By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

For any Atlanta Falcons fan, last season must have felt like a romantic dramedy. You know the one: boy meets girl; boy falls in love with girl; boy spends entire movie trying to win the girl over; girl falls for boy; boy gets hit by a bus; girl ends up with boy’s worst enemy.

Ok, so maybe that last part doesn’t always happen, but you know it had to feel that way for Atlanta, watching the Patriots hoist the Lombardi Trophy.

With last year’s Super Bowl still fresh in the minds of players and fans alike, the Falcons have a lot going for them as they prepare for the upcoming season. There’s the return of the number one ranked offense from last year with most of their key components still in place.

You have the reigning MVP, who put together what was far and away his best season as a professional. Plus, the Falcons have a lot of young talent that contributed to their earlier than expected success.

For those reasons, as well as a few others, the 2017 season looks as promising as any team out there. A bit of fair warning though, people were saying those exact same things about the Carolina Panthers, last year.

I know both Panthers and Falcons fans like to be compared to each other about as much as rock bands like to be compared to Nickelback but tell me after reading the rest of this article the similarities between the two isn’t a little too close for comfort.

The Panthers finished the 2015 season as the number one ranked scoring offense in the NFL and was absolutely steamrolling their opponents over the second half of the season, including the playoffs, up until the Super Bowl.

Besides the 13 points they scored against Atlanta in their Week 16 loss to the Falcons, Carolina never scored less than 33 points over their final seven games. The Panthers eclipsed that 33-point mark only twice this past season. Now, go ahead and take a peek at Atlanta’s final six games last year. Anything look familiar?

Cam Newton has always been a good quarterback, but never really considered to be among the elite. What he accomplished while winning the MVP in ‘15 was Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” type good.

He was dominating opposing defenses as if he was playing pickup games against the neighborhood kids. This year, not so much. Matt Ryan was just as dominating in route to his MVP as Cam was during his winning season, albeit in a very different way. Still, before the ‘16 season a lot of those questions people had about Cam were being asked about Ryan.

I could go into the youth Carolina had returning to last year’s team and how a majority of them fared, but I have a feeling you probably get the point.

I completely understand just because there are some similarities between the 2015 Panthers and the 2016 Falcons doesn’t necessarily mean Atlanta is going to struggle this season, much like Carolina did last year.

However, it’s hard to completely ignore those similarities especially when you consider the number of teams throughout the NFL’s history that have overachieved one year and underachieved the next. Throw in two completely new coordinators and you can almost see where this season will end up.

I’m not saying it’s inevitable that the Falcons will fail this year, just don’t be surprised if it feels like you’re watching a horror movie by Week 8.