The Atlanta Falcons

Watching the Atlanta Falcons play football has led to much drinking by their fans. The past forty-five years or so have led to embarrassing loses, incredibly stupid behavior by players and coaches and one trip to the Super Bowl that was a blowout of biblical proportions. This may, or may not have been related to one of the starters being arrested the night before the game but the term blowout is used as an intentional pun as to what the man was arrested for asking a female undercover cop for.

Mostly this has been a team racking up losing seasons like a drunk collecting aluminum cans for his next binge. What bright moments they have has have been marred by just play poor play, worse coaching, and a dispirited fan base. There for a few years they would get female fans to come down to the field for wet tee shirts contests and most people would leave after that. Management went so far as to letting people enter the stadium for free after halftime to get more fans in but more people was leaving by that time, not going. The wet tee shirt thing was a tough act for the Falcons to follow.

The last four year have been winning seasons followed by dismal playoff performances. The Falcons couldn’t score an offensive point last year against the Giants and the year they played the Packers it was horrible, horrible, horrible. They looked really bad against good teams and barely good enough against bad teams during the regular season. The word “curse” is tossed about in sports when it comes to teams like the Falcons and it seems to fit pretty well.

Maybe it was that first coin toss, which they lost, at that first home game. Maybe it was the very first kickoff, at that very first game, which the kicked muffed and the ball spun around in place while the horrified crowd saw their future in this. Maybe it was the real flacon they release to fly around the crowd and, in theory, was supposed to return to its perch but it fled the stadium never to be seen again. Maybe this team is cursed.

Tomorrow the Falcons play the Seahawks and it will end with a curse bent, not broken, or a curse intact and weld together even more strongly than ever before. Those of us who have been around for a while can’t believe. We know what the future has always looked like before and we must see evidence of the future before we can smile.

Take Care,

Mike