If metro Atlanta’s legendarily bad traffic seems even more jammed as of late, there’s a good reason for that.
A big old bandwagon has pulled into town.
“I’m a born-again Falcons fan,” Leann Rossi chuckled earlier this week. “I’ve jumped on the bandwagon.”
As a Chicago transplant whose first great NFL love was the Chicago Bears—but who’s happily two-timing them now with Atlanta’s total stud of a Super Bowl team—Rossi is far from alone.
Far, far … far from alone.
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"It's like a giant magnet," said Darlene Weaver, a two-plus decades Falcons fan from Stone Mountain who's watching as all sorts of newly minted supporters rise up and buckle themselves into the bandwagon. "They see how great we are, and they have no choice but to be pulled in.
Credit: ccompton@ajc.com
Credit: ccompton@ajc.com
The CDC hasn't weighed in yet on Bandwagonitis Jumpisonis's epidemic proportions. (Indeed, some of those Emory-area eggheads are probably too busy squeezing themselves on board instead.) But the signs are as plentiful as, well, those "Rise Up!" signs that are literally everywhere these days.
The Atlanta Falcons Official Team Store is so crowded with new and old fans this week that calls to the Atlantic Station store automatically roll over to a somewhat frazzled-sounding recording: "Due to the high volume of Super Bowl merchandise (customers), we are unable to answer your call."
At a pop-up Falcons merchandise stand located downtown by Peachtree Center, salesman Lewis Lavender offered a shopping tip and a commentary on the number of fans-come-lately he’d seen: Buy the eight-foot-long Falcons banner. “That would go good on the bandwagon. It might be big enough.”
Then again, it might not. The closest thing to hard data comes courtesy of HeatherTees.com. The Indiana-based Avon company is selling an "On the Falcons bandwagon" T-shirt on its website and Etsy, as well as a Patriots-themed one that says "New England versus Everybody."
“My husband wanted a shirt for everyone else,” co-owner Heather Neal explained about that “bandwagon” message, which reflects the antipathy much of the country has for the Patriots. “And he was right on. We are selling far more Falcons than Pats shirts (at) about an 8:1 ratio!”
Harder still to quantify are all the “boomerang” Falcons fans. They’re the ones who drifted away during the lean years (look at us, “Coach” Bobby Petrino!) only to come back strong now that the team is riding high again. At least one person who’s painfully honest about her hesitancy to jump back on the bandwagon, Atlantan B. Woods, cites the Michael Vick dog fighting furor, which first arose in 2007.
“They still throw it up in his face after all this time,” Woods said about the Falcons’ former star quarterback, who spent nearly two years in federal prison, and lobbied for anti-animal fighting legislation upon his release. Woods did find it heartening that the Falcons included Vick among other “legends” invited back for the Georgia Dome’s final regular season game in December, adding, “I’m hoping (team owner) Arthur Blank signs him for just one day so he can retire as a Falcon.”
Before that, though, comes Super Bowl Sunday. Woods will watch at home with her children, who she says are “working on” getting her back on the bandwagon. It could happen, at least for this game. After all, she pointed out, the Patriots have their own baggage, with “Deflategate” and other alleged transgressions. And when you get right down to it, Woods said, “I’m proud for the city of Atlanta.”
So is David Cooper. A public defender, he was headed for a hearing at the Fulton County Courthouse on Tuesday when he unwittingly walked smack into a Falcons pep rally and street party being thrown by the county.
Cooper knew Atlanta was in the Big Game, of course. He’d already gotten the Georgia Public Defender Council’s memo about wearing Falcons gear on Friday and planned on being all in for his home team. “I am now!” he responded cheerfully when asked if he was on the Birdwagon.
He just hadn’t expected such a big Tuesday to do.
Though maybe he should have.
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“I’m glad to see all this,” said Cooper, a self-described “adopted Falcons fan” who’s watched all of this season’s games with a growing sense of satisfaction. “We get a rap as being such a bad sports city, so this is good for our reputation. Maybe we can even get the Thrashers back!”
Sorry, wrong bandwagon.
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