After Coach Mike Smith's Atlanta Falcons finally won a playoff game last week, the city has gone nuts for the Falcons. Literally. Falcons apparel has sold out throughout the region. Pep rallies have been held at city government buildings. Everyone, it seems, is suddenly an Atlanta Falcons fan. All this excitement points to one thing: the Falcons are going to lose in the NFC Championship tomorrow.

Atlanta has earned its "Loserville" reputation. Our sports teams rarely make it to the big games, and when they do, they lose. Because we know that our teams aren't going anywhere, we don't get easily excited about their performance. It takes something rare, like an NFC Championship Game, to get the masses motivated. Unfortunately, once our "fans" get involved, we turn the pressure on the athletes from 1 ("nonexistent") to 11 ("debilitating"). It's a vicious cycle.

I don't know if the Atlanta players have been listening to the hype this week, but I don't know how they could avoid it. Shunning newspapers, radio, and television is one thing, but now there are banners, billboards, and bumper stickers everywhere! If the Georgia Dome wasn't already red and black, I'd expect to see painting crews hard at work right now.

Despite having the better record, the Falcons are underdogs against the visiting 49ers, who lost last year's Championship thanks to a single bad punt return in overtime. Underdogs should have less pressure to perform, not more. How can the players handle the sudden weight of new fan expectations? Are they to believe that they are suddenly as great as the new fans say? Hopefully the players remember that the only place to prove that is on the field on Sunday.

Maybe the Falcons will find a way to win. Even if they do, we'll just double down on the pressure over the next two weeks as the Super Bowl nears. I'd like to see the team win out, but I expect that there are going to be a lot of barely-worn Tony Gonzales jerseys on eBay next month. We're not known as Loserville for nothing.

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Infatuation of the season:

A brief (2-3 hours) search of multiple sources on the internet reveals that the girl who appears in the first 8 seconds of the Zales "Oh My Gosh" commercial (which you can see here) is named Cassidy Brown. I don't think I've ever seen her in anything else (her television/movie acting credits are limited), but her performance here certainly makes me want to give her jewelry. Oh my gosh, indeed.

Research note: Cassidy Brown doesn't have a lot of acting credits, but there's some good word of mouth about her on imdb.com. I don't know where she found time to act in a commercial since she's has also been recently working on the independent film Girlfriend 19 for a few months. (How far in advance do they shoot Christmas commercials?) And she has a Facebook page.

It's not stalking if it can be googled.

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I just saw a commercial for Macy's 2009 Cashmere Sale. While I don't care for wearing either goat's hair or sweaters, if Macy's puts their models on sale (even the one playing the "old" lady), I'm buying. Why can't more stores advertise their seasonal specials with unnaturally good-looking women? It seems that there is a shortage of subtle hotness in Christmas advertising these days. Between the uncomfortably overt sexuality of GoDaddy promos and Zales adverts intentionally confusing jewelry with love, it's nice to see that someone remembers that dressing the set with beautiful women is still enough to get consumers to notice the real star: the product. And no, GAP commercials staring prepubescent girls doing their best Punky Brewster impressions don't count.

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