The undefeated football team you aren’t hearing about
In case you did not know, there is one team left undefeated in the NFL this season. It’s not the Patriots, who many in the Boston area predicted could go 16-0 again this season but instead sit at 5-3 after nine weeks of football. It’s certainly not the Tim Tebow/Mark Sanchez-led Jets, who are 3-5 and still struggling to find some success this year. Last season’s Super Bowl champion Giants are 6-3, certainly a good record but not an undefeated one.
So who is it that is still perfect halfway through the season? It’s none other than the Atlanta Falcons, a team that went 10-6 last year before losing in the first round of the playoffs to the Giants.
The Falcons are not a big market team. They have never really made a strong run in the playoffs, and they lost the only Super Bowl they ever appeared in (a 34-19 loss to John Elway’s Broncos in 1999).
Atlanta does not have many big stars on the roster, and although quarterback Matt Ryan is known pretty well in the Boston area since he was a star at Boston College, he has yet to gain the national fame of elite quarterbacks like Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Eli Manning.
The Falcons also are not blowing away opponents. Of their eight wins, five were won by one score or less. Their beaten opponents are not necessarily top-notch teams either; only one team beaten by the Falcons this year currently has an above-.500 record. In the coming weeks, the only formidable looking opponents the Falcons will face are the Steelers and the Eagles.
So is this 8-0 streak by the Falcons really all that impressive? Yes.
Despite the weak schedule, going 8-0 in the NFL is nothing to scoff at. The Falcons have often been put in situations where they needed to make plays at the end of the game to come out with the win. This includes Sunday’s game, where the Falcons had to protect a 19-13 lead over the Cowboys for the final five minutes of the game for the victory.
The Falcons still have a good chance to go 16-0 this season, mostly because they have a weak schedule facing them and have proven that they can execute the little things necessary to complete games. It probably won’t be very exciting – the Falcons are a flashy team – but if you want to watch history, you might want to start tuning in to Atlanta football on Sundays.
