SI.com wonders: Does Matt Ryan still have room to grow?
Matty Ice asks Harry D.: "Do I look mature to you?" (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)
After Sunday’s nervous victory over Minnesota, Falcons coach Mike Smith spoke of Matt Ryan — who’d had his best game of the season — and the “maturation process.” Which sounded a bit odd, given that we around here have, fairly or not, never considered Ryan anything less than mature. He was a starter from Game 1 of Year 1, and he’s 26 now. Speaking of which …
Jim Trotter of SI.com offers a look at four NFL quarterbacks — all of whom were drafted in Round 1 in 2008 or 2009, all of whom had almost immediate success, none of whom are having a noteworthy statistical season in 2011. The four: Mark Sanchez of the Jets, Joe Flacco of the Raves, Josh Freeman of the Bucs … and Matt Ryan.
Trotter makes the case that, because more collegiate quarterbacks are playing in pro-style offenses, more quarterback draftees enter the NFL ready to play from Game 1 of Year 1. But he also writes:
It also could mean that QBs are coming into the league with less room to improve than they did a decade ago, when offenses were more ground-oriented. If true, could fans and some owners be setting themselves up for frustration and disappointment if the players fail to reach elite status before their first contracts expire?
Confronted with this argument, Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff — who drafted Ryan with the third overall pick in 2008 — told Trotter this: “It never came up in conversation that maybe [Ryan] had maxed out because of the system he had been under. But it’s interesting that you would think that way. Maybe there is something to it.”
Toward the end of Trotter’s story we hear from Dimitroff again, and this time he addresses a point yours truly has been batting around, sort of, since the end of Ryan’s second season: That Matty Ice could be closer to Eli Manning than to brother Peyton — a very good quarterback but not quite a great one. Said Dimitroff:
There are some very valid levels below that elite [quarterback] level that can allow organizations to be successful and make runs at Super Bowls. Everyone needs to understand that. Owners and team builders and head coaches need to realize that you can win with very good quarterbacks. They don’t have to necessarily be the elite quarterback of the league to be successful as a team.
Is this a concession from TD the GM, or just a reflection of reality? (The latter, I’d say.) But I advise you to real the article for yourself. And thanks to reader Steve Young of Alpharetta – who’s not, I’m assuming, the Steve Young who succeeded Joe Montana in San Fran — for bringing it to my attention.
By Mark Bradley
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268 comments Add your comment
JSS
December 4th, 2011
9:16 pm
Please don’t steal Charlie’s user name…
The Truth
December 4th, 2011
9:39 pm
Ryan was incredible today…tremendous upside.
Oldfan
December 4th, 2011
9:46 pm
Matt needs to stop over thinking the game and just go out and play. You don’t have to change every play at the line of scrimmage
Fred
December 4th, 2011
9:58 pm
I agree with the writer who said the Falcons will not win a Super Bowl with Ryan. I think Arthur Blank shot another “Blank”. How about today? A young QB who hadn’t started an NFL game, made hash out of the Falcons and Ryan. Trade him for Cam Newton, if you can. He may not be trade bait.
Paulitik
December 5th, 2011
12:46 am
Have you ever written an article that wasn’t based off what some other journalist wrote? Just wondering.
P Rose
December 5th, 2011
9:48 am
Drew Brees is 32. He had his breakout season in 2006, when he was 27.
Falconfever
December 5th, 2011
10:19 am
Matt ryan’s QB coach Bill Musgrave is now coahing in Minn. the Falcons are stingy with $ with the ppl they shoud keep. ie Harvey Dahl. Brian Finneran and Bill Musgrave. He should be our OC and MM should have been shown the door….
LawDawg
December 5th, 2011
11:48 am
Does anyone on Earth thing that Ryan has a shot to be Peyton Manning? Even Eli Manning is a stretch the way Eli is playing this year.
PlanB
December 5th, 2011
3:13 pm
I’ve been skeptical of Ryan and would be willing to trade him for Luck (Colt’s #1 pick). This won’t happen so I think we can win with Ryan but not with MS, MM & BVG. These guys are about as good coaches as we’ve had in awhile. They’ve brought the Falcons to respectibility. Three winning seasons in a row and probably another this year but I feel they are too conservative for the next step.
Jury is still out for me on TD. Some picks are good but have injury problems. On other picks, some think we could have gotten later in the draft and then there is JJ. A good WR that will get better but at a cost of giving up some of the needed OL, DE and CB picks we needed last year and the coming one. We do have some good talent on this team though and these guys do want to win. They play hard but just make too many mistakes in some games.
Just my opinion
Birdy
December 5th, 2011
7:43 pm
All Matty “OVERTHROW” Ryan needs to do to demonstrate growth in his profession is STOP OVERTHROWING THOSE GO ROUTE PASSES.
He has the short game down pat.
He can make the intermediate cross throw with the best of them.
We have seen him hit the timing out throw beautifully — to Michael Jenkins of all people, remember?
He has the leadership intangibles.
He can read defenses.
He can call plays and orchestrate an NFL offense effectively.
Yet when we are not ‘desperate’, he nearly always OVERTHROWS THE GO ROUTES.
Why is that?
I mean, he sees the receivers. He knows where they are. He’s not unintelligent. He practices throwing a football every day. He has an idea about the max speed of a human being.
Yet he always seem to OVERTHROW THE GO ROUTES when the team is not trailing, when we are not ‘desperate’. When we could set a tone, put a team away.
He did not OVERTHROW the last two passes of the game Sunday. He had no choice but to make them playable.
So why does he OVERTHROW GO ROUTES so routinely when we are not desperate? If a person can throw a football 45 yards, is it so impossible to scale it back a tad and throw it 40 yards instead — to give his teammates a fighting chance to make a play?
I expect Cam Newton to make some GO route throws playable Sunday. I wonder if we will do the same BEFORE FALLING BEHIND in the score?
Watching Ryan OVERTHROW those passes is truly fascinating. I wonder what is it due to?
Straight Cash Homie
December 7th, 2011
9:17 am
Great article. I’ve been preaching this to the Ryanettes for quite a while now. They just don’t get it. Dude is as good as he’s going to get for the most part. Blame Mularkey, blame smith, even TD admits Ryan will never be elite yet you STILL have folks claiming he is going to be something special. Maybe a special olympian.
Ed
December 7th, 2011
10:08 am
Matt Ryan has been in the league 4 years and knows the terminology in the playbook as well as any QB in football but now has to apply that knowledge into actual performance on the field. I think he has all the skills to lead this team to a Championship.
Runnin with the Dawgs
December 7th, 2011
12:30 pm
If you hang around these blogs and discuss the Falcons with the fans you will discover real quick that almost all of them will say nothing to criticize either of the Matts. (Bryant and Ryan) The truth of the matter is they both have their bad days just like the rest of the players. In the N.O. game this year Bryant missed 41 yard FG which would have won the game. This is like a chip shot for him, but he’s human, and he missed it. I never read a word about that miss in these blogs. It’s against the blog rules to bad mouth the Matts. As for Matt Ryan he has played like a dog all year and I’m beginning to think we’d be better off to replace him with a new QB out of the draft. Andrew Luck — Stanford, Robert Griffin — Baylor just to name a couple. I as most of us love having Matty Ice on the team, but he’s just not getting the job done this year.
Runnin with the Dawgs
December 7th, 2011
12:41 pm
We REALLY looked bad running the no-huddle plays in Texas. Everybody says it catches the opposing D off guard, but if you ask me everybody on the field looks confused, and MR looks like he is about to panic.
Wil
December 8th, 2011
9:01 pm
Two things. Terrible O-line, and most dropped passes in the league. Many of them possible big plays.
Paddy O
December 9th, 2011
10:05 am
The Ryan slam happens everytime we lose. We lost at TX due to dropped passes and penalties – the key one being the unnecessary holding penalty by Dunta Robinson. Ryan has led us to over a dozen come back victories. I don’t know what you want him to do.
Paddy O
December 9th, 2011
10:05 am
runnin – you are full of crap.
SirReal
December 9th, 2011
10:30 am
@runnin I agree…the guy looks like a deer in the headlights runnning it sometimes.