When you look at the geographic distance separating the cities of Atlanta and San Francisco (or rather, Santa Clara these days) you would never for a second imagine that they used to share the same division. Such was the reality of the old NFC West, however, and with it we’ve seen many a matchup between the Falcons and 49ers.
There’s good news and bad news from the Falcons’ perspective when it comes to their head to head history against San Fran — the good news is that this is the team against whom
the Birds have the joint-third most victories against out of everyone in the NFL; the bad news is that only the New Orleans Saints have beaten them more times. Atlanta has a less than stellar 33-49-1 record against the team that “big brothered” them in the old West for decades.
The Niners won the first five matchups and while you would think that they just never looked back, Atlanta then got the better of them for an extended period of time from the back half of the ‘70s into the early ‘80s, winning 10 out of 13 matchups between 1975 and 1981.
Joe Montana restored order for the juggernaut Niners, however, leading his team to four Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and a 12-1-1 record against the Falcons between 1984 and 1990. San Francisco kept chugging along, winning most of the matchups throughout the 1990s, but the Falcons have had the slight upper hand since the onset of their “Dirty Bird” season in 1998, going an overall 11-9 from that season through present day.
Each team has traded heartbreaking playoff supremacy over the other as well since that season, with the 14-win Falcons beating Steve Young’s Niners in the Divisional Round in 1998 and Colin Kaepernick’s rendition of the squad coming back from a 17-point deficit to beat the Birds in the 2012 NFC Championship Game.
When these teams met last
It was just last season when the Falcons were coming off of a euphoric victory against the Buffalo Bills on Monday Night Football, going into a meeting with the 4-2 Niners on Sunday Night Football. Although San Francisco was battling a multitude of injuries (including to starting quarterback Brock Purdy), they were still finding ways to win.
Those ways on this night were mostly on the defensive side, as the Falcons went into the half with only three points on the board and trailing by a score despite their own defense’s best efforts. Atlanta had something going on their second and third drives but one ended on a strip sack of Michael Penix and the other ended the half entirely when the panicked quarterback committed an intentional grounding while in field goal range which triggered a 10-second runoff.
Despite the struggles, Atlanta came to within three points with a Bijan Robinson receiving touchdown in the third quarter but the offense was stonewalled after that, getting shut out the rest of the way. The crucial play of the game came on a 3rd and 13 from Atlanta’s 21-yard-line with just over two minutes left (with the score still 13-10). The Falcons lined up with just 10 men on the field and failed to cover Christian McCaffrey who got an easy 17 yards before scoring a touchdown on the next play.
It was a frustrating night full of mental errors for the Falcons, which served as a big letdown following the high of the Bills victory.
