Even amid one of the most powerful tropical storms in recent history, Atlanta Falcons fans were forced to be reminded of their misfortune.
During a live report from Sarasota, Florida, in the heart of Hurricane Milton on Wednesday, October 9, Weather Channel reporter Paul Goodloe urged viewers not to be confused about a lull in the massive storm’s action by using a football metaphor.
“We definitely enjoyed the little halftime show Mother Nature gave us inside Milton,” Goodloe said. “But now we got the second half.”
That’s when Goodloe harkened back to Super Bowl LI between the Falcons and New England Patriots in 2017.
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“I gotta remind everyone, you might still be in the eye right now,” he continued. “There’s a lot more to go. I think back to the Atlanta Falcons, first half Super Bowl winner. We know what happened to the second half when the Patriots came back to life.”
During the infamous game, the Falcons led Tom Brady’s Patriots 28-3 in the third quarter before giving up 31 straight points to lose the game 34-3, the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.
“Do not sleep on the second half of Milton,” Goodloe concluded.
Viewers were quick to catch Goodloe’s reference, including former NFL punter Drew Butler. “Did this guy on @weatherchannel just say that the second half of Hurricane Milton will be like when the Patriots came back against the Falcons in the Super Bowl??” Butler wrote via X.
“The only way to ever stop hearing about it is for us to win one,” a Falcons fan lamented via X about the team’s Super Bowl luck.
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In a separate, more devastating sports connection to Milton, the roof at St. Petersburg, Florida’s Tropicana Field, home of Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays, was torn off due to the storm’s high winds.
The area inside the stadium, where the Rays have called home since their inaugural season in 1998, was set up with makeshift beds and staffed with first responders. The stadium appeared to be mostly empty when the damage occurred, but a security guard shared a video of the tarp roof being shredded via X.
On the morning of Thursday, October 10, Rays baseball reporter Ryan Bass shared a 360-view of the immense damage caused to the stadium.
“Absolutely heartbreaking,” he wrote.
