Eons ago, the internet was not at our fingertips.

If you wanted a preview of, say, the college football season or Major League Baseball, you went to the magazine rack and bought a magazine. There were seemingly hundreds available, even at the Rite-Aid in Nashville, Georgia.

In one of these guides one year, perhaps Athlon, were a series of short paragraph summaries for each team. Two stood out, for the Cubs and the Mets.

“Dry rot.” “Start over.”

Those were the complete previews of both teams, one sentence for one, one for the other. I don’t remember whose was whose, not that there is much difference in the assessments.

I had still a tad of hope for Atlanta a week ago, but now I realize they fit somewhere in between those two lines from a long-ago preview.

There is a perhaps a way forward.

Forget competing this year. Sell, sell, sell.

A handful of guys are set to be free agents at the end of the year, namely Marcell Ozuna, Raisel Iglesias and Alex Verdugo.

Most of the rest of the team are a mix of guys Atlanta locked up as young’uns and a few other contracts due within a few years.

Sell.

Unless it’s Ronald Acuña, Spencer Strider, Drake Baldwin, Austin Riley, A.J. Smith-Shawver and Spencer Schwellenbach, they should be looking at deals for everyone else.

Yes, even Ozzie Albies.

Albies is a wonderful friend for Acuña and, in theory, an awesome bat, but he doesn’t produce nearly what he should.

Michael Harris II might bounce back, but if Atlanta gets a generous offer, trade him. Matt Olson? They didn’t lose much in power numbers from letting Freddie Freeman go, but same. If there is a generous deal, take it.

The team wasn’t good last year with this lineup. It isn’t good now. It’s showing no signs of getting better. Why stick with it?

On top of that, Atlanta’s minor league teams need restocking. Moves over the last few years to improve the big league club have depleted the rosters at lower levels. ESPN ranked their minor leagues 27th out of 30 teams. That’s pretty awful.

And once famed for their drafting, the Braves haven’t been getting fantastic production from the farm. That includes several names called up in the past five years. They were good for a minute, but haven’t kept that momentum.

Albies and Harris are two of those players. Atlanta switched hitting coaches for the year to Tim Hyers from Kevin Seitzer, but both Harris and Albies are struggling as badly as they did last year.

Is it them? Is it Hyers, too? I don’t know, but I having my doubts that either can be productive at a high level here. Something feels very off with Atlanta, that so many guys quit progressing.

There is also Chris Sale, who, unlike many Atlanta players, has been great. He’s the reigning Cy Young winner for the National League and has been red hot since slow early starts.

Sale’s fantastic. Sale is 36, which is on the cusp of being ancient in regards to baseball pitching. Sell Chris Sale by the seashore. With all the arm injuries — which the Braves know all about from Strider, Smith-Shawver, Reynaldo Lopez and Joe Jimenez — he’s worth a fortune to contending clubs.

Atlanta has to do something if they want to remain respectable as a franchise.

The Pirates, White Sox, Rockies, Marlins and Rays have long-established reputations of having cheapskate ownership who would rather line their pockets than put a competitive team on the field.

During the Ted Turner ownership era, I was at Turner Field when it was announced Atlanta had signed Greg Maddux to a contract extension. Far and away, that got the biggest cheer of the afternoon.

The Braves wanted to keep winning, so they took care of their best players. An amazing concept, that.

Atlanta is currently owned by “Atlanta Braves Holdings,” which is somehow a more faceless-sounding name than Liberty Media, the previous named ownership group.

Liberty refused to give a better deal to Freeman. Atlanta Braves Holdings was in on exactly zero big-name signings over the offseason, save for Jurickson Profar. Profar is currently suspended for PED use. Even the owners’ cheap deal was ill-advised.

If ownership wants to play it cheap with free agents, at least restock the farm.

The Braves have been by far the most successful franchise in my years of watching Atlanta sports. They’ve become the most complacent. The Hawks and Falcons continued to sputter along, but at least both have shaken up rosters and spent big money (and failed) on occasion, but they’re trying.

Earlier in the week, the Bravos did make a move. Matt Tuiasosopo is no longer the team’s third base coach. Ex-manager Fredi Gonzalez is taking over.

Gonzalez was most recently fired as Baltimore’s bench coach in a housecleaning for their horrendous start.

General manager Alex Anthopoulos is being a little cagey as to why Gonzalez is back. He’s framed it as Gonzalez’s availability being too good to pass up, but not why Tuiasosopo had to go. Tuiasosopo is still in the organization, but significantly demoted.

Was it a problem with Tuiasosopo? Are we merely rearranging deck chairs?

I have no idea. The online Magic Eight Ball I checked told me to ask again later. Somehow like the Braves, it’s definitive while providing no answers.