Matt Ryan sits down with Matt Hasselbeck and reveals who he'd give his MVP vote to, what has changed for him this season and his thoughts on facing Tom Brady in the Super Bowl. (3:27)

If somebody who isn't a Falcons fan expected to see Atlanta lining up on the side of the field for Sunday's Super Bowl, they've done a great job of hiding their prediction.

None of the 42 ESPN experts predicted that the Falcons would make it out of the NFC playoffs and into Super Bowl LI. They weren't alone. Not one of 20 NFL.com folks predicted the Falcons would win the NFC South, let alone make it to the Super Bowl. The same was true for CBS and the MMQB. You get the idea.

The Bill Barnwell Show at Super Bowl LI ESPN.com NFL writer Bill Barnwell will host a live podcast taping on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET (ESPN Audio On Demand) at The Dosey Doe Big Barn, outside Houston in The Woodlands. Doors open at 7 p.m. ET. Barnwell and guests will be available for a meet-and-greet with fans at 8:30 p.m. CT. More information

Of course, it would have been crazy for anyone to predict that an 8-8 Falcons team would make the Super Bowl the following season, which is why predictions are so often useless. And yet, nearly six months later, here we are. The Falcons are no fluke. They've dominated in the postseason thus far, beating Seattle and Green Bay by an average of 19.5 points. Regardless of what happens Sunday, Dan Quinn's team has dramatically defied expectations.

Since that's the case, though, what was everyone missing? How and why did the Falcons blow away even the rosiest outlook for their 2016? And perhaps more importantly, what does the success of the Falcons tell us about which non-playoff teams might be in line to make a similarly unexpected leap next season? Let's look at some of the factors that led Atlanta to its conference championship and find out ...

The reason: A lot can happen in a 16-game season.

This isn't news, of course, but we often forget just how much variance comes into play from a schedule that is less than 20 percent the length of the NBA campaign and less than 10 percent the length of the major league baseball season. As a result, we get a much smaller window into a team's true level of talent. There were several 16-game stretches during the Cubs' 2016 championship campaign in which Kris Bryant & Co. went 5-11. A team that went 103-59 over the entire campaign, winning 63.6 percent of its games, at one point had a 1-9 run.

As I mentioned, the Falcons were no fluke -- they outscored their opponents by a combined 134 points, good for a 10.6-win Pythagorean expectation. Even if we believe that their true talent level is that of a team that will win an average of 10.6 games if we could simulate the 2016 NFL season a billion times, though, a lot can go wrong (or right) over one measly 16-game stretch.

We can use the binomial distribution to estimate just how things could have gone for a 10.6-win team like the Falcons. Atlanta actually won 11 games this season, which isn't necessarily surprising, as the most likely outcome for a 10.6-win team would naturally be to win 11 games. That would occur 20.7 percent of the time, and the Falcons would win 11 or more games in 53.4 percent of simulations. And 5.6 percent of the time, a team of this caliber would win 14 or more games. On the flip side, though, a team can play excellent football and still (at least theoretically) struggle to win games. There's a 5.4 percent chance a team with Atlanta's Pythagorean expectation would post a losing record.

Hate this level of randomness? Try hoops. Teams are far less likely to put up similarly impressive win rates over a longer season. The equivalent to an 11-win NFL season, in terms of winning percentage, would be a 56.4-win NBA campaign. A team with that Pythagorean expectation would make it to 56 wins or more only 39.9 percent of the time, a significant drop from the 53.4 percent case over a 16-game sample. It would also post a losing season only 0.1 percent of the time, down from 5.4 percent in football.

2017 candidates: everyone else

We grossly underestimate just how much randomness impacts each NFL season, even though we know that nearly half the teams (48.2 percent) who make the playoffs in a given year have failed to make the postseason the following year since the league went to its current playoff structure in 2002. It's way easier for a team to make a leap over 16 games than it is over 82 or 162. The shorter the schedule, the more likely it is teams will do something totally unexpected.

The reason: The division broke their way.

The Falcons went 5-1 in the NFC South for just the third time since the division was created in 2002. It came one year after they went 1-5 in the division in 2015. It also represents the entirety of their improvement, given that the Falcons were 6-4 in non-division games this season after going 7-3 in those contests in 2015.

Several critical factors that have little to do with Atlanta broke in the Falcons' favor. The Panthers, 6-1 in games decided by seven points or fewer last season, regressed toward the mean and went 2-6 in those same contests this season. They weren't able to sign star cornerback Josh Norman and allowed him to leave for free (minus a compensatory pick that they'll make this year), the driving factor in dropping their defense from second in DVOA to 10th. Perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate Luke Kuechly missed six games, while MVP Cam Newton also dropped off, owing to injuries and a collapsing offensive line.

The Falcons went 5-1 in the NFC South in 2016, a season after they went 1-5. Grant Halverson/Getty Images

The Saints and Buccaneers were competitive, but the Panthers were expected to be the class of the division after winning the South in each of the three previous seasons. It might have been reasonable to predict that the Panthers would decline in 2016, but nobody could have expected them to decline by nine wins. Their first-to-worst fall-off opened up the division for the Falcons, just as a nine-win decline by the 2013 Falcons created an opportunity for Carolina.

2017 candidates: Cardinals, Washington, Eagles, Bengals, Ravens, Colts

There are other teams that might qualify -- a lot of divisions are suddenly winnable when their only team with a winning record drops off by nine wins -- but the midtier teams around the league are the ones that stand to benefit from this, specifically in divisions in which the champion has question marks.

It's still not totally clear that Earl Thomas and Ben Roethlisberger are going to return in 2017, and they would fundamentally change their teams' respective outlooks upon retirement. The Cowboys were 7-2 in games decided by seven points or fewer. The Texans were 8-2 in those same contests. Even perennial standouts like the Patriots and Packers are one serious quarterback injury away from looking like totally different teams, especially if the Patriots trade away Jimmy Garoppolo this offseason. It's too early to make predictions about which teams will specifically decline in 2017, but history tells us one or more of those division champs will fall into the top 10 of the 2018 draft.

The reason: They were relatively healthy.

The Patriots might have been the healthiest team in football this season, but the Falcons also made it through the season relatively unscathed, particularly on offense. Atlanta's 11 offensive starters missed a total of 11 games, eight of which came from Jacob Tamme, who was ably replaced by Austin Hooper and Levine Toilolo. Crucially, the Falcons' offensive line made it through all 16 games without missing a start, the only group in the league to go 80-for-80 in 2016.

The Falcons had more injury issues on defense, where they notably lost star cornerback Desmond Trufant to a torn pectoral muscle in November. It's also true that present doesn't always mean healthy, given that superstars Julio Jones and Alex Mack will both be playing through ailments in the Super Bowl. The Falcons were also exceedingly healthy on offense during the 2015 season, when they finished second in the league in adjusted games lost on the offensive side of the ball. Given how valuable their offense was in pushing them to the Super Bowl, though, the Falcons needed all hands on deck and mostly had them around.

2017 candidates: Chargers, Vikings, Bears, Panthers

The Chargers and Vikings are the obvious candidates for teams that could benefit from being healthy. Minnesota lost Teddy Bridgewater before the season started, spent virtually the entire year without Adrian Peterson, and saw an already-questionable offensive line disintegrate. The Vikings' defense held out for most of the season but finally gave way once Harrison Smith suffered a high-ankle sprain. And it would be easier to make a list of the players who managed to stay healthy for the Chargers, who had just seven of their projected starters on Day 1 of training camp start 16 games.

The reason: Alex Mack had an exponential impact on the offense's effectiveness.

It's almost impossible to judge offensive line play as a layman and account for an individual player's performance, especially on the interior, but all accounts (and observations) suggest the Falcons made a massive upgrade at center. They swapped out replacement-level center Michael Person, who didn't play a single snap in the NFL this season after starting 14 games at the pivot in 2015, for Mack, who might have been the best center in football.

The addition of Alex Mack at center has helped the offense turn the corner. Jason Getz/USA TODAY Sports

Mack made both the offensive linemen and the offense as a whole better, as Robert Mays noted for The Ringer. Making an enormous improvement at one position doesn't necessarily guarantee success, given that players can decline, get hurt or be suspended, as Chicago's additions of Jerrell Freeman and Danny Trevathan at inside linebacker made clear, but Mack worked out as well as any free agent in recent memory. Free agency is often a fool's errand, but teams with a competent offense or defense and one glaring hole will look to emulate what Atlanta did this offseason.

2017 candidates: Bengals, Colts, Broncos, Cardinals, Panthers, Vikings

Plenty of contenders were frustrated all season by major offensive line holes, notably the Bengals (right tackle) and Panthers (left tackle), while the others on this list had broader concerns up front. It won't be as simple as signing a player such as Mack and letting him do his thing, but teams are going to see what the Falcons did this season and pay a premium to add players like Kevin Zeitler, T.J. Lang and Ronald Leary this offseason.

The reason: They had a much better offensive coordinator than people realized.

Kyle Shanahan has rightly received a lot of credit for Atlanta's success on offense this season, and his playcalling and ability to scheme Atlanta's secondary receivers open this season have been enormously valuable during Shanahan's second year at the reins.

This time last year, though, Shanahan was closer to the unemployment line than he was to an NFL head-coaching gig. He took the brunt of the blame for Atlanta's disappointing season after a 5-0 start, leading to fans petitioning for his job, while Roddy White blamed Shanahan for "screwing up" Atlanta's offense.

Remember: It was a story in itself when the Falcons decided to bring Shanahan back last year.

At the time, nobody was questioning Shanahan's spot on the hot seat. His résumé as an offensive coordinator was spotty; after two solid years in Houston, Shanahan had mostly struggled during four years under his father in Washington, finishing 23rd or worse in scoring three out of his four years on the job, with Robert Griffin's rookie year (in what some construed afterward as a "gimmick" offensive scheme) the lone exception. Shanahan then spent one middling season in Cleveland before resigning and heading to Atlanta, where he oversaw Matt Ryan's worst season (in terms of passer rating) since 2009.

Now, a year later, the story has changed. We note how Shanahan never really had a steady quarterback before Ryan, how he struggled with an injured Griffin, a premature Kirk Cousins, and the overmatched duo of Johnny Manziel and Brian Hoyer. He gets credit for developing Cousins now that the Washington quarterback has turned into an above-average starter. Shanahan's complex scheme was a problem last season, when Ryan "was overwhelmed" by the offense, but now it's portrayed as a strength.

In reality, Shanahan wasn't as bad a coach as the story made him out to be after 2015, and he's probably not as great as the stories you're reading about him now portray him. He's somewhere in the middle, but that's a massive improvement versus the liability some thought Shanahan was before this season.

2017 candidates: Vikings, Eagles, Colts, Raiders

We're almost always too quick to judge coaches. It would take only one great year for coordinators like Pat Shurmur and Ken Norton Jr. to rebuild their reputations.

The reason: There was an MVP lurking at quarterback.

Shanahan's renaissance might have been more likely than Ryan's MVP-caliber performance this season. Ryan had struggled for three years after his 2012 peak, tossing 47 interceptions from 2013 to 2015 while often making questionable decisions with the football. Ryan was still a decent quarterback, of course, but he had appeared to both hit his ceiling and settle far below said ceiling.

Instead, Ryan set career-best marks in just about every category in 2016, reminding us that we are often overconfident in judging quarterbacks, too. Some players have typical career paths, but it's foolish to assume most passers are going to keep improving until they hit age 28 and start a slow decline from that point forward. That may be true of quarterbacks as a species, but individual players can have all kinds of odd careers. Ryan's stunning season is a testament to that fact.

2017 candidates: Dolphins, Ravens, Bengals, Colts, Saints, Lions, Vikings

While we would expect younger quarterbacks such as Carson Wentz and Jameis Winston to continue improving, it's reasonable to assume that we've already seen the best years of passers such as Drew Brees and Joe Flacco. In most cases, we'll be right. Ryan and the Falcons proved this season, though, that exceptions to the rules of aging curves can result in shockingly great seasons.