Falcons 22, Bears 20: Matt Ryan Gets a Signature Win

Falcons fans you deserve to enjoy a win like this one.

For a team that has more bad news during 2007 than most teams face in a decade, today's win over the Bears is the official sign that the team can forget about Michael Vick and flush away any memory of the disaster that was Bobby Petrino.

Now new coach Mike Smith has already won as many games as the Falcons won all last year. Matt Ryan has already showed that he gives the team a very bright future, and now, both of them have a signature win.

When the Falcons beat the Lions and Chiefs, it could be explained away as the Falcons beating two of the worst teams in the league. Even last week's win over the Packers was a surprise win against a banged-up team.

But there's no doubt that Sunday's win proves something. The Bears may not be a likely Super Bowl team, but they are a potential playoff team. Atlanta had dominated most of the game, but when Jason Elam missed a 33-yard field goal with just under three minutes to go, you could almost see the end result.
The Falcons are never lucky, so when they don't take advantage of their opportunities--like they did when Elam failed to kick a field goal that would have given the Falcons a nine-point lead, you knew what was going to happen. Chicago was going to drive all the way downfield, score the game-winning touchdown, likely in the final seconds, and the Falcons were going to lose a game that they should have won. Just like they have for years.

And it followed right according to the script. Chicago drove downfield, and finally scored on a 17-yard pass from Kyle Orton to Rashied Davis with 11 seconds to go. Here it was, yet more proof that bad teams figure out ways to lose games.

But that's what makes this so important. There was no rational way to expect that the Falcons could do anything with the remaining 11 seconds, and even when Harry Douglas returned the squib quick to the Bears 44, with no timeouts left it didn't really mean much. After all, what can you do with six seconds?

But then Matt Ryan found Michael Jenkins 26 yards downfield and Jenkins stepped out of bounds with one second to go, all of a sudden the Falcons got a glimmer of hope that maybe this year is different. And when Jason Elam hit the 48-yard field goal to win it, it started a celebration unlike any I can remember for the Falcons in a couple of years.

Now here we are with the Falcons sitting tied for the NFC South lead, and a winning record within reach. The schedule gets tougher, but there are two games (Raiders and Rams) that should be wins. Then if Atlanta can win two of its other eight games (which isn't asking a whole lot) we're talking about eight wins for a team some predicted to go 0-for-16.

And that says a lot for the new Falcons, and a lot about the team's potential in the future.