The best single seasons in Falcons history, offense edition

Over the course of the early weeks of the offseason, we put together a new entrant in our annual dive into Falcons history by rounding up and voting on the best single seasons by individual players. We’re winding that series down now, so it’s time to round up the voting results.

With 1,000 or so results per vote, here’s who wound up on the team at every position on offense.

QB - 2016 Matt Ryan

A full 90% of you who responded to the poll voted for Ryan’s MVP season, the sole MVP in team history and inarguably one of the greatest individual performances the Falcons have ever produced. Matt Ryan’s 2018 got 5% of the votes and nobody else got more than 1%, which probably underrates Steve Bartkowski’s 1980.

RB - 1998 Jamal Anderson

This wasn’t quite as lopsided as the QB poll, but Jam got 53% of the total vote. That’s fair for a year where he set the franchise record for rushing yards and was generally dominant. That was followed by 20% for Michael Turner’s great 2008 and disappointingly low totals for the great William Andrews’ 1981 and 1983 at 9% and 8%, respectively. Still, the right choice here, too.

WR - 2015 Julio Jones

Another eye-popping statistical season, as Kyle Shanahan fed Julio all he could handle and he responded with an absolutely brilliant year that captured 73% of the total vote. The super efficient 2016 Julio season was the only other campaign to garner double digit votes, with Alfred Jenkins’ stellar 1981, Andre Rison’s 1993, and Julio’s 2018 the only other seasons getting over 2% of the vote.

TE - 2012 Tony Gonzalez

Recency definitely was a driver here, but it’s hard to quibble with what Gonzo was doing in 2012 even so, as he put up the most impressive numbers ever by a Falcons tight end. That’s why he easily drew 75% of the vote for this season and saw his other three nominated campaigns draw a combined 12%, leaving just 13% left for everyone else.

OL - 2016 Alex Mack

The first one where I really disagree, but the will of the voters is the will of the voters. This was also the most split list, with Mack pulling down 47% of the vote for an admittedly stellar campaign that helped rocket the Falcons to the best offense in the league and ultimately the Super Bowl. I still fancy those utterly dominant Mike Kenn seasons, which combined for 30% of the vote, but to each their own.

If we were building out a full line, though, we’d have Kenn at both tackle spots, Mack, Todd McClure, and Bill Fralic on the interior, and a pretty damn good group.

All in all, I think this wound up being a strong set of choices, with most of this group already used to playing together and prime Jamal Anderson ready to tear it up on the ground.

What would you have changed?