Thats the Matt Ryan we all know

[freakylick]

Anyone who plays fantasy football knows that Roddy White actually had a decent year last year, without Ryan at QB. Specifically, Roddy White had 83 catches for 1202 yards and 6 TD without Ryan. And Michael Jenkins had 53 catches for 532 yards and 4 TD in 2007. As a matter of fact, Roddy White is so good that he made Chris Redman look like a decent quarterback. Seeing as how 2007 was Roddy's 3rd season, which is generally considered the year that WR's break out, how exactly was he considered a bust?

 

Once again, White's stats:

 

2007: 83 catches, 1202 yards, 6 TD (with Joey Harrington and Chris Redman)

2008: 88 catches, 1383 yards, 7 TD (with Matt Ryan)

 

So a 4th year WR coming off a 1200 yard season is still not considered a veteran? Really?

You neglected to note that last years Falcons passed 28% more than this years team. So he accumulated those yards out of sheer volume of passes. If you pass that much, someones bound to catch a lot of balls. That doesn't mean that they have become a veteran. Being a veteran is much more than stats...but playing fantasy football makes you forget things like that.

 

But for arguments sake...let's call him a "veteran". Would you really put him in the same level of veteran leadership as Derrick Mason?!

 

BTW...I would hardly say that White made Redman look good. He caught a whopping 24 passes from Redman last year. I think playing against the defenses of the Cardinals, Saints and Seahawks had more to do with it than White. The only tough defense that Redman played against last year was the Bucs.

 

4.2 more yards/game on 2 fewer carries per game. And if it weren't for those two consecutive 70+ yard runs against Dallas, these numbers wouldn't be nearly this close. The fact of the matter is that Michael Turner had 1700 yards rushing for Atlanta, and Baltimore's top three rushers barely equal this mark. Were it not for those two Dallas runs, Turner would still be way ahead of all three.

If your going to pick and choose certain plays to eliminate from a conversation...there's no point in arguing it. I could start eliminating some of those miraculous catches where Mason and Clayton both saved bad passes, but that would be silly...I'll just let you "have" this point.

 

And Flacco had the pressure of turning around an offense that hasn't had real success since Vinny Testaverde wore a Ravens uniform. I challenge you to name a more-maligned position in the NFL than Raven's quarterback over the last decade.

Flacco was never given that pressure. He was given the pressure of managing this offense this year. He did that well and I give him a lot of credit for that. Many fans were hoping to see improvement over prior QB's that we have had here and he certainly is an improvement...but he didn't need much to accomplish that. I suppose we've lowered our standards around here so much, that any decent Ravens QB is considered a god.

 

Matt was asked to become the face of that franchise on and off the field. Joe didn't even come close to facing that kind of pressure.

Not only did Ryan come into the NFL from a pro-style offense and as a higher draft pick, but he knew early on that he would be the starter in Atlanta. Flacco was never meant to take a snap this season, but was forced into the lineup when the #1 and #2 QB went down in the preseason.

You're right...Ryan came in from a pro-style offense (and in case you missed it, I will reiterate)...That is a major credit to Joe for coming from D1AA and a non-pro style offense and picking it up as quickly as he did.

 

But you seem to imply that Ryan was given the QB1 job from the start. He had to earn that. He outplayed Redman and Harrington (not that it was a tough thing to accomplish) in the preseason and earned that job. Yes he was guaranteed it at some point...but so was Flacco, who was handed the job by default. We can argue all day about which is a tougher pressure, being "forced" a job cold or having to earn a job...but I think in the end, we will just have to agree to disagree.

 

Most of the QB's with the best stats play on teams with terrible defenses. (Drew Brees, Jay Cutler, Philip Rivers, Kurt Warner to name a few...) Why could this be?

This could be because two of those offenses (Saints and Cards) are built solely around the pass game. Cutler had to throw a lot because they couldn't keep RB's healthy. Rivers attempts per game were tied for 24th in the league and their defense was average in points/game.

 

But if you want to put Matt Ryan in with the likes of Brees, Cutler, Rivers and Warner...I'm sure he'd take that. :P

 

The only way the defense matters is if you're referring to the fact that Flacco played in an offense designed to protect the ball and control the clock rather than score a huge amount of points, whereas Ryan's coaches called plays to score as many points as possible to make up for a poor defense.

That's sort of what I was getting at...although I view what Ryan went through more as being asked more to put the game on his shoulders in crunch time. Although both offenses were built around the running game...Flacco had a little less pressure because he knew that any mistakes he made, his defense could cover him.

 

Also worth mentioning is that Flacco averaged twice as many yards per carry as Ryan and 2 rushing TD's to Ryan's 1. Flacco's rushing is a big part of his game, and cannot be overlooked..

Flacco's rushing is a big part of his game?! He admitted that he was never much of a rusher in college...76 yards in two seasons on 147 attempts. But I will give you his 11.3 yds/game versus Matt's 6.5 yards/game (which BTW is not "twice as many"). By that logic, I guess fumbles are a big part of his game too...his 11 versus Matt's 6.

 

BTW...Weren't you one of the many in those pre-draft discussions that believed that Matt would be a bust?

 

[SpearSrai]

You neglected to note that last years Falcons passed 28% more than this years team. So he accumulated those yards out of sheer volume of passes. If you pass that much, someones bound to catch a lot of balls. That doesn't mean that they have become a veteran. Being a veteran is much more than stats...but playing fantasy football makes you forget things like that.

 

But for arguments sake...let's call him a "veteran". Would you really put him in the same level of veteran leadership as Derrick Mason?!

 

Of course not...Derrick Mason is a fantastic veteran. But Roddy White is the better deep-threat, and since we're measuring the QB's based on yards and touchdowns, a guy like Roddy White is a bigger contributor there. Mason will come up with clutch catches all day long, but Roddy White is the type of guy who will rack up the yardage.

 

Flacco was never given that pressure. He was given the pressure of managing this offense this year. He did that well and I give him a lot of credit for that. Many fans were hoping to see improvement over prior QB's that we have had here and he certainly is an improvement...but he didn't need much to accomplish that. I suppose we've lowered our standards around here so much, that any decent Ravens QB is considered a god.

 

Matt was asked to become the face of that franchise on and off the field. Joe didn't even come close to facing that kind of pressure.

 

What exactly does 'becoming the face of a franchise' actually entail in football terms? An extra photo-op here and there? Some commercials and billboards? If all Flacco had to do was come in and deal with the offense that he was given, rather than deal with the history of the team, then I don't see how Ryan's situation is that much different. I would imagine that he's never met Michael Vick, and doesn't really care too much about Bobby Petrino. If the "pressure" surrounding Flacco is fabricated, then so is Ryan's in my opinion.

 

BTW...Weren't you one of the many in those pre-draft discussions that believed that Matt would be a bust?

 

No, but I was one of the ones who said we needed to address our corner situation in the first round and then worry about our quarterback position with our second pick (this was when we thought Flacco would still be available in the second round or late 1st) I never said that Ryan would be a bust; only that:

 

1) QB wasn't our biggest need, as I trusted Troy Smith to manage the offense, and expected our defense to return to 2006 form (no one could have anticipated what would happen to Troy in the preseason...)

 

2) That Ryan's style of play didn't fit our team. He has certainly performed better than anyone could have anticipated this season, but at the time I felt that his 'gunslinging' style didn't complement our great defense. But that was only because I thought we could be successful right away without rebuilding our entire offense around a new QB. Obviously the season has gone a little differently than expected, with all of the injuries we've had.

 

And it's not like it was wrong to think that we needed to nab a top CB in the first. I still think we could have grabbed Leodis McKelvin at #8 and then swung Flacco through some other deal... but we would have lost out on either Ray Rice or Tavares Gooden that way... so I guess we'll see in the long run what all of that means. But CB is still one of our biggest needs going into next season.