As the final shards of Lombardi Trophy-shaped confetti twinkled around Tom Brady on Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s field, and New England Patriots fans began their march to the Hyatt Regency on Peachtree Street to greet the victors, many Atlantans realized what fans of the Los Angeles Rams certainly had already internalized—Super Bowl LIII just wasn’t that good.

It’s safe to say that Atlanta was far and away a Rams town on and leading up to Sunday. The city was cheering for the West Coast team after the NFC Championship game put an end to the thought of a New Orleans Saints Super Bowl—the arch rival of the home team Falcons—in Atlanta. Then there was the fact that the Rams were decidedly not the Patriots, who just two years ago were able to overtake the Falcons’s 28-3 lead to win Super Bowl LI.

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And while Atlanta may still be glad the Saints weren’t a part of Super Bowl LIII, it might ruffle a few Falcons fans’ feathers to know that it would have been the better game if they were. I say this, admittedly, as a lifelong Saints fan, but bear with me for a minute:

Imagine if instead of a 13-3 punt-fest, we had Drew Brees and Tom Brady competing directly for the title of the G.O.A.T. Consider the anguish of Atlantans, who would have had to choose between rooting for the team that came back from 28-3 or their ultimate rival. Either team losing would have given Falcons fans plenty of new snarky retorts—meaning Atlanta fans would have won either way. Envision Bourbon Street driving itself just seven hours up to Peachtree Street, surely pumping in more dollars to our economy than Los Angeles did. From whatever angle you look, it was just the better story.

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