The Falcons make history again in predictably hilarious and sad fashion

Maybe—maybe—the Falcons will achieve unprecedented success in the Arthur Smith era. Nobody will be happier than me if the lowest lows of the past few years and this 2021 season prove to be a precursor to something beautiful and successful, and obviously getting out of bed in the morning as a Falcons fan is a lot easier if you have at least a glimmer of hope that’ll happen.

I say that because starting off with “the Falcons did incredibly bad things that haven’t happened for 20-30 years” is not the best way to start an article after you just watched what I watched. Unfortunately for all of us, the Falcons did do that in a couple of ways.

That’s the first team in well over a decade to have three different players throw interceptions in a single game. That’s the first team to have three quarterbacks do so since 2000, when Jim Harbaugh was a quarterback and not a coach. By the time Feleipe Franks threw his interception you just sort of had to laugh at how inept the offense was, but it’s sort of crushing that even in garbage time this team could not avoid turning the ball over. Atlanta has now thrown seven interceptions in their past two games.

That’s not all, though.

We were justifiably down on Dirk Koetter’s Falcons offense a year ago, which seemed unable to maximize the strengths of its players more or less throughout the year and especially after the Falcons fired Dan Quinn. I recognize the limitations the Falcons are working with minus Calvin Ridley and especially Cordarrelle Patterson against the Patriots, but new coaching staff and limited roster or no, it’s astonishing that the Falcons have only put up three points the past two weeks and have gotten shut out for the first time at home since 1988. Think about how many bad Falcons teams have played since then without equaling that, and you’ll either have to laugh or have to pop a blood vessel in your forehead.

I’m tired of the Falcons making the wrong kind of history. I’m tired of the Falcons losing. Whether the winning starts next week against the Jaguars or it starts in 2022, it had better start, because we’ve been dwelling in the basement and watching bad football for way too long.