Fans’ Favorite Falcon

Presented by Ford

The Atlanta Falcons have a storied 46-year that began June 30, 1965. Since that date, some of the most respected and liked players in NFL history have worn the Falcons’ red and black. Ford Logo Every Falcons fan has their favorite player to ever suit up for the team, but who is the definitive all-time fans’ favorite Falcons legacy?

We found out, and the winner is LB Jessie Tuggle.

How We Determined the Rankings

Figuring out the top 16 fan-favorite historic Falcons wasn’t an easy task. We put together a panel of current Atlanta Falcons staff members and solicited help from the FalconsLIFE Message Board to come up with a preliminary list and then whittle that down to the top 16. Rankings were determined by the following criteria, sorted from most significant to least:

Is the player synonymous with the Falcons, and vice versa?
On-field and off-field persona
Their role in defining their Falcons era, and how much that particular era is pointed to by fans
Their presence among the fanbase during their playing years and now
On-field performances
Statistics

So, you can see from the criteria list that this wasn’t meant to determine the best historic and retired Falcons player, but to determine the consensus favorite.

To make the list, players had to be: A. Retired from the game completely; B. A member of the Falcons roster for more than three seasons.