Atlanta Falcons Trivia
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50 free Atlanta Falcons trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
45 free Atlanta Falcons trivia questions with answers. The Atlanta Falcons have given their fans everything but a Lombardi Trophy, and this quiz covers all of it. It starts in 1965, when Rankin Smith paid a record $8.5 million to keep the NFL ahead of the AFL in Atlanta and a schoolteacher from Griffin named the team, then works through Tommy Nobis, Steve Bartkowski, Deion Sanders playing two sports at once, the 1998 Dirty Bird season and Super Bowl XXXIII, the Michael Vick era, and Matt Ryan, Julio Jones and the 28-3 game that Falcons fans would rather not discuss. There are questions on the three stadiums, from Atlanta-Fulton County to the Georgia Dome to Mercedes-Benz Stadium and its pinwheel roof, on Arthur Blank's purchase of the team, on the coaches from Norb Hecker to Kevin Stefanski, and on recent names like Bijan Robinson, Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix Jr. Easy questions come first, deeper cuts on draft trades and records later. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the team, its players, its Super Bowls and its stadiums, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The NFL added the Falcons a year early to block which rival league?
AFL
The AFL's owners were closing in on Atlanta in June 1965, so Pete Rozelle flew in and promised an NFL team for 1966, a year before his league had planned to expand.
Q 02Which Atlanta businessman was awarded the Falcons franchise for $8.5 million in 1965?
Rankin Smith
Rankin Smith, a life insurance executive, registered the club as Five Smiths, Inc., in honor of his five children, and his family kept the team until 2002.
Q 03Whose winning entry in a 1965 fan contest gave the Falcons their nickname?
A schoolteacher from Griffin, Georgia
A schoolteacher from Griffin, Georgia, Julia Elliott was picked from the many fans who suggested Falcons because she wrote that the bird "is proud and dignified, with great courage and fight".
Q 04Which Texas linebacker was the first player ever drafted by the Falcons, first overall in 1966?
Tommy Nobis
Tommy Nobis was also drafted by the Oilers of the rival league but signed with Atlanta, then won Rookie of the Year honors in the team's first season.
Q 05Which Falcons head coach of the early 1990s wore black on the sideline and left tickets for Elvis Presley?
Jerry Glanville
Jerry Glanville knew the club already: as a Falcons assistant in the 1970s he helped build the blitzing defense that allowed just 129 points in 1977, still the fewest in a 14-game season.
Q 06Which quarterback did the Falcons take first overall in the 1975 draft?
Steve Bartkowski
Steve Bartkowski went on to set most of the club's passing records and took the Falcons to their first playoff berth in 1978 and their first division title in 1980.
Q 07Which quarterback, on his sixth NFL franchise, led the Falcons to Super Bowl XXXIII in the 1998 season?
Chris Chandler
Chris Chandler had bounced through five franchises in nine years before Atlanta, where he made the Pro Bowl in 1997 and 1998 and went 13-1 as the starter in 1998.
Q 08Which two-sport star did the Falcons draft fifth overall in 1989?
Deion Sanders
Deion Sanders, "Prime Time", doubled as a major-league outfielder and reached the 1992 World Series while still a Falcon; he remains the only person to play in both a Super Bowl and a World Series.
Q 09Which quarterback did the Falcons draft in 1991 and trade away after one season?
Brett Favre
Brett Favre threw four passes as a Falcon, none of them complete and two of them intercepted, before Atlanta traded him for a first-round pick.
Q 10What became of the Georgia Dome?
Demolished by implosion
Demolished by implosion at just 25 years old, most of the Dome fell in seconds, though a city bus pulled up and blocked The Weather Channel's live shot at the exact moment.
Q 11What was the nickname of the 1998 Falcons team that reached the franchise's first Super Bowl?
The Dirty Birds
The Dirty Birds took their name from the arm-flapping touchdown dance their star running back made famous during a club-best 14-2 season.
Q 12Which Falcons running back carried the ball 410 times in 1998?
Jamal Anderson
Jamal Anderson turned that workload into 1,846 yards and 14 touchdowns, then played only two games the following season.
Q 13Whom did the Falcons upset on the road in the 1998 NFC Championship Game?
The Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings had gone 15-1 and scored a then-record 556 points, yet Atlanta rallied from behind to win 30-27 in Minneapolis.
Q 21At which school did Matt Ryan win the Manning and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm awards in 2007?
Boston College
Boston College's quarterback won both awards in 2007 despite throwing 19 interceptions, more than any other passer in the ACC, to go with his 31 touchdown passes.
Q 22To draft Julio Jones sixth overall in 2011, the Falcons traded up with which team?
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns collected five draft picks for moving down, two of them first-rounders, and the receiver they passed up went on to seven Pro Bowls.
Q 23For which college did Julio Jones win a national championship before the Falcons drafted him in 2011?
Alabama
Q 14Who beat the Falcons 34-19 in Super Bowl XXXIII?
The Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos sent John Elway out a winner: the 38-year-old quarterback was named the game's MVP and never played again.
Q 15Which quarterback did the Falcons take first overall in 2001 after trading up with San Diego?
Michael Vick
Michael Vick came at the price of the fifth pick, which San Diego used on LaDainian Tomlinson, a running back bound for the Hall of Fame.
Q 16In 2006 the Falcons' left-handed quarterback became the first NFL passer to reach which single-season mark?
1,000 rushing yards
1,000 rushing yards fell to him with 1,039, a quarterback record that stood until 2019, yet the Falcons finished 7-9 and fired coach Jim Mora.
Q 17Which billionaire, a co-founder of Home Depot, bought the Falcons in 2002?
Arthur Blank
Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus started Home Depot in 1978 after both were fired by the Handy Dan hardware chain; Blank paid $545 million for the Falcons.
Q 18Which head coach quit the Falcons 13 games into the 2007 season, leaving a locker-room note?
Bobby Petrino
Bobby Petrino left a 3-10 team for the University of Arkansas and told his players only by a four-sentence letter; one copy was pinned up with "coward" scrawled across it.
Q 19Which first-year head coach took the Falcons from 4-12 to 11-5 in 2008?
Mike Smith
Mike Smith inherited a club that had lost both its head coach and its star quarterback during 2007, then won 11 games with a rookie passer.
Q 20What is Matt Ryan's nickname?
Matty Ice
Matty Ice lived up to the name at once: his first NFL pass, in 2008, went 62 yards for a touchdown.
Alabama won the 2009 national title with Jones as a sophomore, and two years later Atlanta gave up five draft picks to move up and take him sixth overall.
Q 24Which tight end, traded to the Falcons in 2009, won the only playoff game of his career with them in January 2013?
Tony Gonzalez
Tony Gonzalez had waited 16 seasons for that win, over Seattle, and retired a year later with 1,325 catches, the most by any tight end.
Q 25What was the Falcons' biggest lead in Super Bowl LI before the collapse?
28-3
28-3 was a 25-point cushion, and no team had ever lost a Super Bowl lead that large until New England scored the last 31 points of the game.
Q 26Super Bowl LI was the first Super Bowl decided by what?
Overtime
Overtime had never been needed in the first 50 Super Bowls; New England won the coin toss, took the kickoff and scored a touchdown before Atlanta's offense touched the ball.
Q 27In which city was Super Bowl LI played?
Houston
Houston's NRG Stadium had staged one earlier Super Bowl, in 2004, and New England won that one too, against another NFC South champion, Carolina.
Q 28Which offensive coordinator ran the Falcons' 540-point attack in 2016?
Kyle Shanahan
Kyle Shanahan was hired by San Francisco straight after the Super Bowl, and two of his Atlanta assistants, Matt LaFleur and Mike McDaniel, later became NFL head coaches as well.
Q 29Which return specialist broke the NFL record for career return touchdowns in 2014, his first season with the Falcons?
Devin Hester
Devin Hester had made his name over eight seasons in Chicago, and the record-breaking punt return was the only return touchdown of his two years in Atlanta.
Q 30How does the retractable roof of Mercedes-Benz Stadium open?
Eight panels pinwheel apart
Eight panels pinwheel apart, each sliding along its own straight tracks, to leave a round opening that the architects modeled on the oculus of the Pantheon in Rome.