the court like a rocket-propelled billiard ball.

Anyway, Berlin got over its humiliation and won not only the next attempt at match point and the match, but would go on to win the championship as well. Embarrassment is easier to take

Oscar Pistorius is one of the fastest men on the planet, an Olympian whose achievement is all the more impressive because of the prosthetic blades on which he runs.

In Qatar this week, Pistorius ran a 100m race against a horse, and as you can see by the video above, the Blade Runner absolutely dominates the Arabian steed. It was part of a "Definitely Able" campaign designed to demonstrate that disabled athletes deserve the same respect and opportunities as able-bodied ones.

"It wasn't about who won today, it was just about coming out here and really just showing people that those with disabilities are not to be stereotyped against," Pistorius said afterward. "Having the Arab horse out here, which is a symbolization of strength and power in this region ... to be able to do a showcase event like this is a lot of fun."

But, as you can see in the video above, the horse doesn't exactly get the best start. And as a result, people are complaining that the race was either rigged, cruel or

Lindsey Vonn (Getty Images)
A bright, shining life on the surface, troubles underneath: it's a familiar story, and it's one Olympian Lindsey Vonn knows well. Vonn, one of the world's best-known and most decorated skiiers, has come clean to People magazine about her battle with depression.

Vonn told People that she has suffered from depression for years, and treats her symptoms with medication. "Everything about my life seemed so perfect to people," she told the magazine. "But I struggle like everyone else."

Vonn's difficulties hit bottom in 2008, when "I couldn't get out of bed anymore," she recalled. "I felt hopeless, empty, like a zombie." But she bounced back, and would go on to win gold medals in both the Olympics and the World Championships, as well as World Cup wins.

Recently, she suffered a severe health scare, but recovered to win her 57th World Cup race earlier this month. "All the parts of my life are finally in sync," she told People. "I accept who I am, and I'm moving forward."

The interview with

Bode and Morgan Miller. (Getty Images)

This one's gonna require a lot of flowers and candy to overcome.

Bode Miller is an Olympic gold medalist skier, but he's a little bit less talented with a golf club. On Wednesday, he and his wife Morgan, herself a pro volleyball player, were out on the links. And to say "it didn't go well" is putting it very, very mildly.

Bode apparently clocked Morgan right in the face with a tee shot. The resulting injury was horrifying but apparently not permanent, or at least not bad enough to keep Morgan from tweeting out a picture of herself. (Picture is linked below; warning, it's going to put you off your lunch. We'll let you decide if you want to scroll down and click on it.)

"I'm not feeling so hot," Morgan wrote on her Twitter page. "Line drive to the face today with a golf ball from my darling husband. I still love." She followed that up on Thursday morning with a more hopeful message: "Feeling better today. Still can't see out off left eye but I am getting some feeling back in my face."

Meet Jeff. He's watching you. (Getty Images)

Golf has its sublime vistas and its iconic scenes, from Augusta National's towering pines to Pebble Beach's crashing waves. In many ways, the sport is a perfect blend of athleticism, strategy and natural beauty.

And now, the Palmer Coolum Resort in Australia has made golf even perfect-er. How? By adding a giant freaking dinosaur to the mix, of course.

Palmer Coolum is hosting this weekend's Australian PGA Championship, but that's not why it's in the news these days. Clive Palmer, an Australian billionaire and the new owner of Palmer Coolum, has plans to upend the entire atmosphere of the resort, starting with Jeff the T-Rex there. Jeff is 26-feet tall, situated between the ninth and 10th holes, and roars and moves every time it detects motion. Here's a video of Jeff in action:

Yeah, uh ... you probably won't see something like this at Augusta anytime soon.

Palmer plans to bring a bevy of similar animatronic statues onto the resort, and also hopes to create a new model of the Titanic.

McKayla Maroney won both gold and silver medals in London, but her greatest gymnastic feat in London was flipping the world's perception of her.

McKayla Maroney reacts to winning silver in the vault competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics. (AP)The date: August 5, 2012. The scene: the North Greenwich Arena, site of the women's vault. Heading into the finals, Maroney, perhaps the greatest female vaulter of all time, needed only to land her final two vaults and the gold medal was hers. For a gymnast riding a 33-vault landing streak, this feat should have been about as demanding as a two-foot putt.

But gymnastics don't always go as expected, and while performing her final vault, the Mustafina, Maroney slipped and ended up sitting on the mat. The gold medal everyone expected her to win would soon be hung around the neck of Romania's Sandra Izbasa.

It was during that medal stand that Maroney went from famous to iconic, though not in the way she'd have wanted. When everyone expects you to win gold, anything less is, in some small sense, a failure. A moment of frustration, a moment

Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps. (Getty Images)

This past summer in London, Michael Phelps became the most decorated Olympian of all time, finishing with 22 career medals and universal acclaim for his achievements. So when he said he'd retired from Olympic competition after London, he didn't waver. Like Alexander the Great, he had no more worlds left to conquer.

Or so we assumed. Ryan Lochte, Phelps' heir apparent, believes Phelps might not be done after all. "The sport will miss him," Lochte said in advance of the World Short Course championships in Istanbul. "He is one of my favorite rivals, and I will miss him. But I think he will come back. When you do something for so long every day ... he's still young. I think he will be back for Rio. We'll see. He'll miss the sport.''

[Related: Michael Phelps says U.S. swim team bonded over pop song]

Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Phelps has insisted he wants to live a "normal" life, or what passes for one after spending four Olympics as one of the most recognizable athletes on the planet.