In the 1st 50 Super Bowls, no team had ever blown a lead of more than 10 points. The Falcons were in great shape to win the 1st World Championship in team history, 51 seasons, the entire Super Bowl Era.
Several sources said that the Falcons had a 99 percent chance of winning at that point. One source said it was 99.9 percent.
With 57 seconds to play in regulation, the Patriots tied the game, and we had the 1st Super Bowl that went to overtime. With 11:02 left in the 1st overtime, the Patriots won the ballgame, 34-28.
Boston, and all of New England, were now the beneficiaries of "the greatest choke in baseball history" and "the greatest choke in football history."
And Tom Brady was certified as not merely the greatest quarterback, but the greatest player in the history of football.
How could the Falcons have blown it?
Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the Atlanta Falcons for Blowing a 25-Point 2nd Half Lead and Losing Super Bowl LI
5. The Officials. They called 9 penalties on the Falcons, only 4 on the Patriots. They penalized the Falcons for 65 yards, the Patriots only 23. The Patriots gained 4 1st downs as a result of penalties, the Falcons only 1.
It's been suggested that there were no bad calls in this game, and that the disparity in the penalties was due to the Patriots being sufficiently disciplined, and the Falcons not. So I can only leave this as Reason Number 5.
4. The Curse of Mark Wohlers. In 1995, relief pitcher Wohlers was key to the Atlanta Braves winning the World Series. It was the 1st World Championship Atlanta had won in any sport, and remains the only one.
Unless you count soccer: The Atlanta Chiefs won the old North American Soccer League title in 1968, and Atlanta United won the MLS Cup in 2018. However, soccer is still the Number 5 league sport in North America. So maybe, for most Atlanta fans, it doesn't really count.
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In Game 4 of the 1996 World Series, the defending World Champion Braves were up 3 games to 1, led the Yankees 6-0 after 5 innings, and were still up 6-3 in the 8th. With 5 outs to go, but with 2 men on, Wohlers was throwing 98- and 99-mile-per-hour BBs to Jim Leyritz, and got 2 strikes on him. Then he hung an 86-MPH slider, and Leyritz hit a game-tying home run.
The Yankees won the game 8-6 in 10 innings, and won Games 5 and 6 to take the title. In the 25 years since:
* The Braves haven't won a World Series game since, and only 1 National League Pennant, in 1999, when the Yankees swept them in the World Series. They have lost the NL Championship Series in 1997, 1998, 2001 and 2020. They have lost the NL Division Series in 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2010, 2013, 2018 and 2019. And they have lost the NL Wild Card Game in 2012.
* The Falcons have lost Super Bowl XXXIII (1998 season) and, the point of this post, Super Bowl LI (2016 season). They have lost the NFC Championship Game in 2004 and 2012. They have lost in the NFC Divisional Playoff in 2002, 2010 and 2017. They have lost in the Wild Card Playoff in 2008 and 2011.
* The Hawks have never won an NBA Championship, since they were the St. Louis Hawks in 1958. They haven't made the NBA Finals since 1961. They moved to Atlanta in 1968. But just since Wohlers hung that slider, the Hawks have lost in the Conference Finals in 2015. They've lost in the Conference Semifinals in 1997, 1999, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2016. They've lost in the 1st Round in 1998, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2017.
* And they've both gained and lost an NHL team, the Atlanta Thrashers. They played 12 seasons, 1999 to 2011, made the Playoffs exactly once, in 2007, and got swept. By the New York Rangers. Is that the lowest?
It's been 25 years. I think it's safe to say that Atlanta sports could have a curse on it.
3. Donald Trump. He attended the Super Bowl. As Rick Wilson, a Republican political operative who launched the anti-Trump "Lincoln Project" in an effort to cleanse his Party of Trump's influence, titled his book about the man, Everything Trump Touches Dies.
Furthermore, Trump and Patriots team owner Robert Kraft are friends -- or, perhaps, the closest Trump knows how to come to being someone's friend. The Patriots' players would not have been thrown off their game by the sight of Trump. The Falcons' players might have been.
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Maybe it was poetic justice that Georgia helped take both the Presidency and the U.S. Senate away from the Republican Party in the elections of 2020-21.
2. Lady Gaga. This might be the most controversial thing I've ever written in this blog. Not just because it seems silly to blame the performer of the halftime show for the defeat of the team that lost the Super Bowl. But because Gaga's fans are among the most passionate of any performers' ever, and will not take kindly to perceived attacks on her.
So, let me state for the record that I'm not accusing her of intentionally hurting the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI. I don't even know which team she was rooting for -- or even if she likes football. I am saying that her halftime show may, however inadvertently, have had a deleterious effect on the Falcons.
She began by singing the chorus of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." She sang "The Edge of Glory," which would seem to be a good title for a song at the Super Bowl, but was really about her grandfather on his deathbed, knowing he had lived a good life, despite not having experienced anything of what Gaga had once called "The Fame." She has reached the point where gaining fame, becoming a bigger star, is no longer the point: Making a difference is. This is something that Trump will never understand.
Next was "Poker Face," something Trump doesn't have, and it's about gay people being forced by society to hide who they really are. Next was "Born This Way," which is the opposite: She called it "my this-is-who-the-fuck-I-am anthem." It's an in-your-face message. Next was "Telephone," which she has said is about "Fear of suffocation, something that I have or fear is never being able to enjoy myself."
Next was "Just Dance," her 1st single, from the Spring of 2008, a song that helped a lot of people get through that year's economic crash, the last time a Republican held the White House. Next was "Million Reasons," which is about questioning everything, and was released on the day Trump was "elected," November 8, 2016. She closed with "Bad Romance," which is certainly what America entered into with Trump. In short, all 8 songs she sang could be interpreted as a middle finger to Trump, without even mentioning his name. If you really want to piss him off...
Super Bowl halftime shows are a crapshoot. Some are really good. Some are bad. At least one has been outright scandalous. But Gaga's was one of the best-received, ever. And it ran a little long. Maybe the Falcons players heard it, maybe they didn't. Maybe it threw them off their game. In the 1st half, Atlanta outscored New England 21-3. The rest of the way, New England outscored Atlanta 31-7.
1. The Patriots Cheated. We don't actually know that the Patriots cheated at any point in the 2016-17 NFL season, including in the Super Bowl. We only know that they have been caught cheating multiple times. They have forfeited the presumption of innocence.
And Matt Ryan, as a result of winning the NFC Championship Game 2 weeks earlier, had done something Tom Brady has never done: He quarterbacked a team into the Super Bowl, and did it fairly.
You say Brady has never cheated? You are a liar.
VERDICT: Not Guilty. You can argue that, even with the Patriots having cheated, the Falcons should still have been able to hold onto a lead that was 25 points with a little over 17 minutes to go, 19 points with 10 minutes to go, 16 points with 6 minutes to go, and 8 points with 1 minute to go.
Instead, they had the best excuse of all for why they didn't: Unfairness.