Nobody Had to Invent This One

I wrote a hedge yesterday morning. It came due before the day was out.

The sentence was this: "Because Atlanta has spent a decade being told it doesn't get taken seriously, and when nobody supplies the evidence, we manufacture it. That's my read of my own town, not a poll."

Not a poll.

That afternoon, a poll. Six anonymous NFL executives gave the Falcons an average of 15.3 on a 1-16 NFC scale. Next-to-last. Ahead of Arizona and nobody else. Three of the six put Atlanta dead last, the Giants came in at 13.3 and sit ahead of them, and one 14th-place ballot is the only reason the Falcons aren't on the bottom of the page outright.

That's The Falcoholic's Saivion Mixson relaying Mike Sando's survey at The Athletic. I read Mixson. I did not read Sando. You should know which one I'm quoting.

So does yesterday's thesis survive?

Narrower, yes. Wrong, no. And I should have drawn the line on the page instead of assuming I'd never have to.

Here's the line. A manufactured slight is a fanbase hearing an insult inside a compliment - Bryce Harper says "really good" and half this city runs it through a translator. An evaluation is six people who run football teams putting a number on a roster, anonymously, with nothing to gain by lying. Those are different objects. The tell is that one of them can be checked.

So check it. The executive who projected a ninth straight sub-.500 season wasn't twisting a knife. That's reading eight years and adding one. 2018 through 2025, every season under .500. Last winning year: 2017.

You can argue with a projection. You cannot argue with the eight seasons underneath it.

Which brings me to the receipt I actually owe you, and it's fourteen days old, not one. On August 20 I read ESPN's 27th-place ranking of this team and refused to sign it at 62%. The Falcoholic didn't argue with ESPN then. It isn't arguing now - Mixson's own words are "This is not an unfair assessment."

Six executives just said a harder version of what ESPN said, and the number doesn't move. Not stubbornness. Nothing has happened yet. Atlanta is 0-0. Pittsburgh is ten days away.

Yesterday's slight, we went and found. This one was handed to us with the math attached.

Both are worth answering. Only one of them gets answered at Acrisure Stadium.