![]() The sign at the city’s limits should read, “Now entering: What If.” Because our city is a wasteland of dead projections. So there I was at Super Bowl LI, trying not to project a championship parade in downtown Atlanta for the Falcons the next day. It’s as if the sports gods of the underworld have an endless supply of pins to plunge into some giant Atlanta voodoo doll, which I suspect looks like Marion Campbell, because in what other city would a team (Falcons) hire a head coach for the second time after he went 6-19 the first time? The city has celebrated one championship (Braves) spread across five sports franchises in four major leagues in 55 years. Expected heroes find themselves covered in shame on the evening news and get sent to Leavenworth for dogfighting (Michael Vick), or sitting in a holding cell for soliciting sex the eve of the Super Bowl (Eugene Robinson), or slinking out of town and doing the “Pig, sooie” call for a midnight news conference in Arkansas (Bobby Petrino). Leads in games and playoff series drop suddenly into black holes. When you live in Atlanta, you learn not to jump in anticipation of glory. Jeff Schultz: Letdowns are part of the job ![]() They’ve teamed up to re-tell that Super Sunday when the Patriots pulled off the improbable. Brady now has to engineer the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history if he hopes to capture his fifth ring.Jeff Howe, who covers the Patriots, and Jeff Schultz, who covers the Falcons, were both there. Bennett made yet another costly gaffe, losing yards on a screen pass and staying in bounds, forcing Bill Belichick to burn his timeout.Ī 41-yard field goal got the Patriots on the board, but it’s little consolation after the Falcons opened up such a big lead. A Bennett hold wiped out another big gain by White, backing up the Pats to the 20. James White used a 28-yard catch-and-run to get his team back in field goal range, and another catch got the Pats to the 15-yard line with 23 seconds left. With the clock winding down, New England went into its two-minute drill. Just like that, the rout was on with Atlanta up, 21-0. However, the tide suddenly shifted when Robert Alford picked off Brady and ran it back 82 yards for a touchdown. A third holding penalty gave the Patriots a third first down, and Martellus Bennett got New England into field goal range with a 13-yard catch. Another holding penalty bailed out the Patriots on third down and put them in Falcons territory. Atlanta took a 14-0 lead with under nine minutes left in the second quarter.īrady kept struggling to get much going, but had a lucky break when a Falcons defensive penalty gave the Patriots a free first down. Austin Hooper then hauled in a 19-yard touchdown pass to put the Patriots in deep trouble. Jones in particular had a spectacular toe-tapping catch on the sidelines, putting the Falcons in field goal range. Tom Brady still didn’t have many answers for the Falcons’ swarming defense, which forced another three-and-out.Ītlanta’s passing offense started to open up, with Ryan hitting Taylor Gabriel and Jones on deep passes. The Patriots started their next possession with poor field position, which has been a running theme of their performance in this game. First time the #Patriots have trailed since the 4th quarter of the Jets game in Week 12 #SuperBowl- Evan Lazar February 6, 2017
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