The Falcoholic
The Atlanta Falcons have perfected loss. They lose on the road and at home, in the United States and Europe. They lose in blowouts to the Miami Dolphins and squeakers to the New England Patriots. They lose in regulation and they lose in overtime. They lose after productive games give us hope and they lose well after hope has fled from our hearts. They simply lose, and if they aren’t quite the pitiful losers the Jets and Raiders are, they still do it in a fashion that’s incredibly painful and frequent enough to make them a losing football team. For eight years running, at this rate.
And make no mistake, that’s what they are. At 3-6, you’re talking about being able to maybe lose one more game to have a shot at the playoffs the rest of the way, the sort of improbability that borders on impossibility given how they’ve played in 2025. I’d love a miracle and Raheem Morris and company rubbing it in our faces, somehow, when we hit January. But I refuse to let myself even dream of something so unlikely after watching this team for nine weeks; as Terrin Waack with the Falcons noted yesterday, only ten teams have made the playoffs since 1993 with the record Atlanta has now.
And again, they lose. They are now 50-75 since the beginning of the 2018 season, the seventh-worst mark in the NFL over that span, with exactly no winning seasons or playoff appearances despite having three head coaches, two general managers, and a partridge in a pear tree in those eight seasons. The Falcons themselves are chronically incapable of viewing this team as anything but a fresh head coach or a big signing or an amazing draft pick away from being good enough to win the NFC South, which is part of the reason they’re so quick to crow whenever they win impressively once or twice in a given season and bristle so fiercely when the criticism arrives early on. You’ll see when it all works out, is the refrain, and then you’ll be sorry you doubted us. Those of us who have been slow to doubt and quick to hope have, unfortunately, paid a heavy price for being no better at learning our lessons than the Falcons themselves.
Take Sunday. Sunday was losing as an art form. The Colts tried to give the Falcons the game over and over again, and there were stretches where a play going this way or that way would have led to Atlanta having a chance at a blowout victory. Instead, they continually gave those chances away, going a hideous 0-13 on third downs, allowing long third downs to be converted by the Colts, and losing the field position battle owing to a serious of hilarious coverage misadventures on special teams. Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier ran well, the pass rush was blistering, Drake London was awesome when targeted, Jessie Bates made a nice play in coverage, and the line held...
