Why I’m excited about the Atlanta Falcons this season

The list of reasons not to be excited about this Atlanta Falcons team is extremely short. There’s injury, some worry over the depth of the defensive end rotation, some small questions with Duke Riley and Austin Hooper, and the possibility that Steve Sarkisian won’t be up to snuff as a play caller. Otherwise, the arrow is pointing way up for the Falcons.

I feel pretty spoiled—and it also feels a little surreal—to be contemplating a great Falcons team. While there are rebuilding teams and bad teams and borderline contenders who will be answering this prompt from SB Nation with whatever reasons they can scrounge up. It’s a lucky team that can answer, in all honesty, that the reason they’re excited about their favorite team is because their favorite teams looks great.

The Falcons have the best quarterback they’ve had in franchise history, most would agree, plus one of their better running back tandems, wide receiver corps, offensive lines, defensive front sevens and secondaries ever. They have talent, good coaching (though I pause a little bit on that one, at times), and young players with ability ready to step in in the coming weeks, months, and hopefully years. They’ve never been better positioned for success in the here and now and in the future, I’d wager, and that makes this Falcons team worth celebrating.

In summary, I’m excited about the Atlanta Falcons because they’re exciting. If this isn’t one of the best Falcons teams of all-time, I will be surprised. We’ll remind you of that as often as we can here at The Falcoholic, because life is short and fragile and the Falcons rarely give us something this interesting to celebrate.