Forgetting a loss like no other
Talented Falcons try to overcome memories of the Super Bowl collapse
The Atlanta Falcons report for training camp bearing a historic tag: They came closer to being Super Bowl champs than any team that didn’t win the Super Bowl. They didn’t trail in regulation that star-crossed night in Houston. Indeed, they led by what is now a famous partial score in NFL annals — 28-3.
They report for camp with a roster adjudged by Pro Football Focus as the NFL’s best. They have the reigning MVP, the world’s best receiver and the league’s leading sack man from 2016. They face a softer schedule than last season, when they were 11-5. Had the Falcons held even one point of that bulbous lead in Houston, we’d be asking if this was a nascent dynasty.
Instead we ask: Is the team that couldn’t win after leading by 25 points with 17 minutes and seven seconds remaining scarred for life?
We can’t know the answer — because there’s not one, not yet. The Falcons haven’t played since falling on the wrong side of history. They’ve had their OTAs and minicamps and whatnot, but neither Lady Gaga nor Tom Brady was present for any of that. Mostly what they’ve done is talk about the Super Bowl, mostly to insist they’re over it. Then we review summer headlines and ask: Really?
Devonta Freeman took to SiriusXM’s NFL Radio to say, “If I would have stayed in the game, I would have got MVP.” (Had Freeman not been in the game to miss a blitz pickup on Dont’a Hightower, his team wouldn’t have lost.) Peyton Manning made jokes — and did a protracted skit — at the Falcons’ expense during the ESPYs. Even Matt Ryan, who in recorded history had never voiced a discouraging word about anyone or anything, told Pete Prisco of CBS Sports that Kyle Shanahan’s play calls were slow to arrive and seemed to take a dig at Dan Quinn’s weneeded-to-stay-aggressive postgame proclamation.
For 5½ months, the Falcons have sworn they won’t be affected by what went wrong in NRG Stadium. Yet here we (and they) are, 5½ months later, still talking about what went wrong.
Quinn is very smart and relentlessly upbeat — and aggressive; don’t forget aggressive — and he utilized a funny slogan: Embrace the Suck. Thing is, his team has no choice. As much as the Falcons will say, “We’ve moved on,” the subtext of every game this season will be, “Can the team that blew the Super Bowl get over blowing the Super Bowl?” If they make the playoffs (and they should), the question will be, “Can they get back to the game they blew?” If they again reach the Super Bowl (and they might), we’ll all wonder, “Will they not blow it this time?”
For all the feckless moments this franchise has known, nothing compares with the night of Feb. 5, 2017.
This was the game bearing Roman numerals. This was the game with Gaga. It was the crowning moment of Brady’s matchless career, and it wouldn’t have happened if Shanahan, now gone to San Fran, had run the dang ball.
In the history of major U.S. professional team sports, no team has ever lost a game so big in such excruciating fashion. Maybe you’re saying, “That’s not true. There has to be something worse.” My polite challenge to you: Go find it. And don’t give me the Braves in the Leyritz game. (That only tied the World Series.) Don’t give me Greg Norman at Augusta. (He’s not a team.) Don’t give me Bill Buckner. (Game 6.)
They might be good enough to do as Golden State just did — flub one title and seize the next. But for them to do that, they’ll have to get past the loss for which no precedent exists.