PATS VS. WHOM?
There’s another team playing in Super Bowl, and Falcons, Ryan have lots to gain from it
Last week, I fantasized about the prospect of whipcracking NFL commissioner Roger Goodell being forced to share a Super Bowl victory stage with his enemy Tom Brady. I’m for Goodell getting his comeuppance in much the same way I’m for breathing.
But I’d like to make a case for the Falcons because they’re good and because they’re lost in the shadow of Brady, Goodell, Bill Belichick, Brady’s supermodel wife, the injured Rob Gronkowski, Martellus Bennett and Brady’s butt chin.
I feel a little sorry for the Falcons. They’re one of the NFL teams that over the years have formed a large shrug, with the overriding conversational response being, ‘‘ Oh, them.’’ I speak here of the Titans, Jaguars, Buccaneers and Texans. The Panthers were part of the group until they landed Cam Newton. These teams are what Gertrude Stein once wrote of Oakland, California: There’s no there there. There is a Cleveland, and that’s the problem ( requisite cheap shot).
Now, as all those teams— and especially the Falcons— rightly can point out, the Bears of the world- class city of Chicago aren’t exactly a dynasty. But they’re not easily ignored, if only for their ongoing ineptitude, and those other teams are, the Falcons included. Part of the problem is that Atlanta is best known for its busy airport. People land there to take off for somewhere else, such as, say, Boston. The city played host to the 1996 Olympics, and nobody is quite sure how that happened. The football team has been to the Super Bowl once before this season, its 51st, losing in 1999 to the Denver Broncos in John Elway’s last game. The city has hosted two Super Bowls ( XXVIII and XXXIV).
There’s a decent chance that image changes Sunday. The Falcons have a fuelinjected offense that could make for a very long evening for the Patriots. Belichick is known for taking away a team’s biggest threat. In this case, that’s receiver Julio Jones. In theory, it makes all the sense in the world. Remove the star from the equation and see if the people not used to the spotlight can handle the glare of the biggest game of the season. But how do the Patriots handle quarter back Matt Ryan? How do they handle an offense that is averaging 457.5 yards in the postseason? If you stop Jones, swell, but what about receiver Mohamed Sanu? What about the double threat of Devonta Freeman and Oak Forest’s Tevin Coleman out of the backfield, both as rushing and receiving threats? The answer, of course, is that opposing teams tend to cave in to the moment against the Patriots. It’s a difficult battle to fight. Brady and Belichick have been to the Super Bowl six times together, winning four. This will be their seventh appearance. They know everything about what’s going to happen this week. They know about the zoo that is media day. They know about ignoring distractions. They know what it’s going to feel like when they run onto the field Sunday. They just know.
The Falcons don’t know. In the best- case scenario, maybe they’re like the Cubs: They don’t know this stage should be too big for them, so they proceed obliviously.
The game is huge for Ryan, perhaps bigger than for any other player on either team. His reputation before this season was one of regular- season race car and postseason horse and buggy. If he thinks of this in even the slightest way as the Falcons’ quarterback against the Patriots’ quarterback, he loses. If he realizes it’s actually the Falcons’ quarterback against Belichick, he loses. If he can shrink this to the Falcons’ offense against a good but not great defense, he has a chance. Then again, I’m the one who just wrote that Super Bowl LI is more important for his legacy than for anyone else’s.
Brady is going to do what he does, which means that, if this plays out
the way it should, it will be a wild, high- scoring game. I also predict there will be lots of TV commercials.
Underdog stories are the best kind of stories. And although the Patriots are favored by only three points, the spread feels larger because of the aforementioned history in their favor. There’s a reason to want both teams to win— the Patriots so that Goodell experiences karma for suspending Brady over Deflategate and the Falcons so that a quarterback and a city finally might get over a very large mountain.
My allegiance is still with the Patriots getting payback over the commissioner. But I know a feel- good story when I see one.