Curses!

I walked out of my Tufts University dorm room that next morning wearing nothing but grey.  I swear it looked like everyone was wearing grey that day.  Even the sky was grey, no sun shone through the dark and dismal clouds overhead.  To call it a dreary day would be a slap in the face to meteorologists and sports fans everywhere.

The loss the night before was all any one could talk about, as painful as it was fans still needed to get it off their chest, an ultimately useless form of therapy.  There was as much sorrow as there was disbelief.

How could that have happened?

Twelve hours earlier, a baseball had rolled between Bill Buckner’s legs.  It was as devastating a loss a sports fan could imagine.  New York and Boston Sox still had one game left to play but every long-suffering Red Sox fan knew there was no way the Sox could pull out a win in Game Seven.

They didn’t.  It was 1986.  The curse of the Bambino was real.

buckner-final

We all know how that turned out for Boston.  Eighteen years later, the Red Sox won their first championship in, ironically, 86 years.  A lifetime of demons and curses was finally exorcised but that story of redemption does nothing for Atlanta today.  Every Atlanta Falcons fan has to be feeling like there is no light at the end of the tunnel, only heartbreak.  Tom Brady’s victory tour makes for a long off-season.

After the greatest Super Bowl comeback ever (easy, Falcons fans), I’ve heard a lot of people talk about a curse in another city far south of Boston, ironically the fan base responsible for cementing the newest curse in sports.

The Falcons have yet to win a Super Bowl.  They’ve been in two and have come away empty-handed both times.  This was thought to be their best chance.  The city now ponders woefully what it will take to bring that town a winner.

Atlanta’s not entirely void of championship mettle.  The Atlanta Braves won their city’s lone title back in 1995.  The city finally exhaled.  Even by Atlanta’s standards, however, most sports fans feel those Braves teams underachieved.  It took another cursed team, the Cleveland Indians, to lose to them in the only series they’ve ever won.

atlanta-braves-1995Sunday brought an unfathomable Super Bowl comeback, one no Falcons fans can talk about without a deep emptiness in the gut.  On a clear day, you can see the dark cloud hovering over Atlanta from miles away.  The wound is still fresh and bloodied.  As if Falcons fans hadn’t suffered enough, the real suffering has just begun.  This one is gonna leave a mark.

The Brady-led comeback is all any Monday morning quarterback could talk about.  For Falcons fans, it was like reliving a bad dream over and over again except this time it was all too real.  Atlanta sports radio was jammed with callers crying and cursing and most certainly second-guessing.  I’m guessing liquor sales in Atlanta on Monday saw a sharp spike.

Far be it from me to compare the Falcons collapse to the Buckner debacle but if the cleat fits.

Alas, the Falcons still haven’t won a Super Bowl.  The Braves are nowhere close and the Hawks are another story altogether.

The future, however, is bright for this Atlanta team.  As long as they are able to escape from under that dark cloud, sometimes easier said than done, they have a solid young nucleus.  The good news for Atlanta and every other team in the league is that Tom Brady turns 40 next year.  That clock is starting to tick and as great as Brady is, Father Time has a better record.

gty-brady-15-er-170206_4x3_992So for Falcons fans today who sees nothing but doom and gloom, I’m here to talk you off that ledge.  As a sports fan who has experienced debilitating losses, my advice to Atlanta fans is to embrace the curse.  Own it.  It will make the eventual joy of winning that much sweeter.

Just ask Cubs fans.

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8 Replies to “Curses!”

  1. So we will be dead when Atlanta finally wins another title is what you are saying? Hopefully.

    On another note, picking sides in this was quite easy. I said to myself ” self, almost all Georgia Bulldog fans are Falcon fans. Let’s continue the misery, Go Pats”.

    I also had somebody who was neutral text me when it was 28-3. They said, Pats will win because the Falcon are the Falcons and they will find a way to lose. No Joke.

  2. Yeah, D, I didn’t mind seeing Brady win one more if for nothing else than to a) settle the GOAT argument and b) have him stick it to Goodell.

    Two stories. One is Milhouse sent me a text at halftime saying I could get the Pats at five to one to win the game. Thinking the game was over and done, I didn’t pull the trigger. I wish I had your buddy there for a little encouragement to at least drop twenty on it.

    And two. A good buddy of mine is a Falcons fan. Mid way through the third, I sent him a congratulatory text on the epic beatdown.

    I still haven’t heard back from him.

  3. Fuck Atlanta. It’s like if you let southerners build a “Home Depot” version of Los Angeles without the glamour.

  4. Atlanta fans? Anyone care to respond to Dub’s only slightly disparaging comments of your hometown?

    Oh wait, that’s right. There are no Atlanta fans.

    Guess no one’s listening.

  5. Epic game.

    Funniest thing I saw was a meme of a tweet that said,
    “It’s election night all over again”

    Seems a lot of people were rooting against the Pats because of their support for Trump and got Charlie Browned by Lucy again.

  6. Bleed…

    The best post-game meme I saw was of a straight-faced, non-smiling Bill Belichick, it could have been a photo taken after any one of his press conferences and the meme simply read “Let’s party.”

    I guess the only question that remains at this point is…. can they win another?

  7. I live in ATL suburbs but not a true Falcons fan and my phone almost overheated with text msgs when ATL was rolling. Funny how it never buzzed again in the 2nd half. My wife’s facebook account should be recorded for posterity to attest to the BS that was being thrown out there by the 3rd qtr from Falcons fans. Same thing, it’s been silent on the Falcons since then. They’ll be awhile getting over this but most of them are mouth-breathers anyway so it doesn’t bother me either way.

    In a related note, now ATL has hired UA’s Sarkesian as new OC. Guess Saban will just reload again – let’s hope. Man, if I was a coach I’d take an Alabama job for free knowing that I will cash in after a year or two from some other university.

  8. Moose…

    I joked on Twitter the other day that it was appropriate that Sark was headed to Atlanta considering the entire town needs a drink.

    I did stumble upon a Falcons reddit page where they were all (all three of them) weeping in their soup about how tough a loss it was.

    So if you want to experience some quality misery, head in that direction.

    Don’t forget to email me your address so I can get you prizes out in the mail.

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