Orange man bad! Football team good! These were the bold convictions we fearlessly carried into Super Bowl LI, the first-ever Super Bowl imbued with real political heat. Millions of us jumped on the Falcons’ bandwagon, and we all had a very good time. God bless our big old goofy trickster bird.

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Finally, after their 40th birthday, the Atlanta Falcons seemed to be growing up. They had an outstanding franchise quarterback, incredible talents at skill positions, and a relatively buttoned-up demeanor off the field. They were finally ready to make the long march to a Super Bowl title. But along the way, the Falcons showed us what they were truly becoming: a messenger of chaos that manufactured some of the most catastrophic debacles we’ve ever seen on an NFL field.

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Few athletes have ever inspired a city like Michael Vick inspired Atlanta. Vick was a transformational athlete who forever changed how we think about the quarterback position, an apparent superhero who did things that, even years and years later, still seem impossible. His time in Atlanta met a heartbreaking, devastating end. But in the aftermath, against all odds, the Falcons somehow found a way to make us laugh.

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The thing to know about the Falcons is that they defy expectations at every turn. After the circus of the early-to-mid 1990s, they’d completely bottomed out and cleaned house. Now they found themselves with a head coach in his last stop before retirement, a running back who’d nearly went undrafted, and a journeyman quarterback who had never even appeared in a playoff game. What better time to make a Super Bowl run?

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There is nothing in today’s NFL like the Falcons of the early 1990s, who combined Deion Sanders’ otherworldly abilities and swag with Jerry Glanville’s apparent determination to break every rule of etiquette he could. Along the way, though, they missed out on a generational talent who may have altered the Falcons’ history were he ever given the chance.

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Few remember this, but the Atlanta Falcons of the late 1970s and early 1980s were good. As in, “greatest defense in NFL history” good. They were thinking Super Bowl, and you couldn’t blame them, either. Grab your miniature pretzels and lemon drink. We’re about to know God personally.

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The Atlanta Falcons are really doing it. They’re finally going to win the Super Bowl they’ve spent 51 years chasing. In order to fully appreciate how much the Falcons and their fans have endured, we need to return to the ancient era of Falcons football – the age of endless losing, chain-smoking, and some of the worst quarterbacking the NFL has ever seen.

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