Opinion: Falcons squander chance for landmark win

Nick Pouch, Staff Writer

Super Bowl 51 included two great quarterbacks, two great coaches, and the biggest choke in football history.

The Atlanta Falcons dominated the first half, with the defense putting pressure on Tom Brady and the offense putting big drives and points on the board.

At the end of the first half the Falcons were beating the Patriots 21-3.

In the beginning of the third quarter, Atlanta came out and scored a touchdown on its second drive to put the score at 28-3.

Tom Brady started finding his grove finally, as he got important third-down conversions and even a fourth-down conversion to finally score a touchdown. A missed extra point only gave the Pats six to make the game 28-9 going into the fourth.

The fourth quarter is where it all went downhill for the Falcons, as Brady started to expose the Falcons’ defense.

He finally started to look like Tom Brady as he was finding his receivers and making good reads on the defense.

It started with a field goal and then they went down again to score a touchdown and convert on a two-point conversion.

Then it was 28-20 with Falcons with the ball.

The Falcons started the drive well as they came into field-goal range. If they had succeeded, it would have put the game out of reach.

Then bad play calling with a pass on second down led to a sack, which then led to a holding call, which put the Falcon out of field-goal range.

The Falcons’ defense then completely was exposed in the final minutes as the Patriots tied the game, which sent it into overtime.

The Patriots got the ball first and they drove the ball down the field and won the game with a touchdown reception by James White.

Atlanta was left heartbroken, having blown a chance for their first Super Bowl title, as well as an opportunity to stop the Patriots dynasty.