With news of his retirement, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan will receive a hero’s welcome in the city where he made his legend.
Will Canton, Ohio, respond accordingly in five years or so? At least in a world where the Pro Football Hall of Fame functions like you want it to, it absolutely should.
Ryan will live eternal in Mercedes-Benz Stadium; there’s no questioning that. He’s arguably the greatest Falcon to ever play for the franchise, perhaps only challenged by the best player he ever threw a ball to in wide receiver Julio Jones. Those two are locked-in on a Falcons Mt. Rushmore.
That quarterback-receiver combination was truly lethal for opposing defenses, particularly in that outstanding 2016 season where Ryan won MVP and Offensive Player of the Year. It was the greatest season in franchise history, one that firmly established Ryan as one of the greats of his generation and gave Atlanta its second NFC title for the final game of the now-demolished Georgia Dome.
Of course, the game after that was Super Bowl 51, the worst collapse for a team in NFL championship history and the game that Ryan will perhaps be attached to before any other in his career, although truly at very little fault of his own. The 28-3 memes will follow anyone even remotely associated with Falcons football until the end of time, but we’re a play or two away in that game with Ryan sporting a ring on his finger and his Hall of Fame bona fides basically unquestioned in the grander football conversation.
Ryan’s absolute excellence on the field towers above his lack of a championship. He was second behind New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees in the 2010s for total passing yards (44,830) and fifth in total touchdowns (er, yes, 283). He was fourth in total yards per game over the decade. He also nearly threw for 5,000 yards in 2016 (4,944).
Ryan was a four-time Pro Bowler, a first-team All-Pro quarterback in 2016 and won the NFL’s Rookie of the Year honor in 2008. Despite seven losing seasons over his tenure, he still finished his 15-year career with a 124-109-1 record overall as a starter, even if quarterback wins aren’t always the best metric to judge someone’s performance.
The quarterbacks he’s listed around in those statistics include Brees, Philip Rivers, Tom Brady, Matthew Stafford, Eli Manning and Aaron Rodgers.
Since 2004, the quarterbacks who join Ryan as MVPs are Brady, Rodgers, Peyton Manning, Cam Newton, Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson. That’s pretty elite company, don’t you think?
Statistically, Ryan is a Hall of Fame quarterback. His dominance during the 2010s wasn’t always matched by how good his Falcons teams were, but those struggles often overshadowed how reliable and tactical Ryan was on game days. It wasn’t ever really his fault when the Atlanta offensive lines couldn’t hold or the defenses coughed up leads that Ryan’s offenses built.
Plus, consider the legacy Ryan leaves behind in Atlanta. Going into the 2008 NFL Draft, the Falcons were in shambles coming off the 4-12 nightmare season where coach Bobby Petrino bailed out on the team before the season ended for a job at Arkansas. The franchise had just lost Michael Vick to his dog-fighting scandal, too. It could’ve been years before wins came.
However, Ryan’s arrival sparked an instant revival for the franchise as the team went 11-5 that fall and made it to the NFC wild-card round. What followed was the best stretch of football in Falcons history, capped by the 2012 season where the Falcons fell a play or two short of making a Super Bowl over the San Francisco 49ers.
The 2013 and 2014 seasons came with high hopes but diminished returns, but Ryan still played his heart out, like a truly elite quarterback among his peers. It took a season in 2015 for Ryan and new Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan to figure each other out, but the year to follow changed both of their careers forever. It’s the year that hypothetically should cement Ryan in the Hall of Fame as one of the greats of the game.
Ryan’s career is singular among his peers. If one or two moments go differently in Super Bowl 51, he’s got the Super Bowl win we so often judge quarterbacks by instead of the lifetime of jokes that come unfairly at his expense. However, his retirement should highlight just how colossal his memory looms over the Falcons franchise. He is one of one in Atlanta.
For the Pro Football Hall of Fame, that should matter. As it seeks to recognize the greats in football history, Ryan should earn a gold jacket once he’s eligible. He represents everything good about one of the NFL’s 32 teams, and he produced at the same level as the great quarterbacks of his generation.
Super Bowl ring or not, Ryan’s career should be capped with a proud statue outside of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a jersey retired in the Atlanta rafters and, ultimately, a bust in Canton.
It’s what’s right for one of the game’s most underappreciated players, someone who played so well for so long without a lot of recognition for just how special his career was when he was needed the most.
Ryan saved the Falcons, and, if all is just in this process, his career should be recognized one day with football’s most revered honor.
