EDITIORIAL: Rise up and fly high, Atlanta Falcons

It’s been quite some time since the state of Georgia has had a professional team to cheer for in a world championship game.

But the Atlanta Falcons will be front and center Sunday when they take on the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI in Houston, Texas.

The Falcons are making only their second appearance in the Super Bowl in their 52-year history, the last coming in 1999 when the “Dirty Birds,” as they were nicknamed then, fell to the Denver Broncos and John Elway in that hall-of-fame quarterback’s last professional game.

In fact, in only one of the “big three” professional team sports in the United States — the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball — has an Atlanta team claimed the top prize, that being in 1995 when the Atlanta Braves beat the Cleveland Indians for the World Series title.

On Sunday, the Falcons could change that, bringing a second championship to the state.

Frankly, with the storms and tornadoes that have ravaged our area and the recovery efforts that have been constant since that first line of high winds slammed our area on Jan. 2, even something like the Falcons going to the Super Bowl has been under many people’s radar. Professional sports don’t mean that much when you’re concerned about a roof over your head, electricity for your home and a big pile of debris in your yard.

The Falcons’ motto has been “Rise Up.” For our area, it’s more than a motto.

It’s what we’re having to do.

One street at a time. One house at a time. One yard at a time. One tree limb at a time.

Still, as our Albany and Southwest Georgia residents look for some normalcy back in their lives, the big game Sunday can be a welcome diversion, a chance to cheer for the home-state guys as they take on a team that’s been to the Super Bowl eight times and won four of them. As talented as the Falcons are this year, you have to figure that Matt Ryan’s squad defeating Tom Brady’s bunch would be an upset.

Let’s hope the home-state guys pull it off.

There’s a lot of work still to do in our area, but folks need some relief and a little case of Falcons Fever might go a long way toward providing it. Sports often have provided a way of pulling people together, and this should be no exception.

So we’d like to congratulate the Falcons for making it to the biggest single game of all, and wish them the best in Houston. We hope they will indeed “rise up” and bring Georgia its second major pro sports championship. Rise up and fly high, Falcons, higher than you have ever flown before.