Genevieve Mays woke up at 3 a.m. Monday and couldn’t fall back asleep. She had an early morning commitment to attend a fundraiser that she usually looks forward to.
“It’s usually a fun time. It was like a funeral today,” said Mays, 42, a business owner and Falcons season ticket holder since 1994. “Everyone was gloomy and it was like I am here because I have to be here. It was honestly like we were waiting to get into a processional line for a funeral. I am really hurting today.”
Mays and the rest of the city watched in disbelief Sunday night as the Atlanta Falcons give away a perfectly good Super Bowl in Houston, losing to New England 34-28.
Allen Davis, a lifelong Falcons fan, was just sitting in his car on Auburn Avenue on Monday morning. Not saying anything to anybody.
“I just wish it was different,” he said quietly. “I am just numb. That is all there is.”
The Falcons' return flight landed at Hartsfield-Jackson International at 2 p.m. The team got off the plane, got onto buses and was gone, all the while keeping well away from the public.
There was not even the slightest stir at the airport as the Birds landed. In fact, Monday was pretty much like any other day at Hartsfield-Jackson, save for the dispirited fans slogging to baggage claim after the flight back from Houston.
Still wearing their Falcons shirts and jackets and hats, they sauntered through the terminal with rueful smiles and, like their brethren who watched the disaster from Atlanta, still a little disbelieving.
‘Who throws the ball when you’re up 28-3?’
“All the excitement of being up 28-3 and just knowing you’re going to win the Super Bowl. It was heartbreaking,” said Kimberly Weems of Riverdale as she and a friend waited near baggage claim for a ride home.
The two didn’t rise up Monday morning because they never went to bed Sunday night. Weems and Sandra Weaver, of Covington, went to Houston to tailgate, then watched the game on TV and then drove from Houston to Dallas — a distance of more than 200 miles — to catch an 8:15 a.m. flight.
Weems said coaching led to the disaster.
“Who throws the ball when you’re up 28-3?” she said. “You run the ball! You eat up the clock. You. Run. The. Ball.”
» Mike Check: What was Kyle Shanahan thinking?
Atlanta lawyer Lawrence Zimmerman, who attended the game in Houston, said the flights to and from the game were like night and day.
“On the way out to Houston, the airplane was alive with Falcons’ fans chanting and the excitement was palpable,” said Zimmerman in a text from his plane Monday morning. “On the plane back, the fans are all in shock and depressed about the loss and angry about the play-calling in the second half. Sad faces abound.”
‘It could be a very long time before we’re back’
Chris Hicks, who lives in Roswell but works in Midtown, had been looking forward to a midweek victory parade down Peachtree Street.
“Upsetting,” Hicks said. “I hate it for the city. It could be a very long time before we’re back again. It would have been very, very special.”
At the Silver Star Barbershop on Auburn Avenue, owners Horace Robinson and Willie Edwards sat in their empty salon while ESPN replayed every agonizing moment of the Pats’ 34-28 victory.
“I am pretty (upset), and that is putting it lightly,” Edwards said. “We couldn’t hold them off. But the history of the Falcons played out in that game. We lost traction. We lost our willingness to win.”
Robinson, who watched the game Sunday night with his son and nephew, said he said he was proud of the team.
“But the first thing I thought about when I woke up, is ‘I can’t believe we lost that game.’” Robinson said. “People have been crying real tears.”
Robinson then jumped up from his barber’s chair and argued that Matt Ryan and the Falcons didn’t seem inspired as the game slipped from their fingers.
“I wanted to see some more fire,” said Robinson, his voice getting higher. “Somebody needed to say, “LETS GO. LETS DO THIS.”
It was a little calmer at Georgia Insurance Brokerage, where Wellington C. Howard II runs a little family-owned business.
“The consensus is, we are all just used to it,” said Tré Howard. “We are used to Atlanta teams doing well, then choking at the end. The Braves. The Hawks. The Falcons. So nobody was really furious. We were mad for like five minutes after the game, but Atlanta is still my team.”
‘Everything seemed to fall into place’
Shawty Shawty, a local comedian, didn’t make it home Sunday night. He went to a Super Bowl party that let out after midnight and had to be at work a couple of hours later as a comedian and deejay for the Streetz Morning Takeover on Streetz 94.5.
So that is why at noon, he was still wearing his red Julio Jones jersey and a black bomber vest adorned with red falcons.
“This is a big disappointment. Every time we get there, we can never seal the deal,” said Shawty Shawty, adding that the Falcons were not helped by shoddy officiating. “Tom Brady played the Rope-a-Dope on us and this is a tough pill for the city to swallow.”
» So now what? Falcons look to the future
Some Atlanta fans are indeed cautious about getting their hearts broken again next year.
Still in Houston Monday afternoon, Ricky O’Connell quietly stepped onto his flight to head back to Atlanta. He felt physically sick, his stomach turning.
“I have invested a lot monetarily and more importantly emotionally into this team,” O’Connell said in a text from the plane. “And it really causes me a tremendous amount of anguish. Everything had seemed to fall into place for us. It really seemed like it was going to be our year. … But I feel like, here we go again.’”
Nagzah Ali said simply that it was “hard being an Atlanta sports fan.”
“We get so close but it never leads to a championship,” Ali said.
But Ali made a point to show off the tattoo on her arm. It was an “A.”
Staff writers Ben Brasch, Bill Rankin, Craig Schneider and Alexis Stevens contributed to this article.
