HOUSTON -- For an NFL team that's looking for an up-and-coming playcaller to be its next head coach, the 500-point offense is the gold standard.
Those offenses are coveted, celebrated and chronicled. Those teams are framed as groundbreaking and ahead of the curve, as the ones that have cracked the code.
And then they almost never win the Super Bowl.
The 2016 Atlanta Falcons were the 19th team in the Super Bowl era to finish a season with 500-plus points on offense. Yet with their historical, confounding collapse in Super Bowl LI on Sunday, the Falcons became the 15th team to score 500 points in a season yet not win the Super Bowl.