Whenever I tell people that I'm an Atlanta Falcons fan, they always have to know why, which is understandable. After all, I've lived in Ohio my whole life, which has two NFL teams of its own and the nearby Pittsburgh Steelers. However, living in Columbus I wasn't especially close to any of these teams and my dad never had a favorite NFL squad, so I never really had any connection to a particular team. Then one Christmas I got Tecmo Super Bowl for Super Nintendo (great game, by the way) and for some reason, I decided to play as Atlanta...and the rest is history. I almost always was the Falcons playing that game, in which they were led by Jessie Tuggle, Eric Dickerson and Andre Rison, and from then on I was a Falcons fan. I was a fan of the Jaguars when they entered the league and the Buccaneers for a while, when they changed their logo and boasted the thunder and lightning combo of Mike Alstott and Warrick Dunn, but I still remained a fan of the Falcons and they now hold my sole NFL allegiance.
After a very quick plunge to becoming one of the NFL's worst teams, the 2008-09 Falcons completed an amazing turnaround, going 11-5 and reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2004-05. Obviously this was a great thing to see as a fan of the team, and one of my favorite things about the past sports year. Let's take a look at just how impressive last season was for the Dirty Birds.
It would have been hard for 2007 to go any worse for the Falcons than it did. Things started in the offseason with the accusations of quarterback Michael Vick's involvement in a dog-fighting ring. Team owner Arthur Blank stood by Vick, who had become the face of the franchise, as he denied the allegations, only to have Vick eventually admit his involvement and make a fool of everyone who believed him. The team then cut ties with Vick and added a competent quarterback to its long list of needs.
With Joey Harrington at the helm of the Atlanta offense for most of the season (don't even get me started) and a defense with more than its fair share of holes, the Falcons finished 2007 with a 4-12 record, tied for the second worst mark in the NFL. The immediate question became who would the Falcons take with the third overall pick in the 2008 NFL Draft. As draft day drew closer, the consensus among experts was that Atlanta would take Boston College's Matt Ryan, the top quarterback in the draft class.
To be honest, I didn't want the team to take Ryan with the pick. I'm not saying I thought he would be a bad NFL quarterback, I actually had only seen him play a little bit in college and didn't know too much about him. My thinking was that on a team with so many needs, why take a quarterback with the third pick when it is often the position with the most top-pick bust potential(Ryan Leaf, Akili Smith, etc.)? Clearly this is why I don't work in the front office for an NFL team, because it was the perfect pick for the team(once he officially became a Falcon, I became a fan of him, and I do now own a Matt Ryan jersey). Ryan started every game in his rookie season and was named the NFL's offensive rookie of the year. He's not the gamebreaker quarterback who will throw for 300 yards every week (though he did twice as a rookie), but Ryan showed that he is poised beyond his years. He can manage the game very well and minimized the amount of rookie mistakes he made in his first NFL season, largely due to the fact that he had a great running back to shoulder a lot of the team's offensive load.
Along with drafting Ryan, the Atlanta brass also made a splash in the free agent market before the 2008 season, signing Michael Turner to a six-year contract. The Northern Illinois product had spent his entire pro career as LaDainian Tomlinson's backup and decided to test the free agent waters...and I'm very glad he did. Sure Atlanta paid a lot(the contract will probably end up being worth around $35 million) for a guy who hadn't been a starter, but some team was going to pay him a lot of money, and he didn't disappoint. Turner rushed for 17 touchdowns and nearly 1,700 yards(1,699 to be exact) and gave Atlanta the solid running back every NFL team needs. Not only was the main weapon of the team's offense, but his presence in the backfield was huge for an offense asking a rookie quarterback to start every game and, essentially, turn a team around. Without Turner, Ryan and the Falcons wouldn't have been nearly as successful. Now, the team boasts one of the games best running backs and one of its top young QBs. I also can't go this entire entry without mentioning Roddy White, who over the last couple years has shown he is a top-tier NFL receiver and was a big part of the Falcons' offensive turnaround.
Atlanta really had to change just about everything, including its coaching staff, before the 2008 season. Bobby Petrino was brought in to coach the Falcons in the 2007season and, to be blunt, failed miserably. Not only did his team play uninspired football, but he didn't even have the guts to finish out the season, leaving the team after 13 games(he was 3-10, by the way) to return to college football.
Enter Mike Smith.
Smith had been working as an assistant coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars and never held a head coaching job in his coaching career, but you wouldn't know it by watching his team. Smith's smart approach to the game created a seven-game turnaround from 2007 to 2008, got the Falcons to the playoffs, and made him the NFL's Coach of the Year.
While the Falcons lost in the first round of the 2009 playoffs(30-24 to the eventual NFC champs), you can't downplay the remarkable strides this team made. For a team that finished 4-12 in 2007 to go through so much turmoil in the offseason and personnel turnover, finishing 7-9 would probably have been considered a success. The Falcons surpassed expectations and are now just as relevant as when Vick led them to the NFC Championship. Ryan has become the new face of the franchise with one of the game's top running backs and a great supporting cast (which now includes Tony Gonzalez, one of the best tight ends to ever play the game).
This season's Falcons seem to be even better than the 08-09 version, but I'll always remember how happy I was to see the success of my favorite team after it went through so much adversity in a short period of time.
We're reaching the home stretch of my countdown, and the next item on the list is not only one of my favorite moments from last year, but the last four years.
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