As the Falcons unveil those iconic red helmets once more, an ode
The Falcons are again dusting off their throwback uniforms for Monday night’s nationally televised clash with Buffalo and, with them, those classic red helmets. Not that any dust ever gathers on their face-masked fedoras of yesteryear. For the glint of their gold stripes, the white-outlined bird of prey emblazoned on each side, shines down the decades.
For children of the ’60s and ’70s and thereabouts, that headgear was a Valentine, a stop-sign-red beacon of battle. The helmets, adorned with a stiff, black falcon in flight — awkward as it hits the eye, talons out, beak dead-ahead — bore a logo that seemed to mirror the letter “F,” the bird’s tail a jutting serif.
Seeing that symbol in its original form once more, somehow it gleams brighter all these decades later. There is glitz therein, glamour now from an era that knew very little. Bad memories fade. Yet somehow, those outfits of old have not.
As iconic top hats go in this city, the Falcons’ bonnets are right up there with the state Capitol’s gold dome and the blue-bubble-topped Hyatt Regency. The helmet’s occasional revival is akin to happening upon an old flame. Longtime fans can shut their eyes and see former Falcons quarterback Steve Bartkowski sporting that red Riddell.
Bartkowski, drafted first overall in 1975, played 11 seasons in Atlanta. He was sad to see the Falcons usher in black helmets in 1990. “It’s always hard to let go of the past,” he said by phone the other day from his Montana home. “I think it’ll be refreshing to see (the red ones again).”
Bartkowski, a month shy of his 73rd birthday, will attend Monday night’s game and bear witness to a modernized facsimile of the gear he once wore.
“There is,” he said, “a fan base in Atlanta that is very nostalgic.”
Indeed, maybe the candy-apple sheen is a touch brighter now, with, say, a higher-tech pigment affording that bright red some extra zing.
Come Monday, unveiled anew, they’ll be a civic jewel to behold: the Fabergé eggs of Falcondom.
About the Author
Joe Kovac Jr. is Macon bureau chief covering Middle Georgia for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
