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Why you should root for the Atlanta Falcons, from NFL.com

A fun, outsider’s look at the franchise and the fanbase.

Super Bowl LI - New England Patriots v Atlanta Falcons Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

The Atlanta Falcons are suddenly a team in the spotlight. It would be fair to say that over the course of my ten years running The Falcoholic, we as fans have spent much more time complaining about how the national media was overlooking us than complaining about how much attention our favorite team is getting. That’s changed pretty quickly.

The upside of that change is that we’re suddenly hearing nice things about our team, getting more in-depth stats and pieces than we might have gotten in years past, and we get the occasional celebration of what it means to be a fan of this franchise. For the latest and greatest example of that phenomenon, I point you to this NFL.com piece from Adam Rank.

It’s fun primarily because Rank is emphatically not a Falcons fan, and appears to be learning a lot about the team as he goes. He delights in unearthing tidbits about Jerry Glanville, brings up those early 2000 Madden games with Michael Vick running amok, and reminds me of the sobering fact that the Falcons could have had Walter Payton but didn’t get him. They did take Steve Bartkowski, though, and that worked out pretty well.

Read it and take a little trip down memory lane. Happy Wednesday, everyone.