The Falcoholic
The Falcons renew a rivalry against their old NFC West foes when they travel to The Bay for a date against the San Francisco 49ers. Geographically, it didn’t make much sense, but the Falcons and 49ers used to duke it out twice a year (and sometimes thrice) from 1967 until realignment moved the Birds to the NFC South in 2002.
As a result, there have been many matchups, and plenty of 49er triumphs, with San Francisco owning a 48-33-1 all time record. Atlanta was a direct division rival during the golden days in San Francisco and thus suffered plenty of defeat at the hands of Joe Montana and Steve Young.
The most success the Falcons found in this matchup was during the days of their own franchise legend at quarterback, with Steve Bartkowski leading them to six wins in seven tries from 1978 through 1981. The Niners didn’t take it lying down, however, as they responded by going 12-1-1 against the Birds from 1984 throughout the rest of the decade, behind Montana.
The Falcons have had a bit of recent success since leaving the NFC West, going 7-4 since realignment, including three wins in the last four games.
These old rivals met in the playoffs twice, sharing the spoils in two seasons where each one went to the Super Bowl. The “Dirty Birds” beat Steve Young 20-18 in the 1998 NFC Divisional Round before upsetting the Minnesota Vikings the next week, while San Fran wrote a gruesome chapter in the big book of Atlanta heartbreak lore behind Colin Kaepernick’s 17-point comeback to beat Matt Ryan and company in the 2012 NFC Championship.
The 2-3 Falcons played host to the 3-2 Niners in a mid October showdown during the 2022 season, and they blitzed them right out of the gate in the first quarter, scoring two touchdowns — one offensive via a Marcus Mariota connection to MyCole Pruitt and one defense via a Jaylinn Hawkins fumble recovery — and taking a 14-0 lead before Kyle Shanahan’s team knew what hit them.
Jimmy Garoppolo and the 49ers, who would wind up with 13 wins and another NFC Championship appearance that season, fought right back with back to back touchdown drives in the second quarter to tie things up. That would wind up being their only firepower of the afternoon, however.
Atlanta returned the favor with back to back touchdown drives of their own, however, one on each side of the half, to take the 28-14 lead which would wind up being decisive.
These teams each left the Mercedes-Benz Stadium at 3-3 that day, but would go in completely different trajectories the rest of the way with San Fran rattling off 11 wins in the last 12 weeks, and Atlanta going 4-7 for a second consecutive seven win season.
