Frank
There is a specific kind of loyalty that doesn’t make logical sense anymore, and you just keep doing it anyway because stopping would mean admitting something you’re not ready to admit.
That’s me and the Atlanta Falcons.
I was born in 1970. That means I have been watching this franchise fail in spectacular, creative, and occasionally historic ways for over fifty years. And I do mean spectacular. These are not quiet, forgettable losses. The Falcons have always found a way to lose that sticks to you. The kind of loss that comes up in conversation years later, not because you brought it up, but because the universe decided you needed to remember it again.
I’m not going to say the number. You know the number. I told you never to say it. I’m not saying it.
What It Actually Feels Like to Have Been a Fan This Long
Here is something nobody tells you about being a multi-decade fan of a team that hasn’t won it all: the hope doesn’t go away. That’s the trap. Every single year, somewhere around late summer, you start watching preseason and something in your brain goes, “okay, this might actually be the year.” You can’t help it. It’s a reflex at this point.
My curiosity tends to spiral, and following the Falcons has turned me into someone who can go from “I wonder what the offensive line depth chart looks like” to “I’ve now read seventeen articles about zone blocking schemes and none of this is helping me feel better.” One question turns into ten more, and by opening day I’m more confused and anxious than I was in July.
I grew up in Milledgeville watching this team with my brother & friends. William, Corky, Derek and I would be in front of that TV on Sunday afternoon like it was a scheduled obligation. The Falcons were something we shared. Still are, in a way. I still talk about games. Some things carry forward even when other things don’t.
That context matters because it’s why I can’t just walk away. This isn’t about a team. It’s about the fabric of what Sundays in the South felt like when I was ten years old. You don’t separate those two things.
The Part Where I Say Something Genuinely Unpopular
Here’s my actual take, the one that gets me in trouble sometimes: the Falcons have wasted more legitimate talent than almost any franchise in NFL history, and the culture at the top of that organization has been the reason why more often than any one player or coach.
Not the players. The players have often been exceptional. Julio Jones was one of the most physically gifted receivers to ever play the game, full stop. Matt Ryan, however you feel about him, gave this franchise fifteen years of professional, steady quarterbacking that most teams would trade a draft class for. The 2016 defense was legitimately dominant.
They had everything. Multiple times.
And still.
So when people talk about the Falcons as a “rebuilding” team now, I hear that differently than I would if I were a newer fan. I have watched this franchise rebuild before. I have watched them come out of a rebuild with genuine stars, genuine hope, and then watch that window close without a ring. The rebuilding is not the problem. What happens after the rebuild finishes is where the wheels have historically come off.
What I’m Watching For That Actually Matters to Me
Most of what I know about anything, football or otherwise, came from experimenting and occasionally breaking things. And in sports fandom, breaking things means watching your team lose in brutal fashion enough times that you eventually develop a different set of things you look for.
I don’t care about preseason wins. I don’t care about media narratives in August. I care about a few specific things now:
- Does this team play with consistent effort in the fourth quarter of close games? Not just blowouts, but when it’s tight and uncomfortable, does the effort stay level?
- Is the offensive line actually good, or do they just look good against soft competition?
- Is there a real defensive identity, or is the scheme changing year to year based on whoever the coordinator hired last?
Those three questions tell me more about a Falcons season than any amount of training camp hype. And right now, I’m still waiting on clear answers to all three.
Bijan Robinson is a legitimate star. That’s real. I watch him run and it reminds me of the kind of player you build offenses around for a decade if you’re smart about it. Whether this organization is smart about it in the way it needs to be, I don’t know yet. History has made me slower to assume the answer is yes.
The Part I Can’t Explain Rationally
Sunday afternoon in October, I’m going to be in front of that TV. Doesn’t matter what the record is. Doesn’t matter what I just wrote above. The Falcons will have the remote, and Oakley will be on the couch next to me because he has no standards and will watch anything with me.
That’s the thing about this kind of fandom. It stopped being a choice a long time ago. It’s just part of who I am now, stitched into the same part of my identity as growing up in Middle Georgia, or knowing every word to “Ramblin’ Man,” or the way I feel about Augusta in April.
You don’t pick these things. They pick you when you’re young enough to not know better, and by the time you’re old enough to evaluate the decision clearly, it’s already too late.
Fifty-five years in, I’m not leaving. The Falcons don’t deserve that kind of loyalty based on the results. But that’s never really been the point.
Rise up. God help us.
