Opinion: Falcons' free fall shows Atlanta still can't shake Super Bowl meltdown

ATLANTA — In the final analysis, it is impossible to separate the predicament of the Atlanta Falcons now from 28-3.

For this franchise in this moment, it’s not just an avatar for an all-time sports meltdown — maybe the all-time sports meltdown. It’s not just a Twitter meme to pull out every time Atlanta adds a chapter to its tortured history in pro sports. 

By the end of this season, three years will have passed since the Falcons coughed up a Super Bowl title they nearly had two arms around. And yet it’s clear the cascading effect of that New England Patriots comeback is like a virus that has multiplied until it’s finally taken over their entire system.

The Falcons are now 1-6 after their latest embarrassment, a 37-10 loss at home to the Los Angeles Rams, which means the season is over and the conversation will begin in earnest about when — it doesn’t seem to really be much of an "if" at this point — they get rid of coach Dan Quinn and try something new. 

Though Quinn immediately walked off the podium from his news conference Sunday and into an embrace from Falcons owner Arthur Blank, we all know how this works in the NFL. Someone has to be held accountable for an Atlanta team that on paper was supposed to be one of the league’s best but has played like one of its worst, and Quinn has all but run out of time to prove that he’s not the problem here. 

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He acknowledged Sunday that he’s delegated some defensive playcalling duties over the last two weeks, a move that hasn’t worked particularly well considering the Falcons gave up 34 to the Cardinals and couldn’t do much to stop the Rams. When asked whether he's lost the team, he acknowledged that it was a fair question when you look at the performances this season. 

“You spend most of your time trying to connect and trying to get the team to play like we're capable of, so the answer I’d say is no,” Quinn said. “But the disbelief at times of not playing like we’re capable of, that can be very frustrating.” 

But again, it all comes back to 28-3. We know that in the NFL, the life cycle for every roster, except that of the Patriots, is short. You get the right pieces in place, you win games that increase the value of your players, you start bumping into the salary cap, you hit the reset button. 

When the Falcons got so close to a title with a team that they could largely keep together, they went all-in. They gave quarterback Matt Ryan a huge contract extension with a cap hit that explodes in 2020. They made Devonta Freeman the highest-paid running back in the league at the time. They locked up star receiver Julio Jones this summer for $66 million over three years. And they've used drafts since the Super Bowl to address their aging offensive line and fill in gaps on defense. 

In other words, Blank and general manager Thomas Dimitroff made a very conscious decision after the Super Bowl: They had their team, and they were going to do whatever it took to keep it together. The problem is it doesn’t score a lot of points anymore and has gotten worse defensively every year. Even if the Falcons wanted to clean house now, what could they realistically do other than call this a coaching problem and see if someone else can do better than Quinn? 

“My thing is, we take care of us,” linebacker Deion Jones said. “We don’t care about whatever the outside says. We still have to go back to work. We have (Quinn’s) back, and we just have to keep fighting.” 

But whether the Falcons make a move on Quinn after next Sunday's game against Seattle going into the bye week or at the end of the season, it seems like there’s a deeper issue the Falcons can’t shake. 

Nobody thinks that their players and coaches show up at work thinking about 28-3 or that it’s in their minds when they’re playing a game. It’s more like that moment represents the peak of where the Falcons could go with this group, and yet they’ve doubled down on believing in it even as the performance level has clearly eroded over time — NFC champion in 2016 to non-threatening wild-card playoff team in 2017 to 7-9 in 2018 to the bottom falling out on Sunday.

“When you're not (performing), there’s lots of reasons,” Quinn said. “That's where I spend most of my time — to look at how all three phases can get connected to do it, and when you don’t, you keep digging for answers. I recognize when you don’t play well those are fair questions, but I don't feel like we’re ever out of the fight and until we do what we’re capable of, my fight will always stay consistent.”

But what the Falcons are capable of with these players now seems like a case of miscast expectations and foggy memories. The Super Bowl was a moment in time for this franchise, and now it’s now well in the rear-view mirror. 

Dumping Quinn is almost assuredly going to be part of the answer to finally moving beyond it. But given how much the Falcons have invested in the unrealized potential of its roster, that may only be the beginning. 

Follow Dan Wolken on Twitter @DanWolken.