The Super Bowl will be played in Atlanta in February 2019, which means the Falcons are the next team with a chance to be the first to play the biggest game of the year on their home field.
The man who was behind building Mercedes-Benz Stadium believes the team has a good chance of getting there. Falcons owner Arthur Blank thinks the team has much of what they need in order to advance to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
“You know, I think we’re close,” Blank said, via Vaughn McClure of ESPN.com. “Obviously, we were there last year. We got to the second round this year. We could have proceeded further, but we didn’t. So, I think the team is in good shape. We have some areas that need to be improved on and worked on. And I think the coach [Dan Quinn] and [General Manager] Thomas [Dimitroff] are aware of those. That’s why we have the draft and free agency, and we’ll be focused on those.”
One obvious are where the Falcons can improve is on offense, where they dropped from the league’s best unit to the middle of the pack after Steve Sarkisian replaced Kyle Shanahan as offensive coordinator. Blank said he thinks the unit will be “in good shape” in their second season with Sarkisian at the helm. There are questions elsewhere as well, but a move back up the ladder on offense will likely be essential to any hopes of proving Blank right in 2018.