Columnists, Sports

First and Goal: The miserable existence of Falcons fans

At some point you just have to give up for your own health, right?

This is what was probably going through the minds of many people in Atlanta Monday morning.

At the end of the first quarter Sunday, the Atlanta Falcons led the Dallas Cowboys 20-0. The second quarter saw the Cowboys score 10 points, but the Falcons still led by 19 points at the end of the half, giving Atlanta plenty of breathing room to coast to a victory.

After giving up 14 points in the third quarter, the Falcons were able to rally back and put up a touchdown and a field goal to gain a 15-point lead with just under eight minutes to play.

Then the wheels fell off.

Dallas scored two touchdowns to bring the game within two points with 1:49 left on the clock, but with no timeouts left, the Cowboys needed to recover the onside kick. 

What happened next was quite possibly the most poorly performed onside kick recovery of all time.

The Falcons just watched the ball roll slowly for 10 yards before making a last-ditch attempt to dive on the ball, but it was already too late. Dallas went on to kick a field goal to secure the win and add another chapter to the despair of the Atlanta Falcons’ cursed history.

Over the past few seasons, the Falcons have experienced some of the most crushing losses I’ve ever seen, and sometimes you just have to wonder if it’s worth watching your team stomp on your heart every week.

So let’s take a journey through the past few chapters of heartbreak and despair in the Falcons’ story.

Starting with the obvious: Atlanta’s epic implosion in Super Bowl LI will always be remembered as one of the biggest choke jobs in the history of sports. We all know how this one went down by now so we can spare the details.

The following season, Atlanta played three straight games against teams from the AFC East and lost all of them. The Bills were a decent team at 9-7 that year, the Patriots were the Patriots and then there were the hapless Dolphins.

In what should have been a good bounce-back game against a mediocre Miami team that finished 6-10 that year, the Falcons bungled it as they always seem to do. 

After jumping out to a 17-0 lead at halftime, they were shut out the rest of the way as Jay Cutler threw a few touchdowns and the now-infamous Cody Parkey kicked two field goals to shock the Falcons.

And it doesn’t stop there.

In the playoffs that season, they lost 15-10 at the goal line to an undermanned Philadelphia Eagles team — although those scrappy Eagles did go on to win the Super Bowl.

In 2018, the Cincinnati Bengals stunned the Falcons in Mercedes-Benz Stadium with a last-second touchdown pass from Andy Dalton. Cincinnati would go on to finish that season 6-10.

This trend couldn’t possibly continue, could it?

It sure did. 

Later that season, the Cleveland Browns beat the Falcons in convincing fashion — the Browns! Then to really rub in that loss, the Falcons lost on a buzzer-beater field goal to Dallas in the following game.

In 2019, Atlanta found a new way to lose in the form of a shanked extra point. With two minutes left in the game against the Arizona Cardinals, kicker Matt Bryant missed an extra point, giving Arizona a one-point victory while notching another scar on the hearts of Falcons fans.

This is the misery that Atlanta fans subject themselves to every year from September to December. The losses I just recounted were the close ones, but there were plenty of uninteresting losses and just plain duds put out by the Falcons.

So where does the blame fall?

Some can be placed on offensive performances or flukes like Bryant’s missed extra point, but physical mistakes will always happen. 

Most of the Falcons’ tragedies can be placed on head coach Dan Quinn for failing to adapt his game plan when the Falcons have a lead. No team with the talent Atlanta has should be choking games at the degree to which the Falcons do. 

28-3 in the Super Bowl? Ouch. 17-0 to Miami? I mean, come on. 39-24 with eight minutes left? Oh brother.

On any given Monday, a Twitter search of Quinn’s name is filled with vitriol from fans, celebrities and sports pundits alike. How he hasn’t been fired yet is beyond me, but NFL teams always seem to stick with bad coaches for far longer than they should — just look at Marvin Lewis.

All this losing and heartbreak for Atlanta brings me to my final point which can be summed up in a simple 2019 tweet: “You gotta be a f—ing idiot to be a sports fan.”

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One Comment

  1. Bartholomew Jetson

    Jameson needs a new team