Stop calling the Falcons “Lucky”

Listening to two-day old podcasts over the weekend isn’t usually my thing. After three of the four NFL playoff games were over, I started to listen to sports podcasts from the week before. I was on a bike ride, and needed something to take attention away from the pain in my legs as I climbed and descended. What I heard were experts talking about two games like they were done deals. Both popular sports shows I listened to had hosts and guests a lot smarter than me who both that agreed that the Broncos should beat the tar out of the Ravens and that Seattle was going to roll over Atlanta, who had been “lucky” all year en route to a 13-3 record.

First, let me quickly address the Ravens game. Joe Flacco is not as good as Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, or Aaron Rodgers. He does, however, fall into a second tier of quarterbacks that you COULD win a Super Bowl with. Other quarterbacks in this second level include Phillip Rivers (barely), Matt Schaub, Matthew Stafford, Colin Kaepernick (as of last week), Russell Wilson, maybe RG3, maybe Jay Cutler, and definitely Matt Ryan (did I miss anybody?).

Which brings me to the Falcons. They were 13-3 this season, rolling through an NFC South that was overrated early in the year and probably underrated late. At age 27, Ryan’s yards and completion percentage have steadily increased each of the past 3 seasons. He has four really great weapons at skill positions around him and the ability of the Falcons defense to do things that you can’t measure — like deliver a hard-even-for-the-NFL kind of hit on a running back or wide receiver earned them the number one seed in the NFC.

My father has told me many times, “sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.” Apparently this year’s Falcons are a statistical fluke. They have won a lot of close games that they maybe shouldn’t have and their overall stats don’t measure-up against any of the teams remaining in the playoffs. Their defense is hard to measure as really great, so “experts” who may not have fully figured out how to quantify its effectiveness have to call it a fluke, because the issue can never be the way in which we measure and predict these things — at least not publicly.

Whether the Falcons win this weekend and go to the Super Bowl or not, let’s not discount their season as “lucky.” Luck always plays a role in sports, but taking advantage of lucky situations is what great teams do. The Falcons have a home game to get to the Super Bowl against a team from the west coast. They fought all year to go 13-3 and to have that right. They have stayed healthy and are in a position to knock-off a team most people believe is better than they are.

In 2002, every pundit in the world picked the St. Louis Rams to handle the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVI. The Rams outgained the Patriots 427-267 in total yards, but New England used turnovers and great team play to win the game. It was before Tom Brady was Tom Brady. A lasting image I have from that game is the Rams being introduced individually and then the Patriots refusing individual introduction in favor of a team introduction. I thought, “uh oh” at the time and three Super Bowls later, fans and pundits alike fail to hold onto a lesson in prediction I learned that day: When everyone is predicting one way in the NFL playoffs, they are all wrong more often than we think.

I don’t know if I’ll pick Atlanta for this weekend’s games, but I do know that I respect what they’ve done this year. There is a lot more to this team than luck.

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1. NFL Playoffs: Home Field Advantage will be matter in one conference championship game - Fansmanship says:

   01/18/2013 at 2:27 pm

   […] have made the Super Bowl, I don’t believe in or trust the second-year quarterback from Nevada. Give credit to the Falcons where credit is due. My prediction for this game is 24-17, Falcons […]