PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (AP) -Matt Ryan’s homecoming game turned out just as most folks figured, perhaps even Ryan: He and the Atlanta Falcons lost to the Philadelphia Eagles.
But Ryan and his young teammates learned more about themselves on Sunday – a lot of it positive – in one of the more difficult venues for a visitor in the NFL, and against one of the more perplexing defenses.
The score was 27-14, but the game was closer than that.
In fact, if not for an egregiously bad call by the officials, who ruled that Atlanta muffed a punt that was never touched, Ryan would have had a shot at directing a winning drive in the final 2 1/2 minutes. And the play couldn’t be challenged because Atlanta had used its timeouts.
Ryan, who grew up about 20 miles from Lincoln Financial Field, arrived in Philadelphia on Saturday in time to watch the baseball team he rooted for as a youngster in the World Series. Except that he watched only the early innings on TV because the third game was delayed an hour-and-a-half by rain Saturday night.
aid. “It was good that they won.”
Too bad he couldn’t win his own game, but it was a long shot at best.
Although they are both now 4-3, the Eagles are a better team right now than the Falcons, who are trying to put behind them a 2007 season when their quarterback, Michael Vick, went to jail, and their coach, Bobby Petrino, fled for Arkansas after 13 games. Those four wins, in fact, are as many as the Falcons had all of last season, so from that standpoint, anything from here on is gravy.
Ryan has made Atlanta fans forget Vick and the sour taste he left in Georgia – and nationally – after the involvement in dogfighting. He entered the game with five TD passes, just three interceptions and a growing reputation around the NFL as a quarterback mature beyond his rookie status.
But the Philadelphia defense made him more than just the manager he’s been in several games when Michael Turner has run wild. The Eagles brought eight men up, held Turner to 58 yards on 17 carries and challenged Ryan to win the game.
At times, Ryan came through.
In the second quarter, he threaded a bullet about 15 yards down the field between three Philly defenders to Roddy White, who turned it into a 55-yard TD that gave the Falcons a 7-0 lead.
At times he didn’t.
nt, Ryan tried a fade to White in the right corner of the end zone. The play never had a chance – Lito Sheppard leaped up and intercepted the ball.
“We go by numbers,” Ryan said. “They had more guys lined up than we could block, so we thought we’d throw it. It was just an awful pass by me.”
That is part of Ryan’s maturity, one reason that as the season nears the halfway mark, he has a shot at being only the third quarterback ever voted offensive rookie of the year.
“The guy’s a competitor,” White said, taking the blame himself for the end-zone interception. “I’ve got to do a better job helping him out; even if we have to get an interference call, that’s my responsibility.”
Beyond that, Ryan showed that he has the one thing that the best QBs have – the ability to drive a team for a late score when he needs it. Thus, he engineered a 14-play, 82-yard drive capped by his second TD pass to White with just under 4 minutes left.
But the final test was aborted by an official’s decision, which if made the right way would have given the Falcons the ball at their 40 with more than 2 minutes left. Watching Ryan try to drive the Falcons for a winning TD in a game they didn’t deserve would have been fascinating.
Instead, the Eagles got the ball, Bryan Westbrook ran 39 yards for a TD and the fans started going home.
Except for Matt Ryan.
continue his lessons as an NFL quarterback.
Add A Comment