Ben’s Sports Take: Worst loss in Atlanta sports history?

There are numerous aspects of Atlanta that make it one of the most inhabited and frequently visited cities in the country—the city’s sports scene isn’t one of them.

So when we get the opportunity to host a game of tremendous significance in perhaps the most popular sport in the world, it would behoove the city to have its home team perform well in order to disprove Atlanta’s reputation as one of the worst sports cities in the U.S.

Unfortunately, that was not the case last Saturday night as the Falcons were able to cram 45 years of ineptitude into a single three-hour exhibition of how not to play winning football.

The 48-21 drubbing ranks as the seventh largest margin of defeat by a home team in NFL playoff history and the second largest margin of defeat by a home team in Divisional round history. (Our thanks to the 1943 New York Giants, who lost 28-0 at home to the Washington Redskins, for maintaining that distinction)

But on Saturday night as I watched the horror unfold on my 42-inch window of despair, struggling to stifle the nausea and gut-wrenching agony, I thought to myself: Is this the worst loss in Atlanta sports history?

The short answer would be yes, but allow me to divulge a slightly longer explanation as to why the Falcons’ 48-21 loss was, in fact, the city’s most debilitating defeat.