A Tom Brady halo? Here's what Patriots and Rams fans should wear for the Super Bowl

There are fans of NFL teams, and then there are superfans. Carolyn Freeman definitely falls into the latter category.

The 60-year-old Georgia resident is a staple at Atlanta Falcons games, where she’s known as the Birdlady. For 20 years, Freeman has been attending games dressed in custom-made feathered costumes to root for her team. She also gets invited into the locker room, and she tells Yahoo Lifestyle that her house is decorated in the team’s signature red, white, black and grey colors.

Freeman regularly gets up at 2 a.m. on game days to spend the six hours it takes to transform herself into Birdlady. And, after every game, she waits until each player is out of the locker room before heading home. She was even selected as one of 28 Bud Light Super Fans in 2016 — the only woman to be given the honor.

What’s behind this intense devotion to her team? “The Falcons saved my life,” Freeman says.

While Freeman, who grew up in Georgia, has always been a Falcons fan, she hasn’t always been Birdlady. Freeman used to be a police officer until she suffered a 42-foot fall and had a career-ending injury. “It was pretty bad,” she says. “I was in a coma and months in the hospital.”

Freeman says she ended up spending 12 years in bed after her injury and has had 17 surgeries — and she still struggles with health issues. “I still see a lot of doctors. There are days when I can’t walk,” she says. “I look cute and all that, but I’m held together with duct tape and superglue.”

While she was bedridden, Freeman says, she happened to be watching a football game and saw a segment about then-Falcons running back William Andrews preparing to play again after sustaining a potential career-ending knee injury. “He was talking about making a full recovery and getting up and out,” she recalls. “I said, ‘It’s time for this pity party to end. I’m done with this bed. I’m going to start going to football games, even if it kills me.'” And she did.

Freeman says she was dubbed “Birdlady” in 1998 by Falcon legends Jessie Tuggle and Jamal Anderson. At the time, they were having a post-game conversation near her in the end zone and she started screaming for “three, four minutes” to get their attention. “I’m crazy — I think sanity is boring,” she says. “I had on a back brace, knee brace and three ankle braces, and I was just screaming to get their attention.” The two ignored her until she said, “You see me! I’m crazy — I’m not going anywhere.”

She finally got Anderson’s attention and asked him to do his famous “Dirty Bird” dance routine. He refused and insisted that she dance, even though she was using crutches. “I started twerking and flapping and almost fell over. They just died laughing,” Freeman says. “They called me the Birdlady after that.”

Freeman started creating special Birdlady outfits, which can be costly. “I have some I’ve spent way too much money on,” she says. “Some have cost me $600, but they average around $300. Mind you, I’m on disability.”

Freeman is proud to say that she’s never repeated an outfit in 20 years. “For the first 12 years, I made them all,” she says. For five years, she worked with a designer, and then recently, she’s made them herself. “I always wear white for the last game of the season,” she adds.

Since she became Birdlady, Freeman has formed close relationships with players, who have given her their jerseys over the years, bought game tickets for her and even gifted her with a “decked-out” SUV. “I cry every year when people retire, but I still keep those relationships with them,” she says.

She’s also formed her own nonprofit, BirdLady Cares, Inc., which works to help disadvantaged community members.

Unfortunately for Freeman, the Falcons didn’t make the Super Bowl this year. Still, she’ll be going in her Birdlady outfit, and she has some outfit advice for superfans of the teams that did make it to the game. For the Los Angeles Rams fans who want a little something extra, Freeman recommends a “sleek blue catsuit with a tuxedo coat made out of leather, faux fur and lace.” She’d couple that with faux fur boots, and would braid ram horns that are painted blue and gold into the fan’s hair.

Freeman admits that it’s harder to dream up something for New England Patriots fans. “If I had to make costumes every time for them, I’d be crying,” says Freeman. Still, she says, she’d play off Patriots fans’ hopes that quarterback Tom Brady will win his sixth Super Bowl. That’s why she says she’d have fans wear a blinged-out Tom Brady jersey, gold boots with golden gloves, and a number six sculpted into a big headpiece. “Then put a shiny gold halo around the six — it’s got to reference an angel or a god,” she says.

For fans who want to celebrate their team being in the Super Bowl, but aren’t comfortable going all out on a Birdlady level, Freeman recommends wearing your team colors, putting on your favorite player’s jersey, working temporary tattoos, and doing your hair and nails in team colors. “Step it up with more than just the jersey — and you can bling that out, too,” she says.

Freeman works hard to be Birdlady, but she says she owes everything to the Falcons. “Without them, I would be dead,” she says. “I love the Birdlady’s life. Somebody’s got to do it, so it might as well be me — and I have no intention of growing up anytime soon.”

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

• These chefs love football: Here are their favorite Super Bowl appetizers

• This is not a drill: Super Bowl party essentials are up to 65 percent off on Amazon

• Sarah Thomas makes history as first woman to officiate NFL playoff game

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