I’ll try to keep this brief and to the point. The Atlanta Falcons football organization was established in 1965 with its inaugural NFL season occurring in 1966. The owner was Rankin Smith, Sr who would eventually be the president of the Life Insurance Company of Georgia.

When they started the Falcons original uniforms featured red helmets, black jerseys, white pants, and striped black socks. See Mr Smith went to the University of Georgia whose colors are red and black. So it was no surprise that he would push that particular color scheme onto his newly founded professional franchise. However Atlantans over at the Georgia Institute of Technology were angry (and rightfully so) an Atlanta-based team was donning University of Georgia colors. Georgia actually wore black jerseys way back in the day, and also wore white pants nearly identical to the Falcons during the start of the Dooley era. And, the Falcons road jerseys had black numbers, just like the school in Clarke County. So, what did the Falcons do? They wore two thin, almost unnoticeable gold stripes on their helmets from 1966-1969. Then the Falcons would not only trash the subtle gold helmet stripes in 1970, but they would look more like Georgia the following season.

As the years went by the Falcons would continue to take the appearance of UGA (sic) with variant uniforms featuring red, black and silver which is also used by that school. In recent years the NFL has allowed team to wear throwback uniforms and the Falcons have featured those original unis including the helmet showcasing the two thin gold stripes. However the NFL made changes regarding helmet safety where players could only wear the same helmet for that season, meaning they could no longer wear the throwback helmet since the inaugural helmet was red and the current helmet is black (they still use the original logo on the black helmet for throwback games since the Falcons wore a version of this from 1990-2002).

Okay I’m not superstitious and I really don’t believe what I will type next, but the Falcons are cursed. My reason(s) is simple. The franchise chose to discard the fine gold that represented true school in Atlanta (I’m referring to the major school with the highest division football team and Georgia State didn’t have football at the time). Now did the Falcons win anything with the gold helmet stripes? No, but they were an inaugural team and it is rare for a team at its inception competing for championships. Atlanta has failed to win a championship in its 52 season as a NFL team. They have been to two Super Bowls. The most recent was last season and n SB 51 where they made history in all the wrong ways, blowing a 28-3 lead and losing in the first ever overtime in SB history to the Evil Empire (aka New England). 

So you might ask why do you (I) think they’re cursed? Well (fortunately this time) another team that wears red and black also blew a 2nd half lead in a championship game to another evil empire (however the lesser than two evils in this case) where UGA (sic) lost to Alabama in the college football playoff, ironically played in MB Stadium, the home of the Falcons. Now georgia has won two championships, its most recent in 1980, and they only won that one and competed for two others because of Hershel. Trust me, no Hershel, no championship, but I digress. The Falcons are cursed because they are red and black and as long as they don’t have the original Georgia Tech gold as a uniform color they will remain cursed. Their final game of the 2017 season against the Eagles epitomized of how the franchise is cursed. 

So you may ask am I being rational about this? Probably not, who is when it comes to their sports teams. Do I have an agenda here? Yeah, don’t most people who start a petition have one? Is this important? In the overall scheme of things probably not, but it’s important to me. Am I being petty? Absolutely, as petty as Tom Petty (RIP). I’m pretty sure dwag nation will think this is some dumb jealous Tech fan just hating. I would agree, but frankly I don’t believe dwag fans can think. Are not most people in the ATL metro area UGA (sic) grads or fans? I’m not stupid. I realize the area is dominated with dwag people who will probably not sign this petition (if they know how to read). But the fact remains it’s the Atlanta Falcons, where the Georgia Institute of Technology resides, whose gold color was one of the original colors of the Dirty Birds. 

So I submit my petition to bring back the color gold to the Atlanta Falcons where it rightfully belongs. Help break the red and black curse that endangers the Falcons chances from ever winning a championship. Rise Up and THWg!!!