The Falcoholic
The Atlanta Falcons let us down. They let us down in the postseason, the middle of the year, the opener, but we know disappointment is lurking long-armed and many-clawed just around the corner at any given moment. We believe—perhaps we know—one day they will fail to disappoint, and we reap the glorious reward of many long years of faith and fandom. But in the interim, and never knowing when that wondrous day might arrive, we know the Falcons have a nasty habit of letting us down.
They let us down on Sunday, capping off an uneven but hard-fought loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The missed opportunities to get the stop they needed, the missed opportunities on late downs and short yardage, the missed connections and drops, and ultimately the missed field goal cost the Falcons a very winnable game. The Bucs were not particularly sharp despite their obvious talent, and the Falcons poured jet fuel on that by making that high-powered offense uncomfortable for long stretches, which meant the Falcons hung tough and showed us what they were made of right until they didn’t. It was classic Falcons, in that hope is a flame extinguished very late, and with a swiftness that leaves the dark and cold to come much more keenly felt.
The loss obviously overshadows the positives, but those positives were quite real. The Falcons showed they were nearly dead even with the Buccaneers, a team expected to win the division, and did so despite stumbling from bear trap to bear trap on this September afternoon. Michael Penix Jr. overcome some jitters and misfires to get the Falcons in range on a game-tying field goal—and was one excellent defensive play from Antoine Winfield away from a sure victory—and the defense did enough to hold Baker Mayfield in check and make him throw dubious balls repeatedly. They held the Bucs to 23 points, their lowest output in this matchup their first contest in 2023, and held non-Mayfield ball-carriers to 62 yards on 18 carries. The defense was better than it was early last year and the offense showed promise, even if it was not exactly a stellar effort from that side of the ball.
But it’s hard to lose when you have the opportunity to win or tie in such a crucial opener and feel good about it, and honestly, I felt extremely downbeat about this one in the immediate aftermath and still glum once I got a couple beers and a lot of angst out of my system in the evening hours. It’s easy and tempting to think the Falcons will only get better from here, and in the days and weeks ahead, that pull will exert itself powerfully on me and many of you. But the Falcons losing in confounding, dispiriting fashion is simply a fact of life at this point, as it has been for their history and most relevantly the past seven seasons. Perhaps we’ll get to chalk this up to Week 1 when...
