Super dreams: Staring down old demons, Atlanta is ready to rise up

» NFL experts who are picking the Falcons

Call it positive thinking. Or mass delusion. Or simple confidence that their eyes have not deceived them: a Falcons team good enough to outscore playoff opponents 80-41 is good enough to win one more. A simple confidence that the decades of punches we've taken to the gut will, on this day, be redirected at Tom Brady's pretty face.

“It’s a pretty weird feeling to have,” said Atlanta native Gus Glaw, 43. “I’ve never felt this confident as a Falcons fan. Everyone feels so good about this team. This city needs it. We deserve it.”

Atlanta’s sports teams, including the Falcons, Braves, Hawks and two hockey franchises that came and went, have played a combined 173 seasons. Only one of those ended in a championship, in 1995, when the Braves beat Cleveland in the World Series.

The following summer, Atlanta was the improbable host of the Centennial Olympic Games. When Muhammad Ali lifted his trembling right arm to light the torch at the Opening Ceremony — a unifying moment no one saw coming and few will forget — it seemed the city could do no wrong.

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That October, the Braves returned to the World Series, winning the first two games on the road against the New York Yankees, the winningest franchise in sports. Loserville was in our rear-view mirror.

But the Yankees won the next four games, and in 1999 they’d sweep the Braves in a World Series rematch. Earlier that year Atlanta would play in their first, and until now, only Super Bowl, a game best remembered for a personal indiscretion the night before by a Falcons defensive back.

A drumbeat of disappointments would follow, on and off the field. From would-be savior Michael Vick’s dogfighting conviction to a couple of inches of paralyzing snow, Atlanta had became a national punchline.

But the joke’s grown stale. Atlantans say they’ve wandered in the wilderness long enough.

“It just feels like this is our time,” said Black Lips guitarist Cole Alexander. “I don’t want to say we’ve got this, because it’ll blow up in our face.”

Still, Alexander was confident enough to search for an earlier flight back Sunday from the West Coast, where the Atlanta-based rock band is presently touring.

“I don’t want to miss the celebration,” said the Dunwoody native.

Credit: Curtis Compton

Credit: Curtis Compton

The nation is backing the Birds

For one night, at least, the Falcons will be America’s team. The Patriots are the Piers Morgan to Atlanta’s Larry King, the Pepsi to our Coke, the Kanye West to our everyone else.

A survey by Public Policy Polling found that 53 percent of the nation is rooting for the Falcons, double the percentage cheering on the Pats.

The disparity should come as no surprise. New England has won four Super Bowls — all coming since 2002. They have the All-American quarterback with the supermodel wife and the automaton coach who’s faced accusations of coloring outside the lines.

For some, it’s political. Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady have all voiced their support for President Donald Trump, leading liberal comedian Bill Maher to declare his allegiance for the Falcons even though “it’s like saying Mickey Rourke is your favorite boxer.”

Besides, three dozen championships is enough. That’s how many titles Boston’s pro sports teams have collected, and it’s fair to say all that winning has gone to their heads.

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"When it comes to Atlanta and its sports fans, we feel nothing. Maybe a little pity," wrote Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe, feeding a familiar trope. "The Falcons, Braves, and Hawks don't win championships so they don't get much love. Atlanta is a place where people play sports rather than watch them. Atlanta grows professional athletes. We produce Ordways and Massarottis."

But it's not just anti-Patriots sentiment that's driving the Falcons bandwagon. To a new generation, Atlanta isn't just the city with the big airport and even bigger traffic jams. It's the setting for Donald Glover's hit TV show. It's the Motown of hip hop. The arbiter of cool.

“‘To quote (Outkast frontman) Andre 3000, ‘The South got somethin’ to say,’” said Black Lips bassist and vocalist Jared Swilley.

Jeff Van Note ‘riding the wave’ 

Of all the men to play professional football, none experienced more losses than Jeff Van Note, who played 18 years in the NFL, all with the Falcons.

The five-time Pro Bowler got close just once, in 1980, when the Falcons won 11 of their last 12 games to secure the franchise’s first division title and a match-up, at home, against the Dallas Cowboys, a game Atlantans of a certain age will never forget.

“That was the height of Falcons football but also the low point,” said Van Note, who has lived in Atlanta since 1969. “We were loaded. We could beat you on either side of the ball.”

And for three quarters they did just that, jumping out to a commanding 24-10 lead behind two Steve Bartkowski touchdown passes.

“Bart was just dominating. And then we got all conservative,” Van Note recalled.

Leading 27-17 with five minutes left to play, the Falcons turned to their running game in hopes of running out the clock. But Cowboys quarterback Danny White responded with a five-play, 62-yard drive to cut the lead to three. The Falcons got the ball back but were forced to punt with two minutes left.

Seventy yards and 78 seconds later, White connected with Drew Pearson for the game winner.

“We all thought we’d be back in the hunt the next season,” said Van Note, just a few days shy of his 70th birthday.

But it wasn’t to be. The Falcons missed the playoffs the following year. Head Coach Leeman Bennett was fired after the strike-shortened 1982 season ended in a wild card loss to the Vikings. Nine consecutive losing seasons followed.

Despite that, Van Note said, he has always remained an optimist. These Falcons, he said, are the best since the 1980 club.

“We’re riding the wave,” he said. “I think they’re going to do it.”

He’s betting on it. Van Note said he entered a blind pool with a group of old friends from Kentucky. Pick a winner and advance. With one game left, the old lineman is still standing, betting on the team that gave him such an ignominious record.

“That would be something, winning the pool because of the Falcons,” he said.

The fan’s fan: ‘We’ve had enough’

Phillip May still has the ticket stub from the first Falcons game he saw in person: Dec. 1, 1974, vs. the Los Angeles Rams. He watched as Falcons quarterbacks threw five interceptions en route to a 30-7 Rams win, dropping Atlanta’s record to 2-10. It was a fitting indoctrination.

Fifteen years later, May was one of 7,792 souls to watch the last game of the 1989 season, a 31-24 loss to the Lions —“the least-attended game in Falcons history,” said the Cobb County resident.

Despite that, May’s love for the Falcons never wavered. He passed it along to his son Trevor, a senior at the University of Georgia.

They’ll watch the game together on Sunday, convinced, like so many other Falcons fans, that decades of suffering will finally pass.

“The indignity of being an Atlanta sports fan can weigh on you,” said Phillip May, who believes this is just the beginning of an unprecedented run of Falcons success. “I think we’re ahead of schedule so I won’t be devastated if we lose. But then the thought of all those headlines the next day. ‘See, we told ya, Atlanta can’t do it.’ We’ve all had enough of that.”

Second generation season ticket-holder Amy Pumphrey Slade estimates he’s seen at least 200 games in person. She was there two weeks ago when the Falcons throttled Green Bay. After the game she and husband Brad decided they would celebrate their 28th anniversary in Houston, where they hope to score two tickets for Sunday’s game.

“I don’t know if we’ll spend $3,000 for a ticket,” said Pumphrey Slade, 51. of Marietta. “Really, I’d just as soon be at a bar with other Falcons fans.”

She was in the stands the last time the Falcons played in the Super Bowl, in 1999 vs. the Broncos. Pumphrey Slade still remembers the phone call from her mother the morning of the game, telling her Falcons safety Eugene Robinson had been arrested for soliciting a prostitute just hours earlier.

“That year felt like a fluke anyway, so I wasn’t really expecting us to win,” she said.

Now, “I don’t feel anxious one bit. This is new territory for me,” Pumphrey Slade said.

Dave Justice: ‘The stars are aligned’

On the eve of what would be the most rewarding night in Atlanta sports history, Oct. 28, 1995, Braves right fielder David Justice delivered a message to the fans.

“If we get down 1-0 tonight, they will probably boo us out of the stadium, ” he said. “You have to do something great to get them out of their seats. Shoot, up in Cleveland, they were down three runs in the ninth inning and they were still on their feet.”

Recalling that controversial rant, Justice, now living just outside San Diego with his wife and three kids, said he was merely trying to encourage a fan base that had grown a little spoiled from three consecutive division titles (and a little disenchanted from the lockout that ended the previous season).

In that fabled sixth game, Justice was greeted with boos as he stepped to the plate in the bottom of the second, and again when he led off in the last of the sixth. Then, with the score tied at zero, Justice launched a 1-1 pitch over the right field wall, giving the Braves a 1-0 lead — all that Tom Glavine would need as Atlanta captured its first and only championship.

He predicts a second one is only a matter of hours away.

“I keep telling people the Falcons are going to win,” said Justice, 50. “They can beat you in so many ways. Just like our ‘95 team.”

“The stars are aligned,” he said. “It’s Atlanta’s time.”