Atlanta Falcons: This Season Will Define Matt Ryan’s Career
The Atlanta Falcons have a lot to prove headed into the season but no player on the roster has more to prove than Matt Ryan.
February 15th, 2017 will go down as the most heartbreaking day in Atlanta Falcons franchise history, and one of the most taunted in the NFL history. After leading the New England Patriots 28-3 with only a handful of minutes remaining in the third quarter Tom Brady and company stormed back to ruin the Falcons first Super Bowl victory.
In a sea of confetti and a storm of reporters, one man met his opposition and congratulated him on his fifth world championship. Matt Ryan managed to keep his head held high knowing that eternal glory was only one last touchdown drive away. The city of Atlanta is known for having love-hate relationships with its athletes, and coming into the 2016 campaign the city was growing weary of the Boston College alum.
As an admirer of statistics and a true believer that they don’t always tell the whole story let’s take a look at Ryan’s career prior to his infamous MVP season. Coming into the league in 2008 Arthur Blank and the organization were in desperate need of moving past the Michael Vick era, and drafted Ryan third overall. In his rookie season, Ryan led the Falcons to the playoffs posting an 11-5 overall record before falling to the Arizona Cardinals in the Wild Card Round.
In his first season Ryan threw for 3,440 yards and 16 TD’s, and led an organization that was distraught following the Vick scandal to the postseason, thus gaining the city’s trust. Fast forward and now lets revisit that whole love-hate relationship ideal with Atlanta athletes.
Since being drafted by the Falcons in 2008, Ryan has led the organization to five total postseason appearances with 2016 being the only Super Bowl birth. Rather than being humble with making the playoffs every other year Atlanta grew impatient, I mean who wouldn’t? The last world championship the city got to celebrate came back in 1995 at the hands of the Atlanta Braves.
Ryan’s first playoff victory did not come until 2012 when late game heroics allowed them to escape a blown fourth quarter lead to the Seattle Seahawks, and I can speak for everyone in that we don’t need to revisit the NFC Championship Game against the 49er’s. Thus, leaving Ryan with a 1-4 playoff record prior to last season.
So what does all this mean, and why does 2017 mean so much for Matt Ryan’s legacy and career? To be quite frank, while his stats show that he is one of the NFL’s elite quarterbacks, he hasn’t backed it up when it matters most. 2016 will always go down as the year of Matt Ryan, and as stated above, his stats last season were nothing shy of eyebrow raising. Averaging a 69.3% completion percentage, throwing for 4,944 yards, and 38 TD’s is something you would expect to see under the name Tom Brady.
As we head into 2017-18, Matt Ryan has the opportunity to solidify his greatness and lead this beyond talented roster back to the Super Bowl. The Falcons have the 13th toughest schedule in the NFL according to ESPN and CBS Sports, and it certainly won’t be easy to even reach the postseason, but if you haven’t caught the recurring theme in this article, I’ll end it on this. In order to achieve greatness, and be the one to bask in the sea of confetti at seasons end, Ryan will have to shine when the lights shine the brightest.
http://www.espn.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/234722/2017-nfl-strength-of-schedule