Ryan, overaggressive Falcons blow golden opportunity

As the final moments of his MVP season expired, Matt Ryan paced helplessly along the Atlanta Falcons sideline.

Wearing a black ball cap, arms crossed in front of his red No. 2 jersey, Ryan was silent as Tom Brady drove the New England Patriots 75 yards for a game-winning touchdown on the opening possession of overtime in Super Bowl LI. No one spoke to Ryan. He just walked, back and forth, back and forth, until the red and blue confetti started falling.

It was only then that he grabbed his helmet and headed to shake hands with Brady.

Ryan had a perfect passer rating (158.3) into the second half and helped the Falcons build a 28-3 lead in the third quarter thanks to three impressive touchdown drives and one perfect scoring pass to tight end Austin Hooper. That would have been a fitting end for the league MVP.

Instead, Ryan and the Falcons offense sputtered. The aggression that served Atlanta so well throughout the season and in the first half became a liability at the end of the Super Bowl. And Ryan, who had been almost perfect this postseason, faltered.

It wasn’t his fault alone – it would have helped, certainly, if running back Devonta Freeman had picked up Dont’a Hightower’s fourth-quarter blitz – but the ball came out of Ryan’s hand and fell to the turf on a thirdand-1 with 8:29 left in the game. The Patriots recovered and quickly scored a touchdown that reduced the Falcons’ lead to just one score.

“That was certainly a big shift in terms of momentum,” Ryan said. “That was inopportune.”

He was right. Though the Falcons maintained their lead at that point, the magic was mostly gone. NRG Stadium at that point might as well have been in Massachusetts, with as loud as Patriots fans became, and the Falcons appeared stunned.

There were two more brilliant moments – a 39-yard gain in a wide open field to Freeman, and Julio Jones’ eye-popping 27-yard catch on the right sideline – but the Falcons couldn’t score after giving up a sack and committing a holding penalty. Ryan led the Falcons to a league-high 540 points (71 more than any other team), but couldn’t get them into scoring position when it mattered most.

“I thought we played the way we play. We always play aggressive and play to win, and we had opportunities as players,” Ryan said.

Still, offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan will receive much of the blame for Atlanta’s late struggles, especially after the Falcons moved well into kicker Matt Bryant’s field goal range after Jones’ circus catch with 4:47 remaining. But instead of playing conservatively and running the ball with Freeman, Shanahan called for passes.

“We were trying to score there at the end. We got into field goal range and that would have ended it. But getting that sack and that holding call, that was tough,” Shanahan said. “We thought we could get some yards, but we ended up getting a sack. It’s not really an option after that.”

And with that, the Ryan-Shanahan partnership that was so fruitful in 2016 ended, with Shanahan expected to be named head coach of the San Francisco 49ers in the coming days.

As Ryan sat at an interview podium after the game – still wearing his uniform pants and cleats and eye black – he talked about the potential of a young Falcons team, with nearly all of the offensive starters under contract for 2017.

But with Shanahan’s impending departure and the heartbreaking way the Super Bowl ended, it’s hard not to wonder if this was Ryan’s best shot. He got his MVP award, he played one perfect half in the Super Bowl, and still fell short of a championship.

“I think everybody is disappointed, for sure. It’s not easy when you’ve come this far and didn’t get the result that you want,” Ryan said. “We’ll move past it, hopefully put ourselves right back in this position.”