The Falcons’ attempt to atone for the greatest collapse in Super Bowl history starts on the road and because they are a sixth seed, it will stay on the road as long as they remain in the NFC playoffs.
Just how dangerous are the 2017 Falcons, the defending NFC champions, who open the playoffs against the third-seeded Los Angeles Rams at 8:15 p.m. Saturday at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum?
“With (Matt) Ryan, (Julio) Jones, and an array of other offensive weapons, the Falcons could be one of the most dangerous six seeds the NFL playoffs have ever seen,” wrote Mike Florio of NBC and Pro Football Talk earlier this week.
The Falcons are battle-tested, but Ryan and Jones have not played nearly as well as last season when they stormed to the Super Bowl out of the second-seeded slot before blowing a 28-3 lead and losing to New England 34-28 in overtime.
History suggests the Falcons will have a difficult time trying to make up for their Super Bowl LI collapse this season. Since the wild-card round was added to the NFL playoffs in 1970, 10 wild-card teams have advanced to the Super Bowl and six have won the Super Bowl, but only two -- 2005 Pittsburgh and 2010 Green Bay – were sixth seeds.
The Oakland Raiders (1980), Denver Broncos (1997), Baltimore Ravens (2000) and New York Giants (2007) have won the Super Bowl after being wild-card teams, but were either fourth or fifth seeds.
Also, the losing Super Bowl team has not made it back to the big game since the 1994 Buffalo Bills.
The Falcons played the 2010 Packers as the No. 1 seed and were upset at the Georgia Dome. It was a close game until Aaron Rodgers started to dissect the Falcons' secondary and the Packers pulled away on their way to a 48-21 victory.
Since the NFL expanded the playoffs to six teams in each conference in 1990, sixth seeds have won 30 of 80 postseason games (a success rate of 37.5 percent). Sixth seeds have won multiple games in the same playoffs only four times (2005, ’08, ’10, ’13).
Last season, both sixth seeds were pummeled.
Third-seeded Seattle beat sixth-seed Detroit 26-6 in the NFC and third-seed Pittsburgh thumped sixth-seed Miami 30-12 in the AFC.
After the 2015 season, Seattle and Pittsburgh won one game as sixth seeds before losing in the divisional round to Carolina and Denver, respectively.
Staring the face of all of that statistical data, the Falcons remain undeterred.
“We know that the easy road is not for us, (it’s) the hard road,” Falcons coach Dan Quinn said.
Ryan said, “All of the experiences that we’ve have had, we feel good about how that has shaped us into the team that we are right now. We’re confident. We believe in ourselves and believe that we’ll be ready to play.”
Everyone is not as high as Florio is on the Falcons.
Three of the 11 writers for TheMMQB.com -- Jonathan Jones, Conor Orr and Gary Gramling -- predicted that the Falcons will reach the NFC Championship game.
Five of six writers for USA Today – including NFL columnist Jarrett Bell and writer Lindsay H. Jones -- predicted they’ll lose to the Rams in the first round. Only Nate Davis picked the Falcons.
“I like Atlanta’s defense, and I think they showed improvement,” said Ed McCaffrey on Sirius NFL radio’s opening drive show this week. “But it’s going to be hard for them to go 3,000 miles away and stop the Rams on their home field from putting up somewhere between 20 and 30 points. It’s going to be really hard for them to do that.”
McCaffrey doesn’t like the Falcons’ offense going up against the Rams’ defense, which is coordinated by the 70-year-old Wade Phillips.
“He is excellent,” McCaffrey said. “He’s going to try to take away Julio Jones and try to limit Devonta Freeman. Julio Jones, he’s no secret, every team tries to stop him. Sometimes they can. Sometimes they can’t.”
McCaffrey has seen the Rams a couple of times this season.
“I saw them go into Jacksonville and beat the doors off the Jaguars,” McCaffrey said. “This is an offense that can score points on anybody, including the Atlanta Falcons. I don’t know that offensively that Atlanta can put up the numbers that they need to beat the Rams on the road.”
Of the two No. 6 seeds to win the Super Bowl, the Falcons most closely resemble the 2010 Green Bay Packers.
The Packers had an elite quarterback in Aaron Rodgers. He was 10-5 as starter that season. The Pack were 10-6, like the Falcons are this season.
Those Packers had six one-score losses, including one to the Falcons. The Falcons had five one-score losses and were only pounded by one team, New England, this season.
Five of the Falcons’ six losses were to playoff teams.
One major difference is that Green Bay had six Pro Bowlers and the Falcons have only two: Jones and center Alex Mack. The 2010 Packers had four Pro Bowlers on defense: linebacker Clay Matthews, cornerback Charles Woodson, cornerback Tramon Williams and free safety Nick Collins.
There also was some luck involved for the Packers. After they beat the Eagles and Falcons, they played the Bears in the NFC Championship game. Bears quarterback Jay Cutler suffered a mystery injury, Todd Collins was horrible in relief and the Bears finished the game with Caleb Hanie at quarterback.
The 2005 Steelers were riding on the Bus to the Super Bowl, running back Jerome Bettis, nicknamed The Bus, gave them a rallying cry. They had a rushing attack and second-year quarterback Ben Roethlisberger at the controls.
The Steelers were 11-5 and heavy underdogs against Cincinnati in the divisional round. Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer was injured, and the Steelers won. They squeaked by the Colts in the divisional round before routing Denver in the AFC title game.
“It’s tough to compare teams at different times,” Falcons backup quarterback Matt Schaub said.
But Schaub, who has been in the league since the Falcons drafted him in the third round out of Virginia in 2004, sees some similarities to the 2010 Packers.
“This year, we were in a lot of close games,” Schaub said. “We played a lot of good football teams, and we were getting everyone’s best shot.”
The Falcons were 5-3 on the road, with losses at New England, Carolina and New Orleans.
“We are battle-tested as a football team both at home and on the road,” Schaub said. “Everywhere, any day of the week, we played in every time zone. Now, let’s go see what we can do.”
Falcons right tackle Ryan Schraeder is proud of the way the team reached the playoffs and believes the Falcons can make some noise from the sixth seed.
“We didn’t take the easy route,” Schraeder said. “It’s a little different than last year. We had the homefield all throughout. We are a different team from last year with the way that we won the tough road games.”
The Falcons, who would advance to play the No. 1-seeded Philadelphia Eagles if they beat the Rams, are not dwelling on their seeding.
“We’ve been through the battles like that,” Schraeder said. “We haven’t been blowing people out as much. That grind and that grit that it takes to finish the game at the end at the end is invaluable. Especially, for this team and this year and what we are trying to do with this game this weekend.”
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