Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I'm sure most Falcons fans still revere 1980 as their best team ever, but out of these two Atl squads that actually did make the Super Bowl, who's better between these two?

I would say the 2016 team,but I wonder,what's the more painful loss?A game you weren't ever in,or one you were leading and lost.

falconfan58 wrote:I would say the 2016 team,but I wonder,what's the more painful loss?A game you weren't ever in,or one you were leading and lost.

Studies show, quite overwhelmingly, the latter. You can read about it in Michael Lewis's new book "The Undoing Project", which is about the work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.

As to the original question, the 2016 version is better. That 1998 team had a bit of a whiff of a fluke season about it, with all those old guys who had come over from other teams for one last gasp.

1998 team had losing records the two years before and the three years after. Truly a fluke 14-2 team.

I remember them for beating the Cunningham/Moss Vikings. As a Packer fan I was grateful for that. Don't know if that's a feather in the cap for a Falcon fan, but it seemed like a big, exciting win.

We'll see what happens with this team. Matt Ryan had five straight winning seasons under Mike Smith. This team was probably as good as the 2010 or 2012 team through the regular season. But there were three losing seasons before this one. Will they fall back again next year? My prediction will be yes (maybe not sub .500, but 2017 will be a disappointment) but time will tell.

Jay Z wrote:1998 team had losing records the two years before and the three years after. Truly a fluke 14-2 team.

I remember them for beating the Cunningham/Moss Vikings. As a Packer fan I was grateful for that. Don't know if that's a feather in the cap for a Falcon fan, but it seemed like a big, exciting win.

We'll see what happens with this team. Matt Ryan had five straight winning seasons under Mike Smith. This team was probably as good as the 2010 or 2012 team through the regular season. But there were three losing seasons before this one. Will they fall back again next year? My prediction will be yes (maybe not sub .500, but 2017 will be a disappointment) but time will tell.

The only historical parallel we have for something like this is the 1992 Oilers, who after blowing the 35-3 lead to Buffalo lost the Wild Card game 41-38. The Oilers fired their DC after the game and brought in Buddy Ryan, and in 1993 struggled early, starting the season 1-4. However, the team came together and ran the table thru the rest of the regular season for their only AFC Central title. By the end of the season, the Oilers were clearly the strongest AFC team coming into the playoffs, but were upset in the Divisional round by the Chiefs, although the Oilers were dealing with the recent suicide of Jeff Alm and the infamous punch that Buddy Ryan threw at Kevin Gilbride.

I think the Falcons will do fine in 2017. They remain the best team of the NFC South, and Dan Quinn has proven (the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LI aside) that he will be a very successful NFL head coach. I expect the Panthers to bounce back somewhat in 2017, win 9-10 games perhaps, but the Falcons should own this division.

In the case of the 2016 Falcons vs the 1998 Falcons, time is on the side of the 2016 team. And if you do a position by position comparison of the two teams, I think the 2016 comes out slightly ahead.

Rupert Patrick wrote:

Jay Z wrote:1998 team had losing records the two years before and the three years after. Truly a fluke 14-2 team.

I remember them for beating the Cunningham/Moss Vikings. As a Packer fan I was grateful for that. Don't know if that's a feather in the cap for a Falcon fan, but it seemed like a big, exciting win.

We'll see what happens with this team. Matt Ryan had five straight winning seasons under Mike Smith. This team was probably as good as the 2010 or 2012 team through the regular season. But there were three losing seasons before this one. Will they fall back again next year? My prediction will be yes (maybe not sub .500, but 2017 will be a disappointment) but time will tell.

The only historical parallel we have for something like this is the 1992 Oilers, who after blowing the 35-3 lead to Buffalo lost the Wild Card game 41-38. The Oilers fired their DC after the game and brought in Buddy Ryan, and in 1993 struggled early, starting the season 1-4. However, the team came together and ran the table thru the rest of the regular season for their only AFC Central title. By the end of the season, the Oilers were clearly the strongest AFC team coming into the playoffs, but were upset in the Divisional round by the Chiefs, although the Oilers were dealing with the recent suicide of Jeff Alm and the infamous punch that Buddy Ryan threw at Kevin Gilbride.

I think the Falcons will do fine in 2017. They remain the best team of the NFC South, and Dan Quinn has proven (the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LI aside) that he will be a very successful NFL head coach. I expect the Panthers to bounce back somewhat in 2017, win 9-10 games perhaps, but the Falcons should own this division.

In the case of the 2016 Falcons vs the 1998 Falcons, time is on the side of the 2016 team. And if you do a position by position comparison of the two teams, I think the 2016 comes out slightly ahead.

I lean heavy enough toward Falcons returning to playoffs as well for '17. I feel better about they avoiding a letdown than I did Carolina avoiding one this year. As for this basic grouping ever winning a SB...we'll have to see. Blowing that lead is going to be hard to shake.

I would have to go with '16 Falcons over '98, and this w/out judging the latter on not having made playoffs since '95 and not making it again until '02; judging them strictly on '98. Though it's easy to forget that they were 14-2 (while being easy to forget that 2016's installment was 11-5, rallying 4-straight just to get to that very record), the Dirty Birds really weren't as 'bad' as people think. Yes, it took Anderson missing that FG along with Randle not playing in OT, but just the fact that they still kept it close in the end otherwise against a supposed juggernaut has to account for something. This may have been Dan Reeves' best-ever job as a HC.

In the end, however, '98 was just a scrappy bunch that highly overachieved. Talent-wise, this latter squad has much more firepower and talent, especially in the pass-game (Ryan vs Chandler - no competition, and Matt with weapons to boot). Jamal Anderson with the 1800+ output to Freeman's only 1000+, but Jamal almost twice as many touches, Freeman still with more yards-per-carry.

Led by Tuggle, '98 Falcons' D had many more seasoned players, but 2016's D - though having a bit to go until reaching their ceiling - seemed already championship-caliber the way they got it done vs Sea & GB, and then the way they were handling the Pats through three quarters. Like I said before, I think they win at Big D in a hypo-NFCC. Quinn's young bunch a learning process. First they learned their lesson from a year before (blowing that 5-0 start), now they have to return to the Big Game then close the deal there!

I wondered why the 1998 team was such a one hit wonder. Looking over the roster, they had a large reliance on players in their 30's. Their QB, FB, and both starting WR's were 31-33. On defense, they had Bennett, Tuggle at LB, William White and Eugene Robinson at S, and Lester Archambeau at DE, all 31-35.
They didn't draft particularly well from 1996-1998, outside of Keith Brooking and some offensive linemen, few of whom stayed in a Atlanta for the second contract. Theyou weren't able to replace the retired starters. Add in Jamal Anderson's injuries and Chris Chandler crashing back to earth (he had a pretty decent run between 1995-1997.)