Another playoff failure for Atlanta Falcons – NFL Season Review (Part I)
The sorry tale for the Atlanta Falcons continued in the last National Football League (NFL) season as they once again failed to perform well in the playoffs – something they have been doing since a long period of time.
The franchise has not yet been able to win the prestigious Super Bowl title and has only marked one appearance in the Super Bowl after winning the National Football Conference (NFC) championship in 1998. However, they lost the game against the Denver Broncos.
Since that season, the Falcons have registered five playoff appearances, but were not able to get the title shot again. Not only that, in their last three playoff appearances, they were sent packing after playing only one game.
Interestingly, Falcons lost their playoff games in the last two seasons against the teams that went on to win the Super Bowl.
In 2010 season, Falcons lost their postseason game against the Green Bay Packers, who won the Super Bowl later and in the last NFL season, Falcons lost their playoff game against the New York Giants, who eventually won the Super Bowl.
In this space, we are going to have a look at Falcons’ performance throughout the last season by analysing every game they played.
Let’s start with the first game.
At Chicago
Falcons’ start to the season was not very commendable. They played their first game away from home and were defeated by the Chicago Bears. What’s even worse was the fact that the game was pretty much one sided and Falcons struggled to complete finishing
their playing drives most of the times.
Bears got the first scoring move of the game by scoring a field goal in the first quarter. Falcons levelled the score in the same quarter, but Bears scored a touchdown towards the end of the quarter to get the lead again.
In the second quarter, Bears scored two field goals without conceding any point and the halftime score settled at 16-3 in favour of Bears.
In the third quarter, Falcons scored another field goal, but Bears scored two touchdowns after that and increased their lead.
Falcons got their first and only touchdown of the game in the final quarter, but they were unable to provide more scoring moves and lost the game, 30-12.
Falcons’ coach, Mike Smith, was certainly disappointed, but he had his hopes high for the next games. He commented after the defeat:
"Disappointed, not discouraged. It's a long season, it's Week 1. We will work to get this fixed and we will get it fixed."
Against Philadelphia Eagles
After losing the first game of the season, Falcons returned to Atlanta to play their first home game of the season. The visitors, Philadelphia Eagles, had won their first game of the season and were rated as strong contenders to win the NFC championship.
Falcons, however, managed to overcome the threatening Eagles after a tough encounter.
Falcons had certainly learnt their lesson and they got a touchdown to mark the first scoring move of the game in the first quarter.
Eagles levelled the score in the second quarter by scoring their first touchdown, which was followed by a field goal, but Falcons got another touchdown and enter the halftime carrying the lead, 14-10.
Falcons increased the lead in the third quarter when they scored another touchdown, but Eagles hit back hard and scored three touchdowns to completely startle the home team.
When the final quarter started, Falcons were 10 points behind, owing to Eagles’ aggressive outburst in the third quarter. Nevertheless, Falcons managed to defend well and scored two touchdowns to take the lead and win the game.
The final score settled at 35-31.
To be continued...
The views do not reflect the editorial policy of bettor.com
Tags: