Dan Quinn and the Atlanta Falcons fall to 1-5 on the year. They blew it against the Arizona Cardinals, tying a bow on the worst week ever in Atlanta sports.
If you are a fan of Atlanta area sports like me, you deserve a big hug or a stiff drink or something of that nature. It’s been an incredibly rough week for us ATLiens. After seeing the Atlanta Braves deliver us the Worst Inning Ever on Wednesday afternoon in Game 5’s NLDS loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, Georgia’s two Power 5 teams gave us a pair of two L’s in the loss column on Saturday.
Sure, we all expected Geoff Collins’ Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets to struggle this week, like they do every week, well, because they’ve moved off the triple-option finally and into a rebuild. But giving up 41 points to Duke (a basketball school!) to fall to 1-5 (0-3) on the year is a far cry from what the Ramblin’ Wreck used to be. Congrats on beating South Florida. That’s your one win!
But what we didn’t expect was the No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs losing at home to the South Carolina Gamecocks in double overtime. Wait, what? Yeah, that happened and it sucked big time for Dawg Nation. Georgia is still technically in the mix for all of its wildest College Football Playoff dreams, but don’t fool us, Dawgs. You choked spectacularly and it was utterly pathetic.
So after the Braves lost yet another first-round postseason series by giving up 10 runs in the first inning, Duke firmly putting Georgia Tech in the ACC Coastal basement, them Dawgs were not hell, don’t they?! and lost to Will “Boom” Muschamp’s Sakerlina team at home. So of course, Dan Quinn’s Atlanta Falcons were going to give Atlanta the parlay no self-respecting Georgian wanted.
The Falcons had lost three games in a row since beating the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday Night Football almost a month ago. It was the same damn recipe every single time. Prepare a game plan that involved letting an AFC South team do whatever it wanted on offense, so much so that the Falcons gave up at least 24 points in all three ball games inside of a dome in a losing effort. How?
Quinn had gone 1-13 in his last 14 games coaching the Falcons against AFC teams. So things had to change when taking on rookie quarterback Kyler Murray and the NFC’s Arizona Cardinals in the Valley of the Sun, right? Well, absolutely of course not. This is Atlanta sports and they will do every damn thing in their freaking power to break your heart in the last possible second. So, Falcons…
Well, the Falcons had a seven-point lead on the road against the Cardinals. Blew that like it was nothing. Practice makes perfect. Then down 27-10, Atlanta scored 17 points to make it a ball game. I could not believe my eyes, but I knew better. They were going to rip my heart out and stomp on it with a hobnail boot. I wish it was a hobnail boot, so I could feel something, anything.
It’s a shame that Matt Ryan had an amazing day, as he completed 30 of 36 passes for 356 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. He averaged 9.9 yards per attempt and had a quarterback rating of 144.9. Atlanta had over 100 rushing yards, thanks to a great day from Devonta Freeman and had two receivers of over 100 yards with outstanding games by Julio Jones and Austin Hooper.
All that incredible display of offensive firepower was tragically wasted because the same inert Quinn defense made Murray look like he was still playing in Norman for the Oklahoma Sooners. How could we ever forget about beloved kicker Money Matt Bryant missing the PAT? Atlanta falls to 1-5 on the year after breaking ATLiens hearts yet again by losing to the other Cardinals, 34-33.
When former Pro Bowl cornerback Desmond Trufant was ruled out for the game with a toe injury, of course, Murray was going to turn the Falcons secondary into something resembling a Texas Tech defense. Even if Ryan made Vance Joseph’s defense look like Kliff Kingsbury was still coaching in the Big 12, Quinn used to be Pete Carroll’s right-hand man with the Legion of Boom!
Murray completed 27 of 37 passes for 340 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. He averaged 9.2 yards per attempt, slicing through Quinn’s defense like it was tissue paper. Even his quarterback rating rivaled that of the 2016 NFL MVP on Sunday, as Murray’s total was 128.2 in easily his best game as a pro. You would have thought he was still in crimson and cream.
I joked with my boss Josh Hill that Bryant was going to miss the chip-shot PAT. When Bryant showed his age and missed a kick from a distance half his age, I went ballistic as I’m sure Matt Verderame did when the Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Houston Texans in the first window on this fine Sunday. It’s been a week of sports hell I wouldn’t wish on anybody, except Boston sports fans.
The Braves, Dawgs and Falcons did everything in their power to wreck my tortured soul. My dad texted me earlier in the day telling me how bad of a game the Dawgs played yesterday afternoon. He said the Falcons would save my sports weekend, but no, they actually wouldn’t because they suck! As a child of transplants growing up in the Metro Atlanta area, this is what I’ve signed up for.
At least the Group of 5 Georgia State Panthers and the Georgia Southern Eagles got it done this weekend. I don’t even root for or like those teams, but at least some team with Atlanta, Georgia ties won something that counted. So I have to give credit where it is due.
If you want more salt in the wound, the hockey team that used to be the Atlanta Thrashers have won three in a row up in America’s Hat. Actively rooting against them is my only tie to the NHL I dearly miss. As long as the ex-Thrashers aren’t winning Cups, I can respect that. You can’t shake your ATL roots, even if you divorced us going on nine years ago! People don’t forget.
So while cities that Atlanta hates like New Orleans and Washington, D.C. look to be having so much fun, let’s remember one damn thing. There is one team in this great Southeastern metropolis that doesn’t kill us at every opportunity. Thank God for Atlanta United. Just don’t lose to the Revs at home on Saturday. Not in Uncle Arthur’s spaceship, not in the first round, please.