The epic 0.2-percent 25-point collapse by the Falcons wasn’t the first time the NFC champions blew a fourth-quarter lead in the 2016 season. It was the fifth.
Putting it another way, the Falcons lost six games all year -- and five included blown fourth-quarter leads.
D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution breaks down the various breakdowns, which happened four times in the regular season.
The most recent came against the Chiefs in early December, a game that served as a turning point for the Falcons. The four before the Super Bowl each featured a key Matt Ryan interception. Super Bowl LI didn’t include a Ryan interception, but it was a Ryan fumble that gave the Patriots a short field while down by 16 in the fourth quarter.
For the entire season, Ryan had only seven interceptions. Four of them came in losses that happened in games the Falcons led in the fourth quarter.
Even with the fumble from the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LI, the Falcons still could have won the game if they’d simply opted to run and not throw on the drive that put Atlanta on the New England 22 with a first and 10 late in regulation. After a run was stuffed, the Falcons dialed up a pass -- and you know the rest.
"[I]t’s human nature when you get in big moments like that, to lock up, to hesitate, to try to take the easy way out and make sure you don’t get blamed,” former Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan said during the press conference that introduced him as the head coach of the 49ers. “That’s something that I wasn’t going to do and people on our team weren’t going to do. We played that game how we played the entire year and I thought I called plays in that game the way I had the entire year.”
That’s fine, but as Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy pointed out on Monday’s PFT Live, head coach Dan Quinn should have stepped in and ordered Shanahan to run the ball, run the ball, and run the ball some more, taking at worst a field goal and an 11-point lead, which likely would have been insurmountable.
Then again, maybe it wouldn’t have been insurmountable. The Patriots have mastered situational football; for them, there’s no “way” of playing a game other than playing it in the way aimed at scoring more points than the other team in each game.