It took me about three and a half hours to make it from where I live in Iowa to Minneapolis. Let me tell you, the Mall of America was great, the food was fine, and the people were kind. But the game.. that was an utter disaster from the very first snap.
At this point in my life (three years after the devastating 28-3 loss in the Super Bowl) I have overcome a lot. But one thing that took me until this week, was accepting that maybe the Falcons are not who we thought they were. I’m at the point where I understand that the Falcons probably won’t live up to their potential.
Look, it’s fine. The final stage is acceptance.
That’s exactly where I was after a brutal season in 2015. I had finally overcome superstitions and was no longer bent out of shape because of a Falcons loss. Then 2016 happened and my entire perspective had changed. I had a glimpse of optimism, like “wow the Falcons might actually win it this year.”
The joke was on me, 28-3 years later – and here we are.
The moral of the story is to understand that we can’t all be Patriots fans. As bad as we all want to be like them, we just can’t. I have a friend on Twitter who won’t even allow her dog to convert to the Patriots bandwagon. It’s tough to suffer alone, so we take others with us. But, can you blame us?
At the end of the day, it’s the same Falcons team. It’s inevitable at this point, we all know that there will be heartbreak. I once compared the Atlanta Falcons to women, because they’ll break your heart – but we still keep them around. It’s a never-ending cycle of disappointment that we continue to embrace.
So this year, I want to change my perspective back to how it was in 2016. No expectations, no frustrations, and no disappointment. I had accepted that the team will play exactly the way that they play and I have absolutely zero impact on that. That year I was able to take it all in and eventually was able to purchase two tickets to the NFC Championship game. Which ended up being one of the greatest seasons in Atlanta Falcon’s history.
So embrace it. Take it all in.
Brotherhood.
