The morning after: Weigh in on the 2017 Falcons season

It’s early in the morning, you’re probably still feeling the raw feelings you felt last night if you’re even awake, and that’s what I want to capture. I want to know how you felt about the 2017 Falcons season so we know what to focus on here as we begin the long offseason.

I’ll go first, as I am wont to do. I think the Falcons’ 2017 season will ultimately be thought of as a mildly disappointing success, if those words even make sense in sequence. They fought through a lot of setbacks and that endlessly stupid Super Bowl hangover debate to make the playoffs in a stacked NFC South and knocked off a quality Los Angeles Rams team on the road in the first round of the playoffs. Hell, they even came close to beating Philadelphia before falling short, though the loss was still an ugly one.

That said, it’s hard not to focus on what might have been. With the talent the Falcons have on both sides of the ball and the impressive strides the defense made, it’s bitterly disappointing to know that the offense cost them so many games in 2017, including the Divisional Round matchup. In the end there were only a handful of teams in the NFC better than them, but it’s hard not to look at this team and think they should have been able to make a deeper run. I suspect when the dust settles on the Dan Quinn era, whether that’s two years or ten years from now, we’ll all feel pretty ambivalent about this year.

I am hopeful that better things lie ahead in 2018, though, and we’ll discuss the reasons for optimism soon enough. Now tell us how you’re feeling.