Credit: Mark Bradley
Credit: Mark Bradley
As we know, offseason appraisals of the Atlanta Falcons have run from lukewarm (Football Outsiders projected them to be better but not quite good ) to lousy (Pro Football Focus assessed theirs as the NFL's 30th-best roster ). Here's one, from Bill Barnwell of Grantland, that's wildly -- wildly, I say -- encouraging.
Barnwell lists the Falcons as one of the eight teams that can win it all . His reasoning:
There are only nine other teams in that bucket since the merger. They averaged 8.9 wins in the season after their sudden collapse, and five of the nine won 10 games or more. It's too small of a sample to prove anything, but it is fair to say teams have been on this roller coaster ride before and come out of it smiling. My suspicion is that the Falcons are one of those teams.
That's kind of line with my thinking. I don't believe the Falcons were as bad as they looked in 2013. (Although they did look pretty bad.) They had a bad schedule, a slew of injuries and not much luck. I believe they've gotten better via their offseason acquisitions. But mostly I believe those five consecutive winning seasons weren't a figment of Arthur Blank's imagination.
Which is why I've picked them to go 10-6 . ( So has Barnwell , FYI.) Which is why I believe they'll beat the Saints on Sunday.
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