Super Bowl hangover gone? Falcons already past collapse, onto 2-0 start

ATLANTA – Let Desmond Trufant call it as he sees it.

“Comeback season,” the Atlanta Falcons cornerback told USA TODAY Sports, in the aftermath of the festive victory that christened Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday night. “That’s my theme for this year. I just want to come back, do my thing, get back to the old me. Be even better than I was. That’s my whole goal.”

Trufant certainly looked the part against the Green Bay Packers, delivering two pivotal plays that were essential to the 34-23 result.

With under a minute left in the first half, he picked off Aaron Rodgers’ deep sideline shot after the intended target, Geronimo Allison, intended to pull up short on his route. It allowed Trufant to demonstrate improvement with the hands he’s been knocked for and set up Matt Ryan’s short touchdown throw to Tevin Coleman.

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On the second snap of the second half, Trufant scooped up Rodgers’ fumble – a lame pass attempt caused by Vic Beasley’s rush than landed before the line of scrimmage – and returned it 15 yards for the touchdown that made it 31-7.

“What a night for him,” Falcons coach Dan Quinn noted.

It almost may make you wonder: What if?

Trufant, a first-round pick in 2013, is Atlanta’s best defensive back. But he was nowhere to be found during the Falcons’ dreadful collapse in Super Bowl LI after his 2016 season was cut short in Week 9 by a torn pectoral muscle.

Maybe it would have been a different outcome, perhaps Trufant could have made a difference while, say, covering Julian Edelman, as the New England Patriots rallied back from a 28-3 deficit.

No, we’ll never know for sure. It’s good conjecture now. And something to help drive Trufant.

“I’m not going to sit here and say it wasn’t hard for me,” Trufant said of missing the Super Bowl run. “But I just did what I could. It just brought me back down to Earth. I had to start over again.”

Trufant’s comeback theme undoubtedly applies to the bigger picture for his team, two weeks into the new season. With each game, the Falcons (2-0) have the opportunity to put more distance between the Super Bowl debacle and the new mission.

The romp against the Packers – the team they drubbed in the NFC title game in January -- had to help. Atlanta, fast and furious, demonstrated it can be the same type of explosive team in the new, loud $1.5 billion digs as it was in the raucous Georgia Dome. After sputtering in the season-opening win at Chicago, Ryan and the multi-faceted offense found its rhythm against Green Bay’s defense. Again.

Yet we know the Falcons are supposed to be good, given all  those weapons on offense and all that speed and energy on defense. Whether they like it or not, the standard for success will be measured in a Super Bowl context.

You’d have to go back to the Buffalo Bills of the 1990’s to find a team that got back to the Super Bowl in the season after losing one. That’s the Falcons’ challenge now.

Sure, it’s a new season. Things change. Circumstances, injuries, personnel, adversities are never the same. For instance, the Falcons have a new play-caller for their prolific offense in Steve Sarkisian, who replaced the departed Kyle Shanahan, now coaching the San Francisco 49ers. And they have a healthy Trufant back in the mix, too.

Yet part of the Falcons’ package includes the baggage – or at least the perception of baggage -- from the Super Collapse.

Did the latest win show how the organization has moved on from the Super Bowl?

“I don’t think about it too much,” Ryan, the NFL’s reigning MVP, insisted. “I think everybody else does because the question keeps coming up. For us, we were focused on playing Week 1 against Chicago, and getting better this offseason. We tried to answer it that way, but it seems like nobody really believed you when you were saying it.

“It’s felt that way in our building for sure. Were we disappointed in it? Absolutely, but we got past that. We started working on trying to become the best 2017 football team we could be. We’re two games into it. Mission accomplished on those first two games.”

Ryan knows how far this mission is from being completed. Along the way, there will be more reminders about how last season ended. But at least they seem to be back on track, realizing that last season is over and they can’t do anything now about blowing the Super Bowl.

Still, if the Falcons get back to the Super Bowl – a legitimate possibility since every NFC contender has a glaring issue to address – there will be many more reminders about the crown that got away.

That would be a good problem to have in this comeback campaign. 

Follow NFL columnist Jarrett Bell on Twitter @JarrettBell.

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