The Atlanta Falcons haven’t been a great football team as often as we’d like, but there have been those rare, shining moments where they had a credible case as one of the best teams in the league. If you go by one particular measure, they’ve done so five or so times.
The three times I’m referring to concern point differential, or quite simply to what degree the team has outscored their opponents. Five times they’ve outscored their opponents more effectively than all but a small handful of other teams in the NFL, which is a very rough and basic—but still pretty effective—measure of how good a team is.