BOSTON — Two years have passed since Atlanta blew a 28-3 lead in Super Bowl LI and watched Tom Brady and the Patriots hoist their fifth Lombardi Trophy in less than two decades. It's the largest comeback in league championship history.
Since then, this year's Super Bowl host has gone a meager 17-16.
The unforgettable choke impassioned Patriots fans to far greater levels than what had previously been deemed imaginable by haters of the dynasty. T-shirts were made of the scoreboard, each of the players' rings had 283 diamonds and someone in Kennebunk made their address 328 Patriots Dr.
Now, following the Patriots' 37-31 OT win Sunday in the AFC title game and ninth Super Bowl berth since 2002, an airline with rival ties to Atlanta has jumped aboard to dish out additional shade 24 months after the epic rebound.
Less than 45 minutes after Patriots RB Rex Burkhead scored the game-winning touchdown Sunday, JetBlue stoked the lingering burn by subtly referencing the 28-3 comeback in a tweet announcing additional flights from BOS to ATL:
It's safe to say Atlanta will not be rooting for this year's AFC representative. Quite the contrary, since NFC champion Los Angeles ousted NFC South rival New Orleans, who twice beat the Falcons in 2018 for a combined score of 74-54.
The tweet doesn't come as a surprise given JetBlue's corporate connection with New England — it lists the Patriots as one of its official sponsors along with the Bruins, Celtics and Red Sox. Plus, Atlanta is a hub for several competing airlines, and not JetBlue. According to its 2017 annual report, Boston is one of the airline's six "focus cities." Its headquarters are at JFK in New York.
JetBlue better hope the air traffic controllers at Hartsfield-Jackson don't purposefully direct these flights right past the Peach State.
On Monday, single one-way flights from Boston's BOS to Atlanta's ATL started at $418 for Friday, Feb. 1, and $296 for Saturday, Feb. 2.