Stop Blaming Matt Ryan For The Falcon’s Loss

All year, Matt Ryan has faced an uphill battle towards reverence against the utterly blase nature of his name, team, and personality.

Even as he set the league on fire this year, he fought the unfounded notion that he didn’t have what it took to lead his team to a championship. Despite putting up better career playoff numbers than Eli Manning, hot takers lauded Ryan for his January exploits. He couldn’t elevate his team when it mattered most. His bust was already carved in the “Hall of Very Good”.
And then came 2016, and Matt Ryan put up numbers so Manning-esque that pundits were forced to acknowledge him. Directing the league’s most important offense, Ryan set football on fire this fall. Then he blew away all notions that he couldn’t perform when the chips were down. Ryan put together one of the most impressive stretch runs in recent memory. In his six games leading to the Super Bowl, Ryan put up 1861 yards, 18 touchdowns, and no interceptions. Ryan produced a quarterback rating of 133.8 during that span.
And then the Falcons blew a 28-3 lead in the Super Bowl and so-called analysts went back to burying the MVP again because they could. All was back to normal.
Only this, upon even the slightest scrutiny, fails any sort of acid test. Ryan played an outstanding game on football’s biggest stage and he’s being blamed for it because that’s what we’re conditioned to do.
Against tight man coverage, Ryan was surgical all game. He went 17 of 23 for 284 yards, 2 touchdowns, and a 144.3 passer rating. All game, Ryan diagnosed coverages and saw the field well, displayed exceptional pocket movement, anticipation, and was precise in his ball placement. You could easily argue that he played as well as Brady did.

Outstanding Anticipation

Take his 23 yard out route to Julio Jones early in the second quarter of the game. The Falcons line up in “21” personnel with 1 running back, 2 tight ends, and 2 receivers. Julio Jones lines up on the far left side of the field in the slot. The Patriots are playing man coverage across the board with a single high safety, Devin McCourty, shaded over Jones as he was much of the game.
Ryan takes a 7-step dropback and reads McCourty. Jones, covered by Logan Ryan, is running a deep out on the left side of the field. Once Ryan gets to the top of his drop, he starts t throw the ball a full 4 steps before Jones even breaks outward. This is otherworldly type of anticipation, the kind of thing most quarterbacks don’t even attempt. McCourty can’t even break on the route until its well late, and Jones easily creates separation against a slower cornerback. The ball placement is perfect, putting the Falcons in excellent scoring position.

Dropping The Ball Into A Bucket

Later in the game, as the Patriots were beginning to come back in the fourth quarter, the Falcons had the opportunity to put the game away, up 8. With just 4:47 left on the clock, the Ryan-Jones magic continued. The Falcons setup in “11” personnel this time with Jones on the far outside, covered by Eric Rowe. New England is once again in man coverage, but this time Patrick Chung is lined up over Jones.

As Ryan drops back, the pocket collapses and he accordingly slides up and out of the pocket. Rolling to his right, he unfurled a lazer for Jones, who was breaking outside. The ball was placed perfectly just inches above the outstretched hands of Rowe, right on the sideline. To his credit, Jones made an unbelieveable catch on the boundary. This is the type of “clutch” play that Ryan’s critics doubted he could make. In essence, this should have put the game away if not for some gaffs on the part of Atlanta.

The Sacks

Of course, Ryan will draw the most criticism for the two sacks that he took in the fourth quarter. One of them a strip sack, the other pushed Atlanta out of field goal range.
The first of the two, Hightower’s strip sack, doesn’t require advanced analysis. Devontae Freeman simply completely whiffed in blocking Dont’a Hightower. The result was obvious. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.

The later, however, is a bit grayer. The Patriots, with their backs against the wall, switched to tight press coverage across the board. New England doubles Jones and takes him out of the picture entirely. Needing a big play, the Patriots run a stunt on the defensive line with Trey Flowers.

As Ryan drops back, Flowers beat a double team from Alex Mack and Chris Chester to get through. Against tight coverage, none of Ryan’s receivers created separation, forcing him to hold the ball. Surely enough, Flowers made an outstanding play and got to Ryan as he moved to his second read. You could argue that Ryan should have thrown the ball away, but he couldn’t have been expecting pressure up the middle given his protection.

The rest, of course, is fodder for the growing legend of Tom Brady.

On Legacy

We’re conditioned to believe when a team loses, especially in this fashion, that we need to blame someone in the spotlight, usually the quarterback. That’s not always the case. Sometimes the opposing team can execute beautifully behind the best quarterback of our time and play brilliant situational football. Sometimes the errors come from less-publicized players or even the coaches. There doesn’t always have to be a concrete winner and loser in terms of legacy. Football isn’t black and white like that. There’s a whole lot of grey.
It’s so arbitrary to define quarterbacks by rings alone. There are so many other factors to winning a football game than just the play of the quarterback. Tom Brady could easily be 3-4 in Super Bowl’s or 7-0 if one or two things broke differently, all out of his control. Football is too complex to be put at the feet of a single player, as it often is.
The fact of the matter is that Matty Ice put up a season for the ages, backed up by outstanding play in the playoffs. We can officially put to bed any narratives about number 2 not rising to the occasion when it matters most.