Who Should I Cheer for in the Super Bowl? Reasons to Love and Hate the Falcons and Patriots

We’re less than a week away from Super Bowl LI and have a decent matchup on our hands between two teams that have enough offense to give us a close playoff game for a change.  Falcons and Patriots fans have plenty to be excited about, but for that other 94%-ish of fans who’ve watched their own teams go down in predictable or agonizing fashion this year, you’re probably still on the fence about who to adopt until September finally rolls around. Fear not, dear reader! Here’s the fair and balanced Lady Blitz guide for you to weigh your options with Reasons to Love and Hate the Falcons and Patriots:

Reasons to Love the Falcons

They're Not the Patriots - Let’s start with the obvious reason why most of the country [I think] will be cheering for Atlanta on Super Bowl Sunday: they aren’t the Patriots.  Whereas the Pats will be making their NFL-best ninth Super Bowl appearance and vying for a fifth Lombardi, this will be the Falcons' second attempt to go after their first trophy. And Atlanta's simply not well-known or persistently successful enough to draw much ire outside of the greater New Orleans area.  (To wit, I can't promise not to be underhanded on most of these finer points). Like the Panthers last year, they're a fun, young and talented squad going up against an AFC super power on the strength of their quarterback's MVP play this season.  Coach Dan Quinn is the goofy high school wrestling coach to Belichick's Emperor Palpatine and Matt Ryan is some guy to Brady's head-butting, Ugg-wearing toolbag.  They haven't inundated the news with ridiculously drawn out drama over filming other teams' practices or deflating footballs.  And lame as they may be at times (more on that later), Falcons fans are surely more tolerable when it comes to measures of self-righteousness and entitlement compared to Patriots fans - they're just happy to be here and basking in a larger Atlanta renaissance that has given this town a lot to root for recently.  No doubt these are the kind of clean cut Mighty Ducks/Karate Kid underdogs worth cheering for if you just can't stand the thought of another New England title and all the smug chowderheads that come with it.

That Offense Is a Well-Oiled Killing Machine - Just a year after Falcons fans were calling for offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan's head on a platter, he's developed one of the very best offenses in modern memory - undoubtedly the foremost reason that Atlanta is headed to Super Bowl LI.  The Falcons scored as many points in the regular season as the 2000 St. Louis Rams' Greatest Show on Turf, and presumptive MVP Matt Ryan has had one of the best season-long quarterback performances of the modern era.  Through Week 17, he had the fifth highest QB rating of all time and the most passing yards per attempt ever - and these past two playoff games against the usually formidable Seahawks and Packers proved to be just another playground for Ryan and a well-rounded cast of playmakers to romp around in until February rolled around.  Having All Pro Julio Jones around doesn't hurt, but Ryan's also getting a ton of mileage out of his whole rolodex of receivers including Mohamed Sanu, Taylor Gabriel, Austin Hooper and the Falcons' one-two RB punch of Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman.  Having this many versatile options has allowed Shanahan to disguise a ton of different play calls under the same formations to confuse opposing defenses and ensure Ryan will have his share of mismatches to exploit.  Add to this the fact that the Falcons are the only team in the league this year to have the same guys start on the offensive line every game and anchored by future hall-of-famer Alex Mack, and there's almost no way to beat this team on defense.  So Patriots, beware of this guy:

They've Got a Heckuva Sleeper Storyline - As one of my football columnist heroes Bill Barnwell pointed out this week, zero sports pundits from ESPN, the NFL, CBS, or Sports Illustrated's MMQB picked the Falcons to make, much less win, the Super Bowl this year.  Those guys and yours truly were, for one, enamored with the recently 15 - 1 Panthers, who took a nose dive in the NFC South this season, and figured a different NFC heavy of old like the Cardinals, Seahawks or Packers would make it instead.  At the end of the 2015 season, the Falcons found themselves on a 3 - 8 slide, saying goodbye to long-time franchise star Roddy White, and wondering if Matt Ryan had peaked for good three years earlier.  But they regained their earlier momentum and then some with this offense firing on cylinders and a defense that has gotten measurably better in the last two months.  Still, they've continued to fly under the radar up until just about now with the resurgent Cowboys, mystical Aaron Rodgers and hatefully consistent Patriots getting most of the attention in January - all in spite of having one of the most historically good offenses ever.  That's all to say we might have missed all of the early signs that Atlanta would be a contender, but it would be foolish to suggest they don't deserve to be here this week.

Reasons to Hate the Falcons

The Rising Up of the Lamest Fans - Okay, Samuel L. Jackson can stay, but there are tons of fair-weather Johnny-Come-Lately Falcons fans out there who deserve to be shamed for how non-committal they’ve been over these past few years to this team.  Even now, let’s be real - there's a notable subgroup of Falcons fans who would trade this Super Bowl appearance in a heartbeat if it meant Georgia would make it to the College Football Playoffs for once. It's not just that they had to give up cash and draft picks for pumping in fake crowd noise during their less than enthusiastic/occupied home games in 2013 and 2014 (though it's ridiculous that any NFL team would have to do this just one year removed from an NFC Championship appearance and three straight playoff bids).  It's that the Falcons had fewer bets to go to the Super Bowl this year than the Cleveland Freaking Browns.  And that the fine people of Atlanta most recently tried to dig a Yelp-rating-laden grave for one of their own locally owned restaurants because it had the audacity to host an event for visiting [and paying] Packers fans.  Insecure much over this team you just remembered existed in October?  Even if this team finally gets that Lombardi on Sunday, don't think for a second there's some critical mass of long-suffering but faithful Falcons fans who will weep tears of joy so much as casually call in sick Monday and put a decal on their laptop until Atlanta sucks again in a couple years.  But seriously, Samuel L. Jackson can stay - he's the Buddha of those few truly loyal, agonizingly patient Falcons fans.

The Falcons Are the "Her?" of the NFL - For those of you who are Arrested Development fans (and I assume there’s some decent Venn Diagram overlap on this blog), I can't help but think "Her?" when I think about Atlanta being relevant.  In trying to be fair, I have to say this version of the winning Falcons is way more palatable than the Mike Smith version that used to be the most boringly efficient team in the regular season that would proceed to blow your mind with the most conservative try-not-to-lose play-calling imaginable in the playoffs.  But there's a reason that, despite all of the explosive playmaking, these guys haven't had a single weekend game in prime time this entire season or postseason.  You just kind of forget they're a thing because they dwell in the very meh NFC South with a surprisingly small market of unremarkable fans and a quarterback who couldn't be more of a saltine Opie if he tried.  Even pitting them against a Patriots team that everyone loves to hate, there seems to be almost no public fanfare surrounding this team's success even compared to last year's Panthers team that followed a very similar trajectory.  Nationally, I bet there are more people who'd want to watch the Jaguars make the Super Bowl than the Falcons, if only because it'd be like watching a dog walk on its hind legs while wearing a monocle. 

Thomas Dimitroff Is a Tool - I can’t really poke much fun at Arthur Blank - he seems like a fairly gracious, nice dude, especially for an NFL owner even though he looks like he's straight from central casting for Dick Tracy bad guys. But I can make fun of his goober sidekick (peanut joke!) Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff for embodying everything you think of when you think "managing the brand" and "disrupting the industry" and "tool."  Did you know he's really into cycling?  He even bikes to work - an NFL executive on the edge of the road in full spandex!  Imagine that!  And he's almost certainly paid more for his last haircut than you have for a month's worth of groceries just in case opportunity calls to be Christoph Waltz's understudy one of these days.  Although I've obviously never met the guy or even heard him speak, I have no doubt he'd be the kind to lecture you aggressively in the elevator about juice cleanses and chakras until you feign a polite nod of approval or pretend you're having a seizure to make him stop.  Yep:

Reasons to Love the Patriots

We'll Probably Never See NFL Dominance Like This Again... If Brady and Belichick Ever Retire  - As much moaning as I do (and am about to do again) about how boring it is to see the Patriots in yet another Super Bowl, their dominance is still something to marvel that some won’t fully appreciate until 20 years from now. I like to think of the analogous situation with UConn’s women’s basketball team, currently in the middle of the longest-ever win streak in NCAA history.  When Coach Gene Auriemma has been asked if this kind of lop-sided dominance ruins the sport, he's said something to the effect that it's not UConn's responsibility to make the competition better - it's everyone else's. Since their first Super Bowl win in 2002, the Patriots have cycled through every position on their roster except quarterback, and they've gone through court battles and lost draft picks along the way and faced a number of AFC challengers that looked like they could topple this dynasty at times.  At yet, here the Patriots are again for the ninth time - the seventh with these two constants who just can't seem to lose their joint flexibility or hang it up for the kids or have an Earth-shattering epiphany in Nepal that would send them into lifelong monkhood far, far away from the NFL so that other teams can live. Nope, we're still stuck with the Patriots in February because more times than not, everybody else just isn't good enough.  Dammit.

They Might Just Crack the Falcons' Offensive Code - We have been blessed with a number of extraordinary defensive performances against mighty offensive opponents in the Super Bowl in these past two decades.  There were those Orange Crush Broncos of just a year ago pulling off a massive but easy upset against the Panthers despite having a quarterback in the early stages of rigor mortis.  And the Seahawks outright embarrassing those same Broncos when their quarterback was alive and well in 2014.  Heck, there was Michael Strahan & co. crashing the Patriots' 18 - 0 coronation too, but the first in this lineage was New England versus the Greatest Show on Turf in 2002.  There are few things more terrifying than a Bill Belichick-coached defense with two weeks to prepare, and they'll need another mastermind effort from Belichick and DC Matt Patricia to keep the Falcons offense from running away on that fast indoor turf.  You can be sure Julio Jones will be bracketed and Malcolm Butler will probably end up blanketing WR #2 Mohamed Sanu, but you can also bet there will be some evil genius-level trickery going on to try to confuse Matt Ryan on the coverage and ensure the Pats' versatile defenders can make plays from several angles.  And if you're going to the party to watch a chess match (who isn't? Lady Gaga people?), you're going to get it when Belichick and Shanahan square off on Falcons possessions.

A Pats Win Is a Middle Finger to Roger Goodell - Since we [theoretically] live in anti-establishment times, there’s definitely one good reason for you to cheer for the Patriots this year even if you’d normally never do such a thing. Should they win, we’ll get to watch Roger Goodell stand next to Tom Brady for the first time since Deflategate met its merciful conclusion and pretend like everything’s chill with a stadium full of indignant Patriots fans jeering him on. I don't think anyone would accuse me of mincing words in saying that Goodell is as authoritarian yet spineless as it gets in the world of sportsball, and the fact that he hasn't gone to Foxborough once in the past two years is just the latest testament to that.  So as bitter a pill as another Pats win would be for most of you, just try to imagine that bulging vein in Goodell's temple, the flop sweat, the "Where is Rawgah?" chants, the awkward gritted smile and all the underhanded comments these players will be doing their best to sit on until the champagne carts roll out in the locker room that could result.  Sadly, the Ginger Badger doesn't work for you and me so he's not going anywhere anytime soon despite mismanaging just about everything in his power but the ad revenue, but we can always delight in the little things that will forever make him a sad and lonely man despite that $30M "non-profit" salary.

Reasons to Hate the Patriots

C'Mon - All the same things I said two years ago still apply - it’s boring to watch the same team win over and over, their fans are among the most smug while also having a truly incredulous persecution complex, and Tom Brady is basically a more athletic Zoolander villain. Heck, I even hate having to come up with anything remotely resembling new material for this team in this Super Bowl preview because it pushes just about anyone into the no man's land of hack writing. I'm not above hack writing, obviously. But I do know the limits of my abilities and your patience, so let's just agree that we all have a strong working knowledge of why to hate the Patriots and that it's completely justified no matter what those chowderheads say.

This Team's Ceiling Is Still Unclear - This is mostly an X's and O's critique coming from a Saints fan anxiously hoping the Patriots will embarrass the Dirty Birds in front of all of America. But I'm still more than a little skeptical this team is truly coming in with the upper hand.  It's actually the same kind of wariness I've felt about the Falcons in previous years - that they were solid teams but also beneficiaries of easy schedules that made them look more invincible than they really were when tougher playoff opponents came to the fore.  The Patriots played just five teams with a winning record during the regular season, and some of those defensive stats that seem very impressive on paper were borne from the blood of guys like Ryan Fitzpatrick, Jared Goff, Matt Moore and Brock Osweiler.  Even New England's presumably best opponent so far, the Steelers, lost Le'Veon Bell early on in the AFC Championship, and with Ben Roethlisberger being abysmal on the road all season, it's a stretch to say the Patriots have actually faced a quality opponent since the Seahawks in Week 10.  The Patriots can only play the hand they've been dealt here, and that hand has treated them very well, but we just won't know how legitimately good this year's version is until they go toe to toe with a never-hotter Falcons team on Sunday.

They're Designed to Kill Everyone Else's Joy - In talking with other football fans this past week, there's just an inevitable sense among the masses that the Patriots will crush that high-flying Atlanta offense and ultimately keep the Falcons from their first-ever Super Bowl win in favor of an unprecedented fifth ring for Brady and Belichick. As one wise fan said recently, Belichick knows exactly when, where and how each of us will die, and he certainly won't be showing any mercy for the likes of a less fortunate team that just wants one stinkin' ring or the vast majority of America that would kill for anything but another Pats win.  Even when New England gets dinged for various -gate scandals, it takes years for the schadenfreude to pay off and the punishments to be meted out, only for this team to take that chip on its shoulder and turn it into a buzz saw that will slice through every small bit of joy that we have accumulated in hopes that this team will lose. So it'll probably happen again - if not now, sometime before Tom Brady turns 50 and rides off into the sunset, not because he's too old but because he's bored too.  We can only hope.


Now that you've got your rooting interest settled for Sunday, come back here in the next day or two to see my never-fail Super Bowl prediction!