Saints Nation: Just How Good Are the Falcons?

I never really believed in a “team of destiny” until I watched the Saints last year. I’m starting to wonder about the Falcons this year, too, though. I hate to say it. There is nothing I hate more than the Dirty Birds. It goes back to Deion Sanders being arrogant, high stepping on the Fleur-de-Lis after beating us in the playoffs. It goes back to Morten Andersen, Bobby Hebert, Joe Horn and countless other Saint greats who left us only to go play with the Falcons and embarrass us. My mother told me never to hate, but I’m sorry, I just cannot stop myself from hating the Falcons. Objectively, though, this team is obviously very good on paper. What scares me is how they’ve won some of the games they’ve won. 7-2 is a record that appears dominant, but take a deeper look at how they’ve done it:

Week 3 win @ Saints: The Falcons are in overtime and the Saints have them dead to rights. All Garrett Hartley needs to do is hit a 29 yard chip shot. He misses it, and the Falcons drive down and get a field goal.

Week 4 win vs. 49ers: With under 2 minutes left, Nate Clements intercepts Matt Ryan with the 49ers leading 14-13. Once again, the Falcons are dead to rights, but Clements fumbles on his interception return on the Falcons’ 7 yards line. The Falcons go down with 1:22 left and get the game winning field goal.

Week 9 win vs. Buccanneers:  With the Falcons leading 27-21, the Bucs had the ball on the Falcons’ 2 with just over 2 minutes left. They turned it over on downs.

Week 10 win vs. Ravens: Down one with 1:05 left, the Falcons go down and get a touchdown on a drive that started at their 20. The Falcons benefit from a questionable completion to Michael Jenkins on the sidelines, and a pass interference call on 3rd and 10. Had that flag not come, they would have had to attempt a 58 yarder to win the game. On the touchdown pass, there was no call on what I thought was offensive pass interference.

So you have 4 games that the Falcons should have at least lost 2 of. When teams keep finding ways to win games like that, games they have no business pulling out, I hate to say it, but it has the feel of destiny. The Falcons are not an unbeatable juggernaut and they have their weaknesses. They are not blowing teams out left and right. But watching that Ravens game last night made something very clear to me: the Falcons are not going to go away and fold as this season progresses. What that means is there is very little room for error for the Saints. They are ostensibly 2 games behind the Falcons because while the Falcons are 7-2 and the Saints are 6-3, the Falcons own the tiebreak. The Saints will have to take care of business if they want to win the NFC South, which includes winning at Atlanta on 12/27.