Falcons hope to end 'curse' with win vs. Bucs

By STEVE HUMMER

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The owner has compared it at various times to: 1., a Hester Prynne-like mark of shame, or 2., tooth decay.

The former quarterback considers it "embarrassing," a stain on entire generations of players.

Modern-day Falcons aren't exactly sure what to make of it, past it being unfathomable, like the solution to Pi or the popularity of Howie Mandel.

How exactly to categorize all these seasons the Falcons have played football – 43, dating back to 1966 – without once posting consecutive winning records?

On the one hand, that is a rather obscure, quirky stat, not part of any traditional measure of a team. "I didn't even know about it until about 10 years ago," said the team's ring of honor center, Jeff Van Note.

On the other, it can be seen as the portrait of inconsistency, rendering each rare Falcons success an aberration. That number screams that anything good befalling this franchise will be followed immediately by a cream pie to the face.

There is nothing quite like this situation elsewhere in professional sport. No one else has played nearly so long without happening upon back-to-back winning seasons. In baseball, the Kansas City Royals are the furthest removed from consecutive winning seasons, last recording the accomplishment in 1988 and 1989.

Even the archetype of haplessness, the Los Angeles Clippers, come out ahead on this score. You have to go back a couple incarnations, back before the franchise came to L.A., back before it arrived in San Diego, back to when it bore an entirely different name. But, there are the Buffalo Braves of 1974-75 and 1975-76 vintage doing something the Falcons haven't managed.

"It's kind of shocking," said Falcons linebacker Mike Peterson. "I can't believe it," said fullback Ovie Mughelli. "Think of all the years Michael Vick was here and all the years the Falcons have been on the map. I can't believe it."

All the 8-7 Falcons have left to play for in Sunday's final game at Tampa is the opportunity to end this particular curse.

That does provide some powerful motivation here at the close of an otherwise disappointing season – even for those who won't be on the field.

"I'm all over this game," said 1980s quarterback Steve Bartkowski. "It's embarrassing that we've never had back-to-back winning seasons. It's one of the things I want to be erased from the memory banks. Let's hope they retire that this weekend."

Owner Arthur Blank found that bit of history so unbelievable when he first heard of it that he was compelled to look it up for himself shortly after buying the team in 2002. Now he certainly is tired of hearing about it. "I don't want to hear about it anymore only because I want us to work past it. It's a black star on our helmet that we can get off this weekend.

"The goal of the franchise obviously is to get to a Super Bowl and win a Super Bowl," Blank said. "But this would be a major step for the franchise. It would be symbolically important because it would represent that this team is emerging, ... trending in the right direction."

The Falcons could have gotten this out of the way as early as 1972, when they followed up their first winning season with a promising beginning. But they lost their final two to finish 7-7.

"We weren't thinking about [winning back-to-back] then," said Van Note. "We were more upset about what happened to Dave Hampton."

Hampton had celebrated becoming the franchise's first 1,000-yard rusher near the end of that last game, only to lose yardage on his next carry and finish with 995 yards.

The most recent opportunity came in 2005, following up an 11-win '04 in which the Falcons advanced to the NFC Championship game. Again, they started the following year quickly, winning six of their first eight. And again, they faded like cheap drapery, winning only two of the last eight.

In between, four other winning seasons were followed by a thud. Each Falcons sequel was as unwatchable as "Caddyshack II."

That '05 collapse provided a couple of particularly notable moments in the curse.

Feeling puffed up about his quick start that season, coach Jim Mora went out of his way to take a shot at his own team's history. Questioned about not allowing his offensive linemen to talk to the press, Mora sniped at former linemen like Van Note who talked freely but won sparingly.

"How good were their teams? Seriously, this place never had two winning seasons in a row. Who cares what they had to say?" Humility was but a few games away.

Winning the last game in 2005 at least would have salvaged an above-.500 record, but after getting drummed in that one by Carolina, 44-11, Blank was so frustrated at the time he went to the dental metaphors: "It's like when you go to the dentist, sometimes it's not pleasant when you have to drill deep enough to get rid of all the disease in your teeth. We've got to drill down far enough to find out what the disease is and get rid of it."

Coming off an 11-5 2008, a charmed season that surpassed every expectation, the Falcons and their fans view 2009 as a downer. Injuries claimed quarterback Matt Ryan and running back Michael Turner for significant stretches of the season. Three-point losses to the New York Giants and New Orleans easily could have swung the other way.

Thus, here they are again, playing for the consolation of one winning season to back up against another. It is a quest, difficult as it is to believe, 43 years in the making.

Ryan, the second-year man new to all this, said, "Whether it's hard to grasp, it is what it is. But we want to have back-to-back winning seasons around here for a long time."

Whoa, big fella. Just doing it once would be a good start.