The NFL knows that football fans are starting to itch. No games have been played since the week of Valentine’s Day. Scott Hanson is sending out his weekly summer countdown of how many Sundays remain until the RedZone returns to our lives — nine weeks. Still, that first Sunday is after Labor Day. With the people craving to watch enormous human beings collide, the NFL Twitter account posted the entire Atlanta Falcons vs. New England Patriots Super Bowl.
One of the most legendary choke jobs in world history, and it was viewable to all with an account on Elon Musk’s threads. A seemingly harmless social media drop the night of the MLB All-Star Game ended up being taken down long before the ninth inning.
Falcons fans were not thrilled about their franchise’s greatest shame — no easy list to top — being shown in its totality on a platform where it can again go viral. All of the glorious memes from that night in 2017 were given new life on a night in which the Falcons were on no one’s mind except for those waiting for the first episode of that Netflix NFL quarterback documentary.
Matt Ryan, Kyle Shanahan, Keanu Neal, Robert Alford, and Ricardo Allen were minding their own business. A random memory of moments when people made an ass of themselves can ruin an entire day. Those men had what is probably their lowest professional moment tweeted, retweeted, and the Falcons’ rival New Orleans Saints taking shots.
Tweeting out the entire game was a bit insensitive from the NFL Twitter handle, but ideas that go massively viral can get social media professionals promotions. Videos that are nearly two hours long normally don’t get that kind of engagement, but that Super Bowl was an indelible pop culture moment.
Tom Brady tossed a pick-six in the first half, and it appeared that the dynasty was going to go all from grace like the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons. Then Shanahan — the designer of one of the greatest running schemes of all time — forgot where the handoffs were in his playbook. That night was a slow, methodical, and tortuous fall from grace for the Falcons and their fans. Falconing was already a verb, but that night made it worthy of a place in Webster’s.
The entire game is on YouTube for Patriots fans, Saints fans, or anyone else with a desire to use a view of that Super Bowl as a nicotine patch to tide them over until the Kansas City Chiefs unveil their new championship banner against the Detroit Lions on Sept. 7.
It would have been nice to send some jokes the Falcons’ way in the morning, but the NFL went soft and had to remove the post. A legitimately creative social media idea that would have allowed the NFL to do what it does best, suck the steam out of other sports’ big events.
But as usual, the NFL cannot help but revert to the no fun league. A great post was cut down long before Craig Kimbrel salted away the first National League All-Star win since 2012.
