Super Bowl 51: The Atlanta Falcons deserve a Super Bowl
By Luke Sims
The Atlanta Falcons have made it to Super Bowl 51, just the second Super Bowl in franchise history and they belong there.
There are few teams left in the NFL that have not won a Super Bowl. Some of them, like the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions and Jacksonville Jaguars, haven’t even been to the big game. The Atlanta Falcons are one of the teams that has been to a Super Bowl and still hasn’t won one yet.
The Falcons get their chance to win one again in Super Bowl 51, a game that matches the Falcons explosive offense and young head coach against one of the most innovative and successful head coaches of all time, Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots. It will be a tough game for the Falcons to win and the early odds are against them.
Still, that shouldn’t diminish what the Falcons have done this season or blight their hopes. The Falcons are a dominant team and they deserve to be in the Super Bowl. Behind a Hall of Fame-level season performance by quarterback Matt Ryan and a stouter-than-they-look defense, the Falcons have the makings of a team that can win a Super Bowl. It’s why they dominated the 2016 regular season and why they made it through the playoffs with relative ease.
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With just one day left until Super Bowl 51 kicks off there will be plenty of speculation about who will come out ahead and some of that speculation may revolve around whether the Falcons can overcome the big gap in experience between them and the Patriots. That conversation should give credit to the big leap the Falcons took this year and the need for the franchise and the city to get a Super Bowl finally.
Reading Around the NFL’s Pain Rankings, it is almost surprising that the Atlanta Falcons aren’t on the list. A franchise that has had some serious talent over its decades but somehow always comes up short. The moment to end that narrative is in Super Bowl 51. It’s time to enshrine the franchise among the great franchises of the NFL.
The Super Bowl won’t be easy for the Falcons to win and it will be a fight to overcome the Pats, but the Falcons are playing to break new ground for the franchise and may just be able to will themselves over the favored Patriots as a result.