Fan Spotlight – Ville

Greetings Falcoholics, it’s time for another Fan Spotlight to highlight a fellow Falcons fan for the week. This week’s Fan Spotlight is on Ville Terenius. Ville is an Atlanta Falcons fan living in Finland, so he’s our first Fan Spotlight from outside the United States.

How did you become an Atlanta Falcons fan?

American football, as we know it, isn’t a major sport in Finland. Ice hockey is number one, soccer (or football) is second, and American football comes somewhere in the late teens probably, at the earliest. But seeing some odd games on sports networks, I found myself tempted. I played hockey, and even some soccer through my youth. Go figure, I owned a PlayStation and played FIFA and NHLs. But I felt tempted, so I traded in some old NHL and FIFA games in, and bought a random Madden game in exchange. Turns out it was the one with the “DVD” backfield, so you’ll guess how this story goes. At first I played just random teams, usually with New York Giants as their name/logo had some familiarity for me. But then I ended up using the Falcons, and here we are.

Who is your favorite Atlanta Falcons player?

I love watching Deion Jones, Grady Jarrett and Julio like the rest of us, but I have a soft spot for the Offensive line. I play guard myself in Vaahteraliiga, the finnish championship league of American football. So, watching Jake Matthews growth has been fun. Some of the readers might remember me besides the bad photoshops of the piece I wrote on Alex Mack and Ben Garland visiting Finland with American Football Without Barriers organization right after the Super Bowl. We had a practice with them, as well as a great dinner afterwards, and getting insights from them was incredible. I tend to follow them quite closely as well. Besides the usual watching the game, I try to look for technique tips for my own play as well.

Best and Worst moments as an Atlanta Falcons fan?

My worst.. let’s not go through that again. I just regret not betting on the Patriots at half time. I would have happily paid 200 bucks for a Falcons win. Now I would have ended up with thousands of dollars to help my sorrow. Instead I just got super sad. The best one must be that season otherwise. I mean so much went right. Vic Beasley won the sack title, that should tell you how much went right that season.

What’s your outlook on the Falcons heading into the offseason?

I hope we get help/depth to the lines, as well as overall improvement on defense. We have solid enough skill otherwise, but lines and that D especially keep us back with just minor injuries. I also hope my girlfriend stays supportive of all of this, because games starting at 8pm and 11:30pm are tough. Luckily with this record, Falcons won’t be on primetime much, as those 3:30am games are kind of killer. I also work on a betting company podcast on NFL, the Unibet Green Zone NFL podcast, and I have to watch all the games. I hope I could look forward to watching the Falcons games again next season, instead of expecting just disappointments.

Well, that does it for the final Fan Spotlight of the 2018 NFL regular season. A special thank you to Ville for sharing his background and opinions with us. Make sure to give him a follow on Twitter at @ThatTerenius. As always, if you want to be the next ‘Fan Spotlight’ or know of someone who deserves to be, message me on Twitter where you can find me at @EvanBirchfield. Also, The Falcoholic can now be found on Instagram at @The_Falcoholic. Thanks for reading Falcoholics, and no matter what the offseason brings, GO FALCONS!