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Please tell me us Saints fans weren't this pathetic when we finally became a winning team!!

ATLANTA — During their dismal first season, the Atlanta Falcons' mascot - a real bird - apparently decided he had seen enough bad football.

So, he picked up and left. Just flew away.

For the better part of the next four decades, plenty of Atlantans probably wished they could've followed the lead of that prescient falcon in 1966. This was the home of a team that always found a way to quickly snuff out whatever hope it had.

The franchise's only trip to the Super Bowl? That was ruined by the arrest of perhaps its most respected player the night before the big game. The Michael Vick era? That crashed and burned when it was discovered the one-of-a-kind quarterback had another passion - dogfighting.

Well, look at the Falcons now.

They have put together four straight winning seasons and are well on their way to a fifth, joining Houston as the only teams that are still unbeaten five weeks into the season. Since the beginning of 2008, the Falcons have won 48 out of 69 games. Only the New England Patriots have won more during that span.

No one could have imagined the Falcons ever becoming a model franchise.

Read more here: ATLANTA: Once-downtrodden Falcons now among NFL's best | Atlanta Falcons | Macon.com

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