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We all have a favorite Falcons season, one that may or may not have been '98, 2008 or 2010. Sometimes the season just sticks in our memory because of the colorful cast of characters, our youth or some bizarre X factor.
My favorite season kind of had all three. It was the loveable '91 Falcons, the team that went 10-6, beat the Saints in the playoffs and eventually lost the Super Bowl-winning Washington Redskins. It was a team that featured Chris Miller, Deion Sanders and Andre Rison, and it was the first Falcons team I really fell hard for.
Not only did this team go 6-10 or 5-11 for like four years around '91, but they actually started the year 0-2. They were 5-5 after a disheartening 56-17 loss to the Redskins (a bad omen) before rattling off five wins in their next six games. It was the first playoff Falcons team I personally remember, closely resembled the team in my beloved Tecmo Super Bowl game for the Super Nintendo and had some of my favorite players (Miller, Sanders, Michael Haynes). Speaking of Haynes, this was also the year he caught 50 passes for a staggering 1,122 yards, which averages out to 22.4 yards a catch. This was the golden age of the Run N' Gun.
It was also one that would have been more at home in today's NFL than it was in 1991. Why do I say that? Well, there's the fact that the Falcons ran for a combined 1,664 yards, but no back had more than 450. The closest was the immortal Steve Broussard, a guy I was convinced was going to be a special back. I was terrible at predicting things even when I was seven years old, apparently.
What season will live on forever in your mind?