The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Uneven outing unleaches criticism of Matt Ryan
Falcons had nine points on five trips into the red zone Thursday and $150M man is taking the heat.
FLOWERY BRANCH — After a less than stellar performance in the season opener, the Matt Ryan critics have been springing up across the nation. Ryan, who returns to work today after an 18-12 loss to Philadelphia, knows he must rebound in time for the NFC South opener against Carolina on Sunday.
Fox Sports commentator Jason Whitlock pronounced he no longer could support Ryan. “I am completely off the Matt Ryan train,” Whitlock said.
Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner questioned the play calls and structure of the offense in another red zone flameout. The Falcons were 1 of 5 in the red zone and netted just nine points.
On the Falcons’ first red zone trip, NFL.com analyst Brian Baldinger pointed out Ryan’s errant throw to Devonta Freeman from a few yards away.
The Washington Post’s NFL writer, John Clayton, wanted to know “is there anything wrong with Ryan?”
The Falcons quarterback said after the loss: “I didn’t play well enough.” Ryan completed 21 of 43 passes for 251 yards, no touchdowns and one interception.
Ryan, who signed a $150 million contract extension in May, finished with a passer rating of 57.4, his second sub-60 performance over his past five regular-season games. He had a 55.2 rating against the Saints in a 20-17 win on Dec. 17, 2017.
It was Ryan’s lowest passer rating in a season-opener.
“At the end of the night, it comes down to when you get your chances and you have your guys (open) you’ve to got to hit (them),” Ryan said. “I didn’t do a good job with that (against the Eagles).”
Sub-60 passer ratings are rare for Ryan. He’s only had one in three of the past four seasons, with none in 2016.
Ryan’s last pass to Julio Jones seemed to be thrown late, which didn’t allow for Jones to have enough room to land in-bounds for a game-winning touchdown.
“I would say probably just like us executing that play at the end, we’ve got to nail that,” Falcons coach Dan Quinn said. “And so we had the right one on ... The read was correct in terms of where we wanted to go, we just didn’t execute it.”
The Falcons didn’t want to lean on the obvious explanation, that Jones and Freeman didn’t play any exhibition games and that their timing was off on several plays. “When you’re facing a defense like that, you have to capitalize on your opportunities,” Ryan said.
The passing attack tilted heavily toward Jones, who had 19 targets. Jones caught 10 for 169 yards with no touchdowns. He had one apparent reception ruled incomplete.
On Ryan’s interception in the red zone, his pass for Jones was short. Jones ran a deeper route.
“For me, that’s the toughest one,” Ryan said. “They go to a cover zero pressure and I tried to put it outside and threw it with too much touch. That’s it.”
Jones had a different explanation and may have been trying to protect his quarterback.
“Nothing on Matt,” Jones said. “I thought it was a good ball. I just couldn’t see it.” Jones said he lost the ball in the lights.
Despite all of the misfirings and Ryan not involving the other receivers much, the Falcons still had a chance to pull out the game in the final 1:54. The Falcons zipped down to the Eagles’ 10-yard line and took their final timeout with 24 seconds left. They had four shots at the end zone and got a fifth after Eagles linebacker Jordan Hicks was called for pass interference on fourth down.
“It was an opportunity where we were going to have four chances into the end zone,” Ryan said. “We couldn’t throw anything in the field because we were too short on clock. We either had to throw the ball out of bounds or get some yardage and get out of bounds or we had to take shots into the end zone.”
Three of the passes were to Jones.
“We didn’t make the plays,” Ryan said. “We had some good calls. Some good opportunities, but we didn’t make them.”