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People here will tell you its a cop out or its tired or played out. In reality it is FACT that the falcons have always let us down. Zero rings. Until they do win it all, He's right. Folks are just mad because he's right and they don't like it. Here's the thing: you're both right! You can't tell someone how to feel. Emotions don't work that way and never will. So fans that are mad about the falcons always falling short, they are right and they are allowed to feel that way. Vice versa if you choose to support the team and not like it when people bash the team, well thats a valid emotion too. Don't boss me bro!

Good thing no one can see the preseason games and none of the regular season games aren't on film. Hate for someone to see what we are doing.

The answer is pretty straight forward really and g-dawg hit on it at the start. DQ told TD and Pioli in a very clear manner, the exact player and fit he wanted. Not just on D but on O as well. He told the scouts how he wanted to base evaluations. The opposite is true for Mike Smith. Smitty would say "we run a 4-3 3-4 defense and we don't want to give anything away." Just think as a scout, how the F do you put together talent for that?

THIS. This is how you know Rico needs to be upgraded. But certain posters refuse to look at the evidence. Not only did we switch to cover 1, we did it without Trufant who was better at Man than Collins.

Yep. I was on the "boot rico out" club in 2016 training camp. I've had to listen to the "rico is a baller" stupidity for a long **** time.

Read the boards here and the people will tell you how Ricardo allen is a baller and how there is no way we were trying to replace him. They don't understand.

Eh. I know you are specifically talking about 1 game, the super bowl. But when you step back and look at the season as a whole, our defense giving up 30 points was almost common in occurrence. The D didnt get us to the super bowl and the D didnt win us a super bowl and rightfully so, they needed to bare the brunt of criticisms.

Oh I completely agree. You have a guy that was a 5th round corner, cut, and then placed into a new position. Rico isn't going to be "very good" and its the exact reason you had to put solid in quotations. DQ wants exceptional in all spots, as any coach does, but when you had to rebuild an entire defense like DQ had to do, some times you have to settle for "solid" while you fix more pressing needs. Good post, and much better than @Vandy who showed his knowledge with a "LMAO" post. Go read paytonmanningforhead or randomfans posts on Rico and learn what a free safety liability Rico is. People know, just not you.

Nah, Most people who know football play understand that Rico is not that good and is serviceable at best. What you're forgetting is that we had to overhaul and ENTIRE defense thanks to Smitty. We had to purge 9 guys, 9 starters! You can't replace 9 guys in 2 years with stars at each position. Trust me, Rico's time is coming and it maybe this year but the writing is on the wall for next year 100%.

ISO a link or statement that officially states Matt will have more freedom.

IMO, the biggest take away is that our FO now actively uses smoke screens. In the Mike Smith days, you knew exactly who we were taking. Everyone knew we were taking Weatherspoon and Trufant and Jake Mathews. Now we cloud up the whole draft and it helps us get our guys.

I see shoe-string sacks don't count so he rightfully left out Rodgers.

The facemask one? Freeman had fumbled on the 1 yard line on the previous series and was determined to make up for it. It's too bad he doesnt run that hard every time. He said within the last week, that he wants to play harder this year and that he felt he left something on the field last year.

Good Post OP. Im the exact same way. After being a fan from the 80's, that Super bowl loss nearly made me leave this team forever. I actually have a "second fav" team now just so I can have something to fall back on when the Falcons inevitably let us down yet again. We all know it is coming. My biggest struggle is looking at the history of this team. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". Look at what the Falcon teams of past have done after NFCCG games and it should lead you to be cautious about our future. Plus, 28-3 will never, ever go away. They have it on the calendar now as Falcon's day, march 28th. People running the boston marathon are greeted by a sign reading 28-3 2mins 3rd qtr. Sports writers will always use OUR super bowl as the marker for the worst collapse in SB history. I-85 and SB collapse jokes abound. It's who we are as a sports town in Atlanta, from College to pro sports, we are the bottom. It's hard. Always suffering and if you don't remember your history, well, don't say you weren't warned.

Hags isn't that good. 2 sacks last year and 1 was a shoestring miracle and people want to claim "he came on late in the year". He's not. I know exactly why people don't get it. It's because for decades, the Falcons have held onto players with "potential". Players like Sidbury, Kerry Meir and James Stone that people swore up and down were going to be good one day. But THESE Falcons, DQs falcons, don't do "potential". You either have C/T or you get released. You gotta stop thinking that we are the team that hopes for players to become something and instead we are a tam that only fields players that are of known value. Hageman won't be resigned when his contract expires and some of us have been saying this for 2 years now.