The Falcoholic
The Atlanta Falcons had a straightforward matchup, which should have been our first sign that things were going to go wrong. All they had to do was square off against a Panthers team they have at least been competitive with for many years now, a Panthers team that was 0-2, and build on what they had shown against the Vikings to have a good shot at winning the game. That divisional win would have been critically important, and the Falcons had to know that and had to be ready to triumph here.
Instead, this did this, and basically never stopped doing it.
Look, you and I know that we cling to our good feelings like smoke to an extinguished candle, and that we’re rarely ready for the next big Falcons failure. We can get this way because sports fans hope, even after all the many mishaps, and we must pay the price for that hope. We saw Atlanta beat the Vikings in a dominant, rough-and-ready 22-6 victory that showcased the ground game and defense and saw the glimmers of good things ahead, which made the subsequent 30-0 dismantling against the Panthers even worse. It was not so much that the Falcons lost—they’ve lost to the Panthers plenty in recent years, usually at the worst time and in frustrating last-minute fashion—but that they barely looked like the football team we saw the first two weeks. They were ruinously terrible, so embarrassing that it defied belief despite that belief getting a real workout over the last decade, and thus we were left to descend into that syrupy sense of bewilderment once again.
The offense didn’t struggle; it was inept. The defense was much better, yet it couldn’t take advantage of Panthers injuries and opportunities to make plays throughout. Special teams weren’t bad; they were instrumental to the game going off the rails so spectacularly. The coaching staff wasn’t shaky; they seemed lost and unequipped with answers. And so on. The Carolina Panthers were 0-2 coming into this one, and yet they looked like a juggernaut who had the Falcons all figured out. Perhaps they did.
We love these Falcons in spite of ourselves, but there was less than nothing to love about that game. The Falcons knew they’d need to win to keep pace with the Buccaneers, who are now 3-0, but couldn’t muster a single point. They have previously wrecked this Carolina defense even while stumbling on their own defensively, but in this one they did less than nothing against a vulnerable-seeming Panthers D. The issues that we were worried about—kicker, the passing game, the pass protection, and the inconsistent pass rush—all came to the fore in a way that made it clear the Falcons aren’t really past any of them.
We can and will find joy in this team again, because we’ve done it before and the roller coaster nature of the first three games suggests they Falcons have some positive surprises to mix in with all the stupid things...
