The Falcons won their final nine regular season games to earn the #2 seed in the National Football Conference (NFC) for the postseason and the first-week bye.
They beat the San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round and the #1-seed Minnesota Vikings in the NFC Championship Game before losing to Reeves’ old team, the Denver Broncos, 34–19 in Super Bowl XXXIII.
Doctors stated by the time he went for treatment, he may have been “within hours of a catastrophic heart attack.”[2] Defensive coordinator Rich Brooks substituted for him as head coach during Weeks 16 and 17.
From Tim Dwight’s 93-yard opening kickoff return touchdown, the Falcons never let Carolina have a sniff of contention, leading 38–3 by the third quarter before cruising home with the win.
The rubber match of Atlanta and San Francisco's 1998 season came in the Georgia Dome a week after the Niners' spectacular last-minute comeback over the Green Bay Packers.
The 16–1 Vikings, boasting the league's highest-scoring post-merger offense, were heavy favorites at Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome and raced to a 20–7 lead in the second quarter off two Randall Cunningham touchdowns (one rushing and a throw to Randy Moss), but at the end of the first half Chris Chandler found Terance Mathis for a 14-yard score following a Cunningham fumble (forced by Chuck Smith near the end of the half).
In the frantic final ten minutes of regulation, the Falcons, trailing 27-20, appeared poised to tie the game after Shane Dronett recovered a botched snap deep in Vikings territory, but they turned the ball over on downs after foregoing a field goal on fourth-and-four, when a Chandler pass to Mathis fell incomplete.
On their second drive of the extra period, Chandler connected with OJ Santiago for two big gains before Andersen nailed a 38-yard field goal; the 30–27 final sent the Falcons to Super Bowl XXXIII.