{"id":44376,"date":"2017-01-24T22:53:29","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T02:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44376"},"modified":"2020-07-29T22:54:07","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T02:54:07","slug":"respect-is-earned-or-the-beatings-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44376","title":{"rendered":"Respect is earned or the beatings continue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

I told myself that I wouldn\u2019t write anything about Superb Owl Lee until it was over, because I am the controller of the entire universe and the words I choose to put onto a brog post will guarantee control the entire outcome of the game.\u00a0 But I\u2019m in a little bit of a rut lately, and there are few things that help get me out of a rut than writing about sports.\u00a0 Not to mention that every now and then, I\u2019ll come across something that I guess the correct response would be that it triggers <\/em>something of an emotional synapse where I feel that words typed out is the appropriate reaction.<\/span><\/p>\n

But every now and then whenever the Atlanta Falcons, or any Atlanta-based sports team, but mostly the Falcons, find a modicum of success, they inevitably become motivation for some bigwig sports writer to take a cheap shot at not just the team, but inevitably the city itself, along with all of its denizens.\u00a0 That Atlanta teams are all pretenders, have yet to win anything (except them \u201995 Braves!<\/em>), and then that the fans are all fair-weathered bandwagon riders that only cheer for winners when they\u2019re not going bonkers over college football.\u00a0 That Atlanta is the worse sports town<\/a> in America.\u00a0 That Atlanta is pretty much the new Cleveland<\/a> when it comes to sports championship droughts.<\/span><\/p>\n

None of these allegations are incorrect, but they\u2019re revisited and flung around so many times that they\u2019re completely unoriginal and stated so many times that the only appropriate response is usually \u201cyou\u2019re right, what\u2019s your point\u201d with an annoyed eye roll.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

However, I\u2019ve stated it many times in conversation as well as when I used to participate in sports discussion on the internet: making fun of Atlanta is like making mom jokes \u2013 I\u2019m allowed to do it, other Atlanta residents are allowed to make them, but those on the outside, fuck you.\u00a0 I feel like anyone in any city should feel somewhat similarly when it comes to their own territories, or stay out of the conversations outright.<\/span><\/p>\n

The latest Atlanta Sucks diatribe comes from Boston<\/a>, where very well-known blowhard Dan Shaughnessy has decided that it\u2019s difficult to get excited or pumped up for Superb Owl Lee, because the team opposing his hometown assignment New England Patriots are none other than the Falcons from shitty and unworthy Atlanta.\u00a0 He goes through the obligatory checklist of making the sorry-not sorry passive-aggressive remarks about how it\u2019s nothing personal, Peachtree this-and-that, college football, and lack of championships.\u00a0 He tries his best to differentiate his word vomit from others by acknowledging the fact that we in Atlanta have heard this shit before and heard it often, but then he goes onto to fellate Boston and the New England region about how they expect nothing short of more championships, and that a Patriots victory in Superb Owl Lee is pretty much already achieved.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be realistic, the Patriots are the favored team; I witnessed the initial spread hit the boards in Vegas an hour after the Patriots clobbered the Steelers to punch their ticket to SBLee.\u00a0 Tom Brady is Jesus Christ-reincarnated and have proven time and time again their ability to win championship after championship, while Matt Ryan has a woeful 2-5 playoff record, an 0-2 record against the Patriots and an entire city\u2019s worth of choking expectations on his shoulders.\u00a0 By all right, the Patriots should beat the Falcons, Tom Brady is anointed god of football for eternity, and then the Falcons and all their temporary fans quietly go back into desolation until the following Tuesday morning when news of high school freshmen being preemptively scouted by the University of Georgia continue and try to mask the scent of yet another Falcons failure.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is what is expected, and I\u2019d be honest if I didn\u2019t admit that it\u2019s kind of what I expect, personally.\u00a0 But it doesn\u2019t mean that don\u2019t want the Falcons to win.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t want to see the team that represents my home, the team of plucky Davids take down the Goliath-loaded Patriots.\u00a0 Of course I\u2019d love see that happen. \u00a0The more people try and tell me something is going to happen, the more I begin to pine for the opposite to occur.\u00a0 I have no beef with the Patriots, I don\u2019t hate them like the vast majority of sports fandom outside of New England seems to.\u00a0 I think Tom Brady is a privileged and lucky man, blessed with talent and the winning gene.\u00a0 I cheered like hell for the Patriots when they beat the Seattle Seahawks last year, because I loathe the Seahawks, and I cheered like hell when the Patriots beat the Eagles in like 2005 because fuck Philadelphia.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s the arrogance of those who represent the opponents of Atlanta, that makes me want to see Atlanta overcome, flourish and succeed.\u00a0 They have yet to do it (save for them \u201995 Braves<\/em>), which means the criticism will keep coming until it does, but nothing lasts forever, and the plight of Atlanta sports will eventually break through (again) one of these days.\u00a0 I\u2019d love to be one of many writers who live in Georgia who can write things about how X team shouldn\u2019t have lost, but did, and a supposed curse over an entire region has been broken, and how the afterglow of a championship masks any future failures for a brief but totally reprieving period.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, all the shit people like Shaughnessy and the people that have come before him are blatant troll jobs; they know they can get away with them.\u00a0 History has given them the odds that they can put Atlanta down and have a high chance of success of getting to arrogantly be right about their gloating.\u00a0 But one of these days, one of these blowhards is going to be wrong, and they\u2019re the ones who will be first in line when it comes to comeuppance.\u00a0 Do any of them really want to be the team to have finally lost to an Atlanta team<\/em>?\u00a0 To have to hear the embarrassment of being the one team to have lost in a championship stake to a team from Atlanta with their shitty fans who don\u2019t care unless they\u2019re winning and are really just looking for a way to kill time until college football starts?\u00a0 Of course not.\u00a0 But as long as people keep poking bears, some motherfuckers are eventually going to get mauled.<\/span><\/p>\n

Will it happen this weekend? Will the Falcons upset Patriots and subsequently upset the entire world?\u00a0 Probably not, because the ruler of the world<\/a> (me) has written this post and it\u2019s all but condemned the Falcons to another crushing defeat and another close call.\u00a0 But I, like many other Atlanta-based sports fans can hope for something different, and hope to see Atlanta overcome, topple the mighty Patriots, and end an entire region\u2019s period of insufferable misery of not knowing what it\u2019s like to see a championship (except them \u201995 Braves<\/em>).<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite me inevitably jinxing the Falcons, I don\u2019t think victory is impossible.\u00a0 The Falcons\u2019 modus operandi all season has been all about spreading the ball around and not relying on two receivers, a tight end and a tailback, and they\u2019ve got a young defense with vigorous legs that have been impressive all playoffs at both harassing quarterbacks as well as defending the pass.\u00a0 And frankly, the more everyone writes the Falcons off, the more I begin to wonder if the players themselves are steaming and getting pissed and wanting to use all this detraction as fuel to explode all over the Patriots.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I said, I don\u2019t have a problem with the Patriots, but I\u2019d be lying if I didn\u2019t say it would be pretty great if the Falcons pulled off the impossible, and made everyone who has ever tried to shit on Atlanta shut the fuck up for two minutes.\u00a0 But respect is earned, and the Falcons need to not choke again and grab that fucking respect not just for themselves, but for an entire city, craving some sports gratification.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I told myself that I wouldn\u2019t write anything about Superb Owl Lee until it was over, because I am the controller of the entire universe and the words I choose to put onto a brog post will guarantee control the entire outcome of the game.\u00a0 But I\u2019m in a little bit of a rut lately, … Continue reading Respect is earned or the beatings continue<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[106,143,58,127,124],"class_list":["post-44376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-football","tag-ohatlanta","tag-sports","tag-superb-owl","tag-trolls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44378,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44376\/revisions\/44378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}