before I became a Falcons fan.

But as a long-time Falcons fan with the hard-assed belief that nobody is bigger than the team, I agree completely.

At face value, that statement is wrong. Only a Vick fan would think like that. A Falcon fan would know that there were other players worth watching. However, I want to believe that he intended something else by this statement. There were plenty of times that the only chance the Falcons had at winning were if Vick were to do something special and on most occasions he did. In that sense, this statement is true.

As a fan from the 80’s, I tried to watch every game I could over anything else. But the season he was hurt, there were plenty of times when I questioned if it was worth risking my heart to the strains and anger of watching yet another futile attempt by a team without it’s identity. It was very clear that the entire team had decided that it was Vick’s to win or lose, and without him they had completely given up. Unfortunately, that mentality spreads easily into the fanbase.

Some people claim that they knew he would never get us to the next level. I’m not sure I believe it, but if so, then they were few and far between. Before Vick, unless you were at the game itself or paying for a sports package, all you recieved was a blackout because no one wanted to go watch us play. Afterwards, every single home game was sold out for years. He gave hope to not just the city, but the entire state and more. Every year that the Falcons had Vick was a year that we as fans thought about Superbowling. Any fan that denies that is either a liar of was never a believer in the first place, in which case, they can’t be trusted since they are probably from Tamp, NO, or somewhere in the Carolina’s. Or Philly.