The Falcons did the impossible, losing Super Bowl LI despite having the trophy all but in their possession. With 2:06 remaining in the third quarter, holding a 28-9 lead, Atlanta had a 98.9 percent chance to beat the Patriots, according to ESPN.
Of course, as everyone knows, it didn’t turn out in the Falcons’ favor. That, quarterback Matt Ryan admits, has proved hard to get over.
“It takes a little bit of time; there’s no question about that,” Ryan told SiriusXM’s Bruce Murray and Phil Savage. “I think that the further you go and don’t end up winning that, the tougher it is. But at the same time, for me it was one of those things that you think about it, you try and assess what you could have done better, what you would do differently moving forward.
“And then, ultimately, you’ve got to move on.”
The Falcons have insisted all offseason there will be no Super Bowl hangover. The 10 Super Bowl losers before the Falcons combined to go 102-58 the following season.
Atlanta plans to use the sting of the Super Bowl loss as motivation for 2017.
“I felt like I took a couple weeks to get away from it and spend time just relaxing and kind of disappearing for a bit,” Ryan said. “But when I got back, and we started to work on this 2017 season and the team that we have now, all of my focus goes there. I think you’ll always have a little bit of that scar that kind of drives you, and that’s fine. Never let go of that. But our focus is 100 percent about what we’re doing and what we’re moving forward to.”
