A picture tells a thousand words. The image of Matt Ryan, shocked, dejected, slowly walking off the field at NRG Stadium in Houston for the last time while surrounded by a sea of red, white and blue confetti encapsulates Atlanta as a sports city. Atlanta's most exciting, young and winning franchise utterly embarrassed, leaving its aching fanbase with the worst, most disappointing loss in Super Bowl history. Do Tom Brady and Bill Belichick deserve a huge amount of credit for manufacturing a miraculous 31-point comeback? Absolutely. However, the Falcons unequivocally squandered countless opportunities to win the game, all the while allowing the history and culture of losing to permeate the magic of the team. Next, I will outline just how close this team truly came to bringing Atlanta its second major championship, from a neutral perspective, as I am not an Atlanta sports fan.
The Falcons made at what the time seemed a minor mistake, that in the end, was the tip of the iceberg for the Patriots comeback. Everything was going swimmingly; Atlanta was up 14 to zero before Robert Alford returned a Brady interception all the way to the house, putting the Falcons up three touchdowns with just two minutes left in the half. However, Alford failed to consider the clock before giving the Patriots an additional 20 to 30 seconds, which would eventually become their first points of the game. Alford should have run horizontally across the goal line, wasting as much time as possible before finally stepping in. Brady had already missed the cornerback on the return, and there were no white jerseys within 50 yards of where he stood in the end zone. The opposing team had already given up on the play, and he could have easily taken the points off the board that the Patriots would score before the end of the half. A very minor, unheard of mistake, but in such a close game, he didn't have the self-awareness to make the smart play.
Later, Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan made a huge mistake when the Falcons mounted their final serious drive of the game. On the Patriots 30-yard line, and well within field goal range, Shanahan elected to throw the ball following a holding penalty, with the ensuing sack taking Atlanta out of field goal range, and out of chances to score for the remainder of the game. Later, head coach Dan Quinn wasted his final challenge on Julian Edelman's miraculous shoe-string catch, which was confirmed by replay officials easily, burning the Falcons final timeout and effectively making their final drive of regulation an uphill climb that even MVP Matt Ryan could not complete. Finally, all the way down the stretch, on both New England's game-tying drive and even on the penultimate play of the 2016 season, the Falcons had three passes from eventual Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady that had a chance to be intercepted. These are calls or plays that New England would have made had the situations been reversed, and it is indicative of both superior coaching on the part of the Patriots, as well as a spectacular choke by the Falcons. Teams and cities with losing cultures can go far with really good teams, but they always seem to fall agonizingly short when the going gets tough against a traditional power with a winning formula, even if the losing team is more talented on paper. The Falcons are a clear example of this, and they, like many teams of Atlanta's past, have fallen just short of the ultimate goal in the most heartbreaking way.
