I never go into a Falcons game hoping they’ll lose, but I was certainly resigned to the loss in this one. With the Falcons playing the defending champion Chiefs and a chance for Kansas City to lock up the top seed in the AFC, the only question was how bad it would be.
The Falcons stunned even optimistic souls by not just playing well against the Chiefs—that always seemed likely, at least in the first half—but by actually coming within a missed field goal attempt of making it to overtime against them. In the end, however, they still lost.