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The Atlanta Falcons were breathtakingly close to turning their NRG Stadium locker room into party quarters late Sunday night. At the end of a stunning fourth quarter, however, the Falcons’ haven had all the atmosphere of a funeral parlor.
“We’ll be a part of history,” said Falcons tight end Austin Hooper, still in disbelief at what he had just witnessed. “We just weren’t on the right side of it.”
Indeed, the New England Patriots overcame the largest deficit in Super Bowl history to prevail 34-28 in the only overtime game in Super Bowl history. Afterward, one could have heard a jaw drop in the Falcons’ confines, as they tried explaining what had just happened.
“There was never any doubt in my mind,” said Falcons tight end Levine Toilolo, of whether Atlanta would hold on to a more than three-touchdown lead in the second half.
There should have been, considering Tom Brady was quarterbacking the Patriots. After finding his footing, Brady led the franchise to a fifth NFL championship.
“Tom Brady,” said Ra’Shede Hageman, of what exactly went wrong for Atlanta and right for New England.
Hageman then said, “Tom Brady,” at least 10 times over the next few minutes.
“We lost. There’s no other way to say it,” Hageman explained. “It’s Tom Brady, what do you expect? It’s Tom Brady being Tom Brady. He executed. Tom Brady was on his game. We tried to get pressure on him. He’s been to the Super Bowl how many times? What did you expect?”
The Falcons, in their 51st season, narrowly and harrowingly just missed winning their first NFL championship in the 51st Super Bowl.
“This adds more fuel to the fire,” Hageman said, in finally moving the conversation away from Tom Brady.
Some of the players in the mausoleum with lockers barely spoke above a whisper, appropriate for such a setting.
“We weren’t playing like ourselves,” receiver Mohamed Sanu said of the Falcons’ mystifying second half. “We didn’t come out and do what we do, and there just wasn’t much energy.”
Why — and why not — will haunt the Falcons for the remaining years of the franchise, considering the energetic setting before more than 70,000 fans in the nation’s biggest game.
“As a defense, we lost some of our aggressiveness from earlier in the game,” said linebacker De’Vondre Campbell, seated toward his locker and facing away from any television cameras.
Dried blood covered much of Campbell’s left white pant leg, one more testament to four quarters of physical play, between one franchise trying to win its fifth championship and the other its first.
Afterward Brady cried on the field, dubbing the climax the end of a “long marathon.”
Falcons owner Arthur Blank, just outside the Atlanta locker room, hugged a crying child.
Around the same time, Falcons cheerleaders wandered up a stadium tunnel, with some of their eyes watery. As they reached the sanctity of the tunnel, they cast their eyes toward a TV on the service level — one showing Tom Brady on the field crying.
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