They look good on paper next season. But they looked good on paper Sunday and look where the Falcons ended up: In an ashtray, on New England’s corner table, next to the remains of Roger Goodell’s dignity.
Even Tom Brady, who now owns the hardware and jewelry for any greatest-of-all-time debate, knows what can happen when a team looks good on paper. The Patriots went 18-0 in 2007 and were a two-touchdown favorite to the New York Giants. They lost.
Maybe you don’t consider losing as a favorite on the same level as the Falcons blowing a 28-3 lead in the Super Bowl but the point is the same: Strange things happen in sports, sometimes excruciating things, as any mortal soul who’s still upright in Atlanta today would attest.
So let’s forget about paper. It means just north of nothing.
Over the coming days and weeks, you will hear only great, sunny things about the Falcons’ future from the team’s players, coaches, front office members, owner and certainly PSL sales staff. They all will be selling you on hope.
But there’s a reason only 11 teams have won Super Bowls in the last 21 years. It’s beyond talent, which the Falcons have. So much has to go right. Just making it to a Super Bowls requires a sometimes extraordinary sequence of events: Good health (which is linked at the arms with good luck), dramatic wins, a division and conference favorite suddenly tumbling.
See: Carolina. The Panthers went 15-1 with a Super Bowl appearance and the league’s MVP at quarterback (Cam Newton) last season. This year they went 6-10.
They looked good on paper.
What happened to the Falcons Sunday, a 34-28 overtime loss in which their offensive coordinator outsmarted himself, their defense crumbled and their late-game cool evaporated, may forever haunt them. They led by 25 points but New England scored the game's final 31 in the biggest fourth-quarter comeback in NFL playoff history. That will sit with the Falcons through the offseason, next season and until — or if — they win a championship. And even they might think, "We should have two."
“It makes you numb — I’m kind of numb,” safety Ricardo Allen said. “Like, I don’t really know what to feel. I’m broken inside. I’ll probably never forget this.”
The Falcons hoped to redefine themselves Sunday. They didn't. They have Matt Ryan coming back next season. They have great weapons around him. They have a young defense that, in theory, should get better. But championship teams aren't made on assumptions. They're made on coming through in the biggest moments in the biggest games and the Falcons did not do that in the final game.
Assume nothing.
From Dwight Freeney, who’s pondering retirement: “I told them it was going to be a four-quarter fight and it was a five-quarter fight. We just didn’t do enough. We didn’t make that one last play.”
Until they do, many will assume they won’t. That’s fair. That’s sports.
Everybody will remember Julian Edelman’s circus catch on the Patriots’ tying touchdown drive in the final minutes of regulation. The pass was deflected by Robert Alford but Edelman somehow came down with it, pinning the ball between his hands and Allen’s outstretched arm amid a sea of limbs.
If not for the Falcons’ collapse, the one play everybody would’ve remembered was Julio Jones’ acrobatic sideline grab at the New England 22-yard line with 4:40 left. The catch so improbable that Patriots coach Bill Belichick was preparing to throw the challenge flag until he saw the replay on the stadium video screen and he realized, “It wasn’t even close.”
The Falcons had a 28-20 lead and were in field goal range. That should've been the game. Then Kyle Shanahan happened. And Matt Ryan happened. And to some degree, Dan Quinn and an entire team happened. A run down:
• Shanahan: He’s a great offensive coordinator. But his tendency to sometimes fall in love with himself and his play-calling rather than just look at the game situation can bury him. It almost happened in the NFC Championship against Green Bay when he called a high-risk shotgun snap to Taylor Gabriel — who was running in motion — and the play resulted in a fumble (recovered by the Falcons).
But he got burned Sunday. First came the third-and-1 pass call in the fourth quarter with a 16-point lead. Ryan was sacked, fumbled and that led to a New England touchdown. The even worse decision came later: Another pass play on second-and-11 from the Patriots’ 22 when the Falcons were already in likely game-clinching field goal range for Matt Bryant with less than four minutes left. Result: Sack, followed by a holding penalty. No field goal. Soon, another Patriots touchdown. Shanahan’s weakness is game management — and he’s now becoming a head coach in San Francisco.
• Ryan: He's a great quarterback who obviously had a great season, winning the MVP award. But even with the aforementioned play-calls, he can't take sacks those situations. After the game, he knew it: "I wish I could have done a better job of trying to get rid of that ball. That was a big drive for us."
• Quinn: He’s a great head coach. He proved that this season. But he preaches finishing strong and his team didn’t do that. The Falcons lost four games in the regular season in which they held fourth-quarter leads: Seattle, San Diego, Philadelphia and Kansas City. But only one of those, against the Chiefs, came after the bye.
There was a thought this team was past that. Apparently not.
There’s a lot to like about the Falcons moving forward. But there was a lot to like Sunday until the fourth quarter. Then Tom Brady burned the paper.
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