No Playoffs, but Falcons Will Still Fight for Winning Record

Even if it means nothing in any championship picture, the Atlanta Falcons saved their season on Sunday.

The Falcons waved bye-bye to the playoffs officially Saturday night, when Dallas upset New Orleans 24-17. The Cowboys' win cemented the fact that Atlanta won't sniff the postseason.

So it wouldn't have been a surprise to see the Falcons come out flat against the New York Jets the next day, especially with Rex Ryan's team still with a division title or a wild-card berth to play for.

And sure, the Jets were the better team on this day, gifting the Falcons chance after chance while leaving points on the Meadowlands turf.

But the Falcons defense played above their heads (which isn't saying much), and Matt Ryan added another early notch to the Matty Ice Legend to lead the Falcons on the game-winning drive, finding Tony Gonzalez on a fourth-and-goal in the end zone in the closing seconds of Atlanta's 10-7 win.

The comeback, and the wherewithal, minus any hopes of a postseason, says a lot about this team, but mainly this:

The franchise is tired of being labeled as losers.

And the best way to rid that stigma is to kill the franchise's most dubious distinction—44 seasons of playing NFL football, and not once have the Falcons had back-to-back winning seasons.

It's pathetic.

It's embarrassing.

It's, hopefully for the Falcons, about to change.

Arthur Blank, the team's owner, has never felt like he was the owner of a loser. And indeed, his tenure has seen a bigger concentration of winners than Atlanta is used to seeing from its NFL team. The Falcons are a semi-respectable 62-63-1 since Blank bought the Falcons in 2002, making the playoffs three times with one division title.

But Blank couldn't control the Michael Vick fiasco, nor could he foresee Bobby Petrino's quick distaste for the NFL a couple months later during a disastrous 2007 season that saw the Falcons go 4-12.

For Blank and the Falcons, though, the Vick and Petrino blunders turned out to be blessings in disguise, allowing for the hire of new general manager Thomas Dimitroff, who hired head coach Mike Smith. Then came the drafting of Matt Ryan with the third overall pick in the 2008 draft.

The new Falcons trust went 11-5 in its first season, quickly turning around a—no better way to say it—loser.

Now, the same trust has a chance to forever put its stamp on the Falcons' sorted, mostly losing history.

Huge expectations came in 2009, but a brutal schedule and a crippling array of injuries put the playoffs out of the realm of reality much sooner than most expected for this team.

But there is still a light at the end of a narrow 2009 tunnel.

Sunday's win didn't keep Atlanta in the thick of any hunt. It might have very well ended the Jets' chances, which is something to hang your hat on.

But more importantly for the Falcons franchise, it kept hope alive that the team will finally clean its biggest stain. Hope remains for back-to-back winning seasons.

With two more wins, they'll be free.