Somehow we missed this late last week, so apologies if you’ve already heard that the Falcons are going to have the roof at Mercedes-Benz Stadium closed for the remaining six-plus home games this year.

This comes as a mild surprise, but perhaps it shouldn’t. We knew Atlanta was going to be continuing to work on the roof at their new stadium, which is said to be incredibly complex, in the months ahead. We knew that the roof couldn’t be easily and swiftly opened, which would probably leave the roof closed for any game where the weather was going to be 50/50. I didn’t expect that the roof just wouldn’t be open for any more Falcons games, but that appears to be where we’re at.

It’s fair to say at this point that Mercedes-Benz Stadium is simultaneously an extremely impressive venue that stands as the crown jewel of Arthur Blank’s investments in Atlanta, and also a mildly disappointing venue in its first year, given that the ability to open and close the roof was a major selling point for the stadium in the first place. The roof issue should be sorted out by the 2018 season, but I’m sure season ticket holders have to be feeling some bitterness about this in the here and now.

Hopefully the Falcons just go ahead and win the damn Super Bowl so we forget all about the roof, but as we saw with the eternally dumb Chick-fil-A story, these stories have a habit of hanging around.