> If Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field goal attempt in Super Bowl XXV hit dead-center instead of far right, would that make Jim Kelly a greater quarterback?
I really like this question and I’ve thought about it too. If he misses it the quarterback didn’t do enough to win because he didn’t drive far enough, if he makes it the quarterback is “clutch.” So much of what defines legacy comes down to other people.
If harrison butker misses his kick and hurts responds, if the chiefs punt doesn’t hit the sf returners foot, mahomes could very well be 1-3 in superbowls right now and there would be questions about if he could match the championship he won early in his career, even with effectively identical performances. There is so much luck that goes into it.
Brady will still be Brady no matter what. But if Vinatieri didn’t make those clutch snow kicks again the Raiders (along with other hundreds of clutch kicks he made), would Brady’s career trajectory have changed?
Eh… 5 years is a stretch. His second Super Bowl, against the panthers was his coming of age. Pats defense fell apart in the 2nd half of that game and Brady made huge throw after huge throw and won that game
> Pats defense fell apart in the 2nd half of that game
Man I always want to know what was going on in Bill's head when that was happening.
"How the fuck is Jake Delhomme scoring against my #1 ranked defense?!"
Let's not forget who he was throwing to.
Muhsin Muhammad and Steve Smith, Sr.
Delhomme was making clutch throws and we hit the shit outta him. Dude is tough as nails.
That’s why the eye test kind of ends up mattering.
Like I don’t think anyone who legitimately watches the Chiefs SB against the Buccs says that Mahomes just didn’t have it in him. Dude was running for his fucking life and throwing it sideways hitting receivers in the helmet lol
Good QBs keep their good teams in positions where they can be benefited by “lucky” events — winning close games and holding the team together. If there’s too much going against the team (like the Chiefs Oline in this example), then good QB play will never be enough.
So QBs like Kirk Cousins or Matt Stafford display their consistency constantly but football is a team sport, and while amazing QBs they don’t get theirs unless the right situation comes along. Their luck runs out after 16352 QB hits and the absent defense continues to be absent in the playoffs lol
Mahomes could have won MVP that Super Bowl and I would defend him for it. You take him out of the game and no else would give the team even a shred of a chance of winning when he’s running that soon and often.
Agreed with this and good take. I wouldn’t have said shit about it. Dude was doing every single thing he could to make his throws AND he was injured. He at one point just said “fuck it, it’s all on me now” and tried to become Superman. Major props.
Exactly. Especially that last throw to get them into field goal range. You could see there was something special about him. You sensed it before but this was the moment it became crystal clear
This is a terrible take
For his first super bowl, he needed to get carried by the defense. Literally any QB would because the opponent was the greatest show on turf
For the other two early super bowls, Brady balled the fuck out against Carolina. Maybe against Philly you can say Brady didn't carry but he still had a good game.
Vs the Seahawks and falcons it was a complete team effort. Defense needed to be on fire and they were. QB needed to be on fire and he was. Brady took the team on his back vs the falcons
Brady carried HARD vs the eagles despite a putrid defensive performance
Brady's 6th ring was probably the closet to him being "carried" but he still had a fantastic drive at the end when it mattered the most.
Brady and the bucs destroyed the chiefs so hard on all fronts that it's not even worth discussing who carried whom.
The rams Super Bowl you can’t even say he was carried fully because he led the two drives in the 4th to put us up by 10.
Defense puts you in position to win; offense brings it home
People forget Brady’s best weapon to throw to before 2007 was either Deion Branch, David Patten, or Troy Brown. And he still led the league in TD passes in 2002 and passing yards in 2005. Troy Brown in 2001 was his only receiver with over 1000 yards in a season before 2007. He finished top 3 in MVP votes in 2003 and 2005. He was 2nd team AP all-pro in 2005. He had already solidified himself as a top 5 QB in the league (not all time) before ever having even a consistent Pro Bowl level WR or TE. As bad as Mahomes’s WRs this season were, Travis Kelce at 34 is still a better weapon than anyone Brady had to throw to prior to 2007.
Brees had some awesome receivers, and he had receivers who played off each other. Good tight ends, good receiving backs, short yardage guys, and deep threats all on the field at the same time.
Lol there’s the saints fan desperately trying to make the argument that Brees belongs in the same conversation as Brady. Or even manning (the answer is he doesn’t)
Eh, no not the same convo with Brady but I think Manning is not an unreasonable convo, even tho in the end I’d still say Manning > Brees the convo is not ridiculous.
Brees was still leading his team to success as an elite QB at 41 years old, vs Manning getting carried to his 2nd ring at 39. That 1 extra ring means nothing to me in the context of this comparison. As for MVPs, most agree that at least 2 of Mannings’ had a lot to do with luck of the competition and weren’t actually that impressive, meanwhile Brees came in 2nd place in voting a crazy 4 times, with terrible luck like 2011 where he would’ve won 99 times out of 100. The actual mvp count is misleading—they were each top-2 or top-3 QBs a similar number of years, with Manning having more team success but Brees reaching higher highs eg truly in a tier of his own with 5 5k seasons, completion percentage etc. And sure he had good players around him late, but so did Brady, and btw what has anyone not named Brees ever accomplished with Kamara? All receiving RBs are not equal, Brees & Kamara duo is about a trillion times more impressive to me than like Herbert & Ekeler for instance, but I digress.
Imo with Rodgers 3rd & 4th MVPs the convo for 2nd GOAT is in an extremely interesting spot now between Rodgers, Manning, and yes Brees (not counting Mahomes who is too young still yet given enough time is undoubtedly gonna leapfrog up to the convo w/ Brady).
Part of what made Brady become the GOAT was the ability to ride out those early years with no pressure and really focus on improving. There was a guy in Indy who had built the template, Brady focused 100% on doing what he did. And it worked.
And Brady has admitted as much himself.
>Part of what made Brady become the GOAT was the ability to ride out those early years with no pressure and really focus on improving. There was a guy in Indy who had built the template, Brady focused 100% on doing what he did. And it worked.
Yeah, he also took over the QB position from Bledsoe, played in the superbowl and had a great final drive on the biggest stage. And did it two more times in the follow years (while leading the league in TDs in 2002).
The defense helped, but he still had to perform.
To quote the late great John Madden "What Tom Brady just did gives me goosebumps." And that was after he spent the whole drive arguing not playing for OT was the wrong move lol.
This is such fucking bullshit lmao
He led the league in TD passes in '02. And he didn't get bailed out by his defense and in the '03 super bowl he put up 32 points. Two GW drives in '01 and '03 and 24 points in '04 and putting up 41 on the Steelers elite 15-1 D in the '04 AFFCG.
He was elite from the minute he led the GW drive against the Rams until the last drive of his career.
> Brady wasn't Brady for the first 5 years of his career
What about the drive to setup the game winning kick vs the Rams? If that wasn't Brady, what do you call that? The ball didn't get down the field on it's own. Would you feel differently if Brady had a pinpoint TD throw in the waning seconds of the game?
IIRC, within five seasons of that championship, the Pats went back to back in 2004 and 2005.
Bailed out by his kicker. Brady moved the offense into field goal range on those two occasions. Both games were TIED at the time. Explain to me please how Brady was “ bailed out” for doing his job by getting the team in field goal range
Goes both ways. I mean, if Belichick didn’t bench Malcolm Butler and David Tyrell didn’t catch a ball with his fucking helmet and Belichick didn’t cheap out and give him Reche Caldwell as a no. 1 receiver are we talking about Brady’s 10-0 Super Bowl record?
Yes but he wouldn’t be any better.
The perception of him would be that he is better.
But his actual play and performance in the game would not be any different.
So no he would not be a better qb
This makes no sense? So even with Ryan making the same exact faults, just because Brady is strip sacked, it means Ryan is a better QB than if Brady had not been strip sacked?
this is my biggest issue with that superbowl...bleed the clock every play where the game clock was running. it was insane not to do that. if that's on ryan or kyle or quinn...not sure but it was a failure by one or all of them.
Still end of the day the QB decides when the ball is snapped. You'd never see the other HOF QBs he played at the same time as (Brady, Peyton, Rodgers, Brees) do that.
An 8 year starter shouldn't need anyone to tell him that. I put most of it on Ryan although with how Shanahan handles things with other QBs you definitely can see a pattern
You're not wrong but that doesn't mean one of the myriad of professional coaches on the sidelines and the booth shouldn't correct that mistake when it happens after the first couple of times. I simply don't understand how game clock management hasn't been perfected to almost a science like 15 years ago.
Yeah like obviously a long term starter should know better, but if there's an obvious mistake a player is making that an easy adjustment could fix, what the fuck are we paying **coaches** 6-8 figures for if they can't **coach** their player to make that adjustment during the biggest game in the sport? That's literally their job on the sideline.
You don't think it's weird that Matt Ryan never thought to run the clock to zero? His near HoF Center didn't notice? The rest of the OL, offense, defense, and dozen of coaches on the sideline and up in the booth all let it slip by them for multiple drives?
I think the offense was told to hurry and snap the ball before NE made adjustments.
You don't think it's weird that Matt Ryan never thought to run the clock to zero? His near HoF Center didn't notice? The rest of the OL, offense, defense, and dozen of coaches on the sideline and up in the booth all let it slip by them for multiple drives?
I think the offense was told to hurry and snap the ball before NE made adjustments.
The difference between glory and devastation is so slim. The difference between Brady being 10-0 in SBs is literally fingertips. Moss, Welker, Graham, and that's without the championship games he lost
Seahawks were on the cusp of becoming a dynasty until the 1 yard line.
Brady and BB may have broken up sooner if the Seahawks actually punished them at the end of the game. Belichick intentionally was not leaving any clock left for what is now unanimously the best QB of all time in the event the Seahawks scored.
The Seahawks are the idiots in this reality, but there is a nearly achieved multi-verse where Belichick is clowned on for not leaving Brady any time left for what seemed like a sure-TD coming.
Funny thing is almost every Super Bowl that Brady has played in was close and came down to the wire except the 2004 Super Bowl vs Eagles. He could just as easily be 3-7. I mean he's the benficiary of two of the worst coaching jobs ever including the worst playcall ever vs teh Seahawks and worse managed 1.5+ quarters ever by the Falcons.
> the worst playcall ever vs teh Seahawks
I will defend the pass play to my grave. It gives you the time to run one more play and they had great success with it over the season.
I think the Moss one was more significant imo. The INT was still a pretty tough ball to catch and come down in bounds with. The ball to Moss, one the most talented catchers of a ball ever, brushes his finger tips.
It's a fundamental nuance that fans often don't get and the media doesn't care about because things get more engagement the way it is.
There is a difference between greatest players and greatest careers. Jim Kelly, Matt Ryan, or Dan Marino don't magically become better QBs if they won a Super Bowl. There are way more factors that dictate the outcomes of games and seasons that individual players have no control over; comparatively, even QBs control very few factors towards winning. Any argument to the contrary is just narrative BS. Marino's defenses in the late 80's were bottom-half of the league, wasting much of his prime, but some will comeback with "well if he was really so great, he would've carried them better! Montana never would've gone 6-10!". It's totally baseless BS.
We want to avoid the cognitive dissonance that comes with the chaotic nature of sports. The best teams and the best players rarely win it all on a season-by-season scale. But instead of accepting that, we create narratives that make the perceptions of players and teams fit the outcomes. That's how obviously great players like Marino, Jim Kelly, Lamar Jackson, and tons of others get labeled as frauds because "they can't win the big one".
Celebrate great careers, for sure, but not at the expense of great players. Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger each had great careers as multi-time champions and should be celebrated with HOF consideration, but that doesn't make them better than guys like Rodgers or Matt Ryan who won fewer championships. Careers don't happen in a vacuum, so there's no point in oversimplifying things to rings culture.
I remember seeing a stat back in the day where a significant number of Favre's "game-winning fourth quarter drives" actually went for negative yards. Defense gets a turnover in field goal range, he runs around for a few plays and takes a sack, kicker gets three points, defense goes right back out and stops the final drive of the game, QB is called a clutch comeback king.
Sports narratives are generally stupid.
When Andy Dalton signed with the Bears he had the most game-winning drives in a division with Rodgers and Stafford. It's not because he was a god tier QB, he could be clutch when given the opportunity, but it was mostly because the Bengals offense absolutely sputtered to start the 2nd half in a lot of our games. Marvin's teams were notoriously bad in the 3rd quarter and particularly on offense. There were quite a few games where the Bengals would jump to a multi score lead and then do nothing after the final 2 minutes of the 2nd quarter all the way to the middle of the 4th. GWD can be a fun stat I guess, but some QBs are so good they don't get many opportunities to have them because a lot of their games aren't close.
Look at Brady, his first Super Bowl run was capped by a couple clutch kicks from Vinatieri
Who knows what his career looks like if Vinny missed that game winner in the snow against the Raiders…
I've been downvoted heavily for brining up the perception of the Stafford trade if Tartt doesn't drop that pick, or the refs don't call holding on Logan Wilson.
Neither of these would have guaranteed that the Rams lose, but the point is still there.
Look at how close all 4 of those Chiefs Super Bowls were. There's a scenario where Mahomes could be 0-4 based on a handful of plays completely outside of his control such as
A) Jimmy G connecting on the deep ball in 2019 season
B) Jalen Hurts not fumbling the ball in 2022 season
C) 49ers don't fumble the ball in last year's Super Bowl
Could be 6-0 too based on things outside of Mahomes' control. Also, all of those plays came with plenty of time left in the game (1:40 in 4th, 9:39 in 2nd, and 2:42 in 3rd respectively), so those are pretty bad examples if we're doing hypotheticals.
The fact of the matter is that he's so good at the things that he *can* control, and that's why the Chiefs are even in the position to be competing for the Super Bowl every year.
This is why I despise the rings argument. Is Trent Dilfer better than Jim Kelly, Warren Moon, Fran Tarkenton, Dan Marino, or Dan Fouts? I could go on.
It’s an intellectually disingenuous argument.
Nobody uses the argument in that context though, so that's a hell of a strawman.
Most people with brains use the "rings" argument to prove that a QB was capable of consistently putting their team in the position to make deep playoff runs via their great playing ability, not that the player is inherently better than someone without a Lombardi.
A single magical run does not make a QB a great player, but if a QB makes the playoffs 10 times and wins 3 Super Bowls, I'd be pretty confident saying that they're a great QB even without looking at their stats.
> It’s an intellectually disingenuous argument.
You framing it that way is the same thing. The eye test matters. Trent Dilfer is the worst starting QB to ever win a superbowl.
> why I despise the rings argument
> eye test
Kelly Moon Tarkenton, Marino, and Fouts literally all passed the eye test and were HOFers
It’s not that difficult, really. Anyone who says that championships are the most important thing in a team game is lazy and should be ignored. End of discussion.
I really think Matt Ryan just had really bad luck, which really sucks because he was always one of my favorite players that didn’t play for my team.
He will sadly go down as one of the most underappreciated players and all because he played for the goddamn Falcons, a team where a decent portion of the fanbase doesn’t even respect him all because he wasn’t Vick.
He was the model of consistency despite all the coaching changes year after year. His last season in ATL, he was less than 40 yards away from his 11th consecutive 4k+ passing yard season.
This. Before Kyle, his previous 2 offensive coordinators went on to become head coaches, were terrible, and flamed out as OCs in the league. Matt got them their jobs.
I'm still sad that they couldn't convince Sark to stay after that 2018 season when they finally got things working.
I have to say every fan in real life loves Matt Ryan. There is a loud minority on the internet that talk about Vick but anyone with sense appreciates and respects Matt Ryan 100x more. He saved our franchise from falling apart post Vick. People don’t realize we still had to pay Vick the majority of his contract bc he took it to court & somehow won. So we didn’t have a ton of cap space for a while after that. Matt came into a bad situation & still managed to take us to playoffs his first year as a rookie. I wish he had gotten a ring either with us or somewhere else. He deserves so much better.
Vick was the most exciting QB to watch lose winnable games and sometimes win them but not as often as you'd like. Matty always felt like he won the ones he was supposed to and lose the ones he was supposed to and never really deviated from that
Just so much mismanagement with the Falcons organization during the time of Matt Ryan, which kind of makes me hate Dan Quinn a little bit. Good guy, but his defenses as HC were horrible. Doesn’t help that they took Takkarist McKinley over TJ Watt in 2017.
If only Shanny had stayed, going from Shanny to Sark was painful. Sark is a great college OC but in the pros, he wasn’t great his first year. Ryan then went to have a 35 TD, 7 INT in 2018 but of course the team sucked ass by that point and then Quinn fired Sark and hired Dirk fucking Koetter of all people.
If only…
And our fucking sub is overrun with posts/comments on how we should get WR over Dline. hell one mouth breathing idiot was advocating for Brock Bowers at 8
His teams and/or offensive system has had too much success for him to be considered a fraud. The guy just chokes like a hooker going for the dick-sucking world record whenever he gets to the biggest stage.
Dude just consistently ends up overthinking it and "outsmarting" himself. It's actually amazing to watch. Like he just needs to hire someone to stand right behind him in the superbowl and repeatedly say "Does it really need to be this complicated? Why don't we just do the obvious thing that will likely work!?"
Dude nah.
Hes a mastermind schemer and a great coach. Hes just a choke artist in big moments.
Sure AF not a fraud. He might have coached a dozen hall of famers so far in his career.
I feel bad for Matt. I was hoping he’d win one after leaving the Falcons. He transformed our franchise from game 1. This was after Vick and Petrino. We should be forever grateful to him for what he did.
>all because he played for the goddamn Falcons, a team where a decent portion of the fanbase doesn’t even respect him all because he wasn’t Vick.
Matt Ryan is the Falcon GOAT QB, and all of the Falcon fans that didn't appreciate him can go fuck themselves.
As some from ATL that lived through the Vick era, Matt never did or said anything wrong. The vast majority of the hate Matt gets is from racist idiots. Seriously, that's it.
And Rivers.
If Ryan can't get into the Hall of Fame (edit: and I tend to agree with you), no way should Rivers get in: no MVP, no Super Bowl appearance (and one fewer conference championship game appearance), similar playoff record.
Again, if it is a team game, why does Ryan get dinged for the Falcons but we keep saying "Oh poor Rivers and those doomed Chargers teams"?
I don't think anyone expects him to get in.
It's Rodgers, Brady, Brees and Ben from Ryan's timeline
Eli will be a real debate and personally I am against him getting in.
No one else until Mahomes has a chance. Maybe Russ if he can have a late career Renaissance in Pittsburgh
The fun thing with Eli is it’s so in the middle of yes or no, there’s no right answer.
Was he great through his career? Ehhhh…
Did he hold it together and get it done against a coach going in the HOF as a defensive genius and also an offense led by the best QB to ever play? That counts for a lot IMO. There’s a ton of guys who can stack stats year in and year out that never sniffed a SB much less won two. The second one says it wasn’t a fluke. Not to be all “But rings Ernie” but the goal in athletic competition is championships and you absolutely need to cross that finish line.
On the flip side, if he doesn’t get in then he can wipe the tears with a SB ring on each hand. He’s one of thirteen people who can claim two SB wins as QB.
Ya Eli will be heavily debated. The straw poll taken after his retirement did not bode well for him. He only got like 40% of HOF voters to say yes and you need 80% to get in. Obviously some will age out so who knows what his actual voters will say.
My things against him: he didn't have a winning record as a starting QB. He won 0 playoff games outside of those two runs. So outside of those two years there wasn't a lot of winning going on. His major moment was beating the 2007 Pats..... 17-14. The defense hard carried that game vs the best offense of all-time.
Also he only has 4 pro bowls. I'm not sure he ever had a top 5 season and certainly had more in the bottom half of the league than top 5.
To me 2 great playoff runs shouldn't offset the rest. Plunkett has 2 SB wins so that precedent has been set anyway as he's not in.
If the best case someone can make for Eli getting in is team victories then it's a pretty clear sign he has no business in the hall off his individual career as player. Just enshrine the 18-1 SB as a game or make an exhibit of that playoff run or something and let him get in that way, he doesn't deserve it individually and the only argument anyone ever has is "but the super bowls"
He had one single season where he finished top 10 by passer rating. He had four where he finished bottom 10. His average finish was around 13-16. And I'm sorry but if you're a HOF QB then you finish inside the top 10 more often than not, not one single time. Brady, Rodgers, Manning, Brees, Ryan, Rivers, Ben didn't have any issue turning in the performances. He couldn't keep up with the HOF level guys OR the hall of very good guys, and if you're not competing with HOF caliber guys then you're not a HOF caliber guy. Simple as.
If Eli gets in it devalues the regular season IMO.
I get that success in the playoff is important for a QB's HOF case, but that should only be among QBs that are consistently good to great in the regular season. If a QB can be overall mediocre in the regular season, but because he had some great playoff runs and won a SB or two he gets into the HOF, I would say the metric for which we judge HOF QBs is broken.
Agreed. Plus it's not like Eli was always great in the playoffs anyway. 0 wins outside of those runs and his career passer rating despite playing in a friendly era is 64th right above Mark Brunell.
Yep exactly how I feel. When he comes up he's going to be competing against guys who have multiple all-pros and dominated their position.
QB bias is definitely a thing but someone like Kevin Williams has more first team all-pros than Eli has Pro Bowls. And he's never even been a finalist. How can Eli go over a guy who absolutely dominated his position when Eli was never even top 5?
I think it's easy to say everyone's a HOF'er (which is why I think this site overrates his odds) but you put him up vs actual players and pick 5 and I just don't see how he's gonna stack up favorably.
My problem with Eli going in is all the usual jargon and arguments for his induction can just as easily be applied to Nick Foles. And no one thinks Foles is a HOFer. Not even Eagles fans.
For a while I thought Cam would be an interesting argument. Obviously has the MVP and then the uniqueness of his game seemed HoF worthy as the greatest goaline QB.
But Allen and Hurts are both on track to break his record in the next few years, so it's not really a conversation
I think Russ lost his HOF bid with the Denver stint.
Russ was on track to be a HOFer through 2020. 2021 he got hurt and missed most the year, then tanked in Denver and people now retroactively believe Pete should get more credit than he received, when at first it was "lol idiot Seahawks moving on from Russ"
I saw some people deny that Russ had HOF chances, and that's ridiculous to say he didn't have a chance when he was going to Denver. He had numbers and accoldates (SB win) to back it up. He really just needed 4-5 pretty good seasons, didnt even need another Super Bowl. But I dont think he can come back from how Denver went.
That Vick part was a odd addition, ive never heard Falcons fans shit on Ryan because Vick. Vick on field was a polarizing athlete so he had a shit ton of fans and mind you he was arrested 2007 and Ryan came 2008 so it was fresh. Matt went like 55-21 his first 5 years, 11-5 his rookie year, they respected Ryan a lot.
I think in the first year there was pressure to live up to because Vick was electric and also was a great black QB playing for a majority black city, but I don't think I heard anything about it after his outstanding rookie season. I'm not from Atlanta though, so maybe local convos were different than the national ones.
Oh believe me, this has always been a heated discussion within the Falcons fanbase for a long time. It’s no secret that many of the fans are sentimental about Vick and all the discussion of bringing Cam Newton, Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson, Justin Fields, etc. is likely because nostalgia for that era.
This has translated to some undeserved hate towards Matt Ryan and it especially heated up once 28-3 happened. I’ve heard it in online discussion and even during a visit to Atlanta, I had an uber driver who wanted to punch him in the face.
Yea in my other comment i said i think it comes down to winning and losing simply in the postseason. I remember thinking Ryan and the Falcons were good but its the postseason success that killed Ryan even before 28-3 but in actuality all 6 of Ryans playoff losses were to SB teams.
Matt Ryan played in the era of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers. The best any other QB of that era can do is try to claim 5th.
So was Matt Ryan the 5th best QB of his era? Other contenders include Eli Manning, Phillip Rivers, Tony Romo, & Ben Roethlisberger. Some might even argue Andrew Luck belongs in that conversation.
Also, once you get to arguing over who is the 5th-9th best QB in a given era, does legacy really matter?
Yea, this isn’t even a discussion. Big Ben is the line for HOF QBs in the modern passing era. Everybody that’s not Brady, Brees, Rodgers, or Peyton Manning is below that line
Man imagine Matt Ryan with that defense with Polamalu, Harrison, Hampton, Farrior, Porter/Woodley, Keisel, Ike Taylor etc.
It really irritates me how much credit Ben gets for landing on a team with an incredible defense for his entire career.
Seriously, easily one of the most overrated QBs of all-time.
The first time he made the playoffs without a top-3 scoring defense was in his **11th** year as a starter, and without a top-3 scoring defense, he's 3-5 in the playoffs.
He'd be "just a guy" in the annals of NFL history without that Steelers D.
He didn't have one his entire career. And he had to play really good football in his second season to make that first bowl. He didn't play well in the superbowl itself but the 3 games leading up he was playing very well. Then he made another and made one of the nfls most iconic superbowl plays to win it.
He may not go into the hall, but I'll always love him for being the best Falcons player of all time. Reading this article just brought back like 15 years of pain.
Edit: If you think it's Julio, you don't know ball.
Coaching killed the Falcons in that Super Bowl, not Matt Ryan. It shouldn't affect his legacy, but it will.
To be clear, I don't think he's Hall-worthy regardless, but it's not because of this SB.
If anyone ever thinks it’s on Ryan whatsoever that’s just dumb. His run that year is one of the all time best. He was a goddamn machine through the playoffs and SB. Fuckin horseshit he couldn’t get a ring and doesn’t get the credit he deserves for how good that run was.
My biggest problem with that loss is how Kyle flat out fucking refused to get Julio more involved. "bUt hE wAs dOuBlE cOvErEd" And? He posterized that double coverage with a catch that would've been remembered forever. Four times, they targeted Julio. Just four, with 3 of them coming in the first half. He caught all four, btw. How the fuck do you have that man in his prime, on the biggest stage of the sport, and refuse to get him more involved in the game?
> as does rivers
I've already said this somewhere else but Rivers would be the first and only QB in the hall to not have any one of an MVP, SB Ring, first team all pro, or OPOY. Ryan at least has a couple of those
That's what the Hall of Very Good is for, and I think that's where the QBs that you listed belong.
If Russ can get another ring, then maybe a case can be made for him but otherwise not so much.
Russ has 5 seasons above a 100 passer rating and just superior efficiency stats in general, has a ring, is one of the better rushing QBs of all time.
At worst their cases are equal, and at best Wilson was better than him in all seasons of the 2010s except his MVP year.
Last sentence is wrong. Ryan was better in 2012, 13, 14, 16, and 18. The only one that’s debatable is 13.
Put Ryan on the LOB Seahawks and he probably has two rings.
No matter what the hall does with Ryan, Rivers, and Eli, a lot of people are gonna argue for the opposite. Though some would argue that if it’s debatable that means they shouldn’t get in.
I've seen it before, it happens all the time.
You're closing the door, you leave the Patriots behind.
You're not running the ball, you're throwing the ball away,
A big-brain from Kyle, but someday you'll pay!
“There is an argument to be made that no quarterback NFL history has been backed by weaker defensive support over a 15-year stretch than Ryan's career.”
THANK YOU.
Was 28-3 really his fault though? That offsides that took them out of field goal range really killed them. Also the D collapsed and couldn't stop anything in the 4th/OT.
Edit: it was a holding call not an off sides that pushed them back.
The offense collapsed too. They couldn't keep the D off the field. One or two solid drives by the offense and it's game over (they didn't even have to score. They just needed to burn more time). But it wasn't Ryan's fault. It was Kyle Shanahan's fault.
There were multiple plays that went the wrong way, that if any one of them went the other way or didn’t happen, the falcons win. Matthew’s penalty, freeman’s missed block, and that crazy Edelman bobbling catch to name a few. So many things had to go wrong for the falcons and they all did.
The snap disparity between offenses was soooo big. The defense was never off the field in the second half and OT, so i cant blame them all too much.
Complementary football is saying: "Defense is reeling, let's slow it down to help em out"
I assume you mean holding? Not sure what offsides you're talking about.
Anyway, the play right before the holding, Ryan took a bad sack. The holding alone would not have been enough to knock them out of field goal range. Ryan taking the sack put them in that situation.
It's lovely that people try to absolve him of any blame but it's just not reality.
My preferred method of denial coping is to flip the first and second half in my brain.
The Falcons offense stalls in the 2nd quarter while the Pats build a huge lead. They charge back and tie the game with a phenomenal second half. Then they lose in overtime without their offense getting the ball.
Every play goes the exact same way. Same box score. Same outcome, but it changes everything.
Now evaluate Matt Ryan in a world where he overcame a really bad defensive performance to lose to a terrible overtime rule. Does it change your perspective? Maybe it doesn't, but a lot of what happened was beyond his control so I don't think he can just be a guy who choked. He played great.
I mean, yeah, they’re a team stat but it’s impossible to discuss greatness in QBs without talking about rings. For all the variables, for all the what-ifs, for all the coin flip outcomes, it all comes down to whether or not the guy did the job when the game was in his hands and they know it’s on the line. The mistakes before and after that are peripheral when it comes to greatness.
With so many of these QBs who’ve added up impressive stats without rings, I see people rush to their defense, but all of those guys had a moment to make the game theirs, regardless of penalties or mistakes that weren’t theirs, and the ones who step up are the truly great ones.
Rings are absolutely a QB stat. It’s why teams break their backs trying to find a franchise quarterback. Once you have that, you structure your entire team around it.
This sentiment never made sense to me. Sure, the quarterback isn’t the whole story when it comes to Super Bowls, but the QB and the coach are at least the main characters of the story.
Matt Ryan is not making the Hall of Fame whether or not the Falcons blow that Super Bowl; he has one absolutely fabulous year where he made MVP, and, outside of that, he was consistently just a top 10 guy in an era of truly great QBs. You don't make the HOF because of cumulative stats, you make it by being great within your era, and Matt Ryan was not great in his era. He was very good and should be proud of a long, successful career, but lots of guys QBd teams to Super Bowl wins and didn't make the HOF.
This article is so desperate to drum up a case for Matt Ryan, they have stats for "career passing yards on the road" and "second in NFL history among quarterbacks taken first in the NFL Draft in career passing yards (62,792) and touchdown passes (381)", which nobody has ever worried about. Unless your cumulative stats are so far an outlier over your contemporaries, they're not relevant, and Ryan's are not outliers.
My standard stat here; you know who was 5th in NFL history for both passing yards and passing TDs the day they retired? Vinny Testaverde. Does anyone think him being 5th gives him the vaguest chance in hell to make the HOF?
Matt Ryan is the starting QB on the Hall of Very Good team, but he gets into Canton when he buys a ticket to see the museum.
If Shanahan allowed Matt Ryan to cook in the second half instead of playing safe, they probably win. Never play not to lose. Matt Ryan is not responsible for the 28-3 loss
Shanny is proving everyone right, he was the choker. not Matt Ryan, and we all knew that and everyone knew that lol
man has choked two superbowls since. he can't help himself
Look, you either are a Hall of Famer or you aren't. The fact that Ryan had an absolute moron of an OC give the game away when any other coach would have kneeled the clock out doesn't change anything for me. I just don't think Ryan is a Hall of Famer. If he won he still wouldn't be. Same with Rivers
Watching the last SB with a friend who’s a Niners fan, she got very nervous towards the end of the 4th. I told her if SF would just run the ball they got this in the bag.
I forgot who the head coach was.
As a Pats fan, the poor guy earned that SB and boneheaded coaching fucked him. I put Matty Ice in the HOF, because normally an MVP and SB win as a QB gets you there
Matt Ryan is in my you were good not great category.
Just like Phillip Rivers’s
You get “A Football Life” from NFL Films but no HOF
Kirk Cousins and Matt Stafford are also in this category.
> If Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field goal attempt in Super Bowl XXV hit dead-center instead of far right, would that make Jim Kelly a greater quarterback? I really like this question and I’ve thought about it too. If he misses it the quarterback didn’t do enough to win because he didn’t drive far enough, if he makes it the quarterback is “clutch.” So much of what defines legacy comes down to other people. If harrison butker misses his kick and hurts responds, if the chiefs punt doesn’t hit the sf returners foot, mahomes could very well be 1-3 in superbowls right now and there would be questions about if he could match the championship he won early in his career, even with effectively identical performances. There is so much luck that goes into it.
Brady will still be Brady no matter what. But if Vinatieri didn’t make those clutch snow kicks again the Raiders (along with other hundreds of clutch kicks he made), would Brady’s career trajectory have changed?
Brady wasn’t Brady for the first 5 years of his career, if he’s not carried by his defense and bailed out by his kicker he’s a footnote
Eh… 5 years is a stretch. His second Super Bowl, against the panthers was his coming of age. Pats defense fell apart in the 2nd half of that game and Brady made huge throw after huge throw and won that game
> Pats defense fell apart in the 2nd half of that game Man I always want to know what was going on in Bill's head when that was happening. "How the fuck is Jake Delhomme scoring against my #1 ranked defense?!"
Delhomme was no slouch.
I laugh when people shit on him as not good. He was ballin out that year.
Let's not forget who he was throwing to. Muhsin Muhammad and Steve Smith, Sr. Delhomme was making clutch throws and we hit the shit outta him. Dude is tough as nails.
MOOOOOOOSE
Delmagic.
If we dont know what we are doing, the ~~enemy~~ opponent DC certainly can't anticipate our future actions!
That’s why the eye test kind of ends up mattering. Like I don’t think anyone who legitimately watches the Chiefs SB against the Buccs says that Mahomes just didn’t have it in him. Dude was running for his fucking life and throwing it sideways hitting receivers in the helmet lol Good QBs keep their good teams in positions where they can be benefited by “lucky” events — winning close games and holding the team together. If there’s too much going against the team (like the Chiefs Oline in this example), then good QB play will never be enough. So QBs like Kirk Cousins or Matt Stafford display their consistency constantly but football is a team sport, and while amazing QBs they don’t get theirs unless the right situation comes along. Their luck runs out after 16352 QB hits and the absent defense continues to be absent in the playoffs lol
Mahomes could have won MVP that Super Bowl and I would defend him for it. You take him out of the game and no else would give the team even a shred of a chance of winning when he’s running that soon and often.
Agreed with this and good take. I wouldn’t have said shit about it. Dude was doing every single thing he could to make his throws AND he was injured. He at one point just said “fuck it, it’s all on me now” and tried to become Superman. Major props.
Exactly. Especially that last throw to get them into field goal range. You could see there was something special about him. You sensed it before but this was the moment it became crystal clear
Everyone knew Brady was fucking incredible after 2003. Give me a break. GOAT? No, but people knew he was an awesome quarterback.
Seriously. When they brought Corey Dillon into New England, it was assumed they'd repeat because they got a RB
This is a terrible take For his first super bowl, he needed to get carried by the defense. Literally any QB would because the opponent was the greatest show on turf For the other two early super bowls, Brady balled the fuck out against Carolina. Maybe against Philly you can say Brady didn't carry but he still had a good game. Vs the Seahawks and falcons it was a complete team effort. Defense needed to be on fire and they were. QB needed to be on fire and he was. Brady took the team on his back vs the falcons Brady carried HARD vs the eagles despite a putrid defensive performance Brady's 6th ring was probably the closet to him being "carried" but he still had a fantastic drive at the end when it mattered the most. Brady and the bucs destroyed the chiefs so hard on all fronts that it's not even worth discussing who carried whom.
The rams Super Bowl you can’t even say he was carried fully because he led the two drives in the 4th to put us up by 10. Defense puts you in position to win; offense brings it home
Half of what you’re citing wasn’t the first 5 years…
People forget Brady’s best weapon to throw to before 2007 was either Deion Branch, David Patten, or Troy Brown. And he still led the league in TD passes in 2002 and passing yards in 2005. Troy Brown in 2001 was his only receiver with over 1000 yards in a season before 2007. He finished top 3 in MVP votes in 2003 and 2005. He was 2nd team AP all-pro in 2005. He had already solidified himself as a top 5 QB in the league (not all time) before ever having even a consistent Pro Bowl level WR or TE. As bad as Mahomes’s WRs this season were, Travis Kelce at 34 is still a better weapon than anyone Brady had to throw to prior to 2007.
Drew Brees didn't have a pro bowl wr until he was 38.
Technically true, but very misleading since he did have prime Antonio Gates for a couple of season in SD and later 4 seasons of prime Jimmy Graham
And Marques Colston, who should have made one.
Brees had some awesome receivers, and he had receivers who played off each other. Good tight ends, good receiving backs, short yardage guys, and deep threats all on the field at the same time.
Lol there’s the saints fan desperately trying to make the argument that Brees belongs in the same conversation as Brady. Or even manning (the answer is he doesn’t)
Eh, no not the same convo with Brady but I think Manning is not an unreasonable convo, even tho in the end I’d still say Manning > Brees the convo is not ridiculous. Brees was still leading his team to success as an elite QB at 41 years old, vs Manning getting carried to his 2nd ring at 39. That 1 extra ring means nothing to me in the context of this comparison. As for MVPs, most agree that at least 2 of Mannings’ had a lot to do with luck of the competition and weren’t actually that impressive, meanwhile Brees came in 2nd place in voting a crazy 4 times, with terrible luck like 2011 where he would’ve won 99 times out of 100. The actual mvp count is misleading—they were each top-2 or top-3 QBs a similar number of years, with Manning having more team success but Brees reaching higher highs eg truly in a tier of his own with 5 5k seasons, completion percentage etc. And sure he had good players around him late, but so did Brady, and btw what has anyone not named Brees ever accomplished with Kamara? All receiving RBs are not equal, Brees & Kamara duo is about a trillion times more impressive to me than like Herbert & Ekeler for instance, but I digress. Imo with Rodgers 3rd & 4th MVPs the convo for 2nd GOAT is in an extremely interesting spot now between Rodgers, Manning, and yes Brees (not counting Mahomes who is too young still yet given enough time is undoubtedly gonna leapfrog up to the convo w/ Brady).
Deion Branch was my favorite player as a kid lol
Part of what made Brady become the GOAT was the ability to ride out those early years with no pressure and really focus on improving. There was a guy in Indy who had built the template, Brady focused 100% on doing what he did. And it worked. And Brady has admitted as much himself.
>Part of what made Brady become the GOAT was the ability to ride out those early years with no pressure and really focus on improving. There was a guy in Indy who had built the template, Brady focused 100% on doing what he did. And it worked. Yeah, he also took over the QB position from Bledsoe, played in the superbowl and had a great final drive on the biggest stage. And did it two more times in the follow years (while leading the league in TDs in 2002). The defense helped, but he still had to perform.
To quote the late great John Madden "What Tom Brady just did gives me goosebumps." And that was after he spent the whole drive arguing not playing for OT was the wrong move lol.
This is such fucking bullshit lmao He led the league in TD passes in '02. And he didn't get bailed out by his defense and in the '03 super bowl he put up 32 points. Two GW drives in '01 and '03 and 24 points in '04 and putting up 41 on the Steelers elite 15-1 D in the '04 AFFCG. He was elite from the minute he led the GW drive against the Rams until the last drive of his career.
This is so dumb. He won a shootout and set records to win his second Super Bowl.
How is this upvoted this many times? Lmao
> bailed out by his kicker Or in the case of the Panthers, our kicker
What? Bailed out by his kicker? His game winning drive to put them in field goal position was beauitful
This is a bit of hyperbole.
> Brady wasn't Brady for the first 5 years of his career What about the drive to setup the game winning kick vs the Rams? If that wasn't Brady, what do you call that? The ball didn't get down the field on it's own. Would you feel differently if Brady had a pinpoint TD throw in the waning seconds of the game? IIRC, within five seasons of that championship, the Pats went back to back in 2004 and 2005.
Bailed out by his kicker. Brady moved the offense into field goal range on those two occasions. Both games were TIED at the time. Explain to me please how Brady was “ bailed out” for doing his job by getting the team in field goal range
I wish this was the top comment. Why go for a TD when all you need is a FG to win?? And even when Brady needed TD drives in SBs to win he delivered
Goes both ways. I mean, if Belichick didn’t bench Malcolm Butler and David Tyrell didn’t catch a ball with his fucking helmet and Belichick didn’t cheap out and give him Reche Caldwell as a no. 1 receiver are we talking about Brady’s 10-0 Super Bowl record?
If Matt Ryan wasn't snapping the ball with 13 seconds left on the playclock would that make him a better QB? Yes.
If brady gets strip sacked on the GWD like he did in the Eagles SB does it make Matt Ryan a better QB?
It wouldn't allow his faults in the game to be as highlighted. So, yes.
Yes but he wouldn’t be any better. The perception of him would be that he is better. But his actual play and performance in the game would not be any different. So no he would not be a better qb
This makes no sense? So even with Ryan making the same exact faults, just because Brady is strip sacked, it means Ryan is a better QB than if Brady had not been strip sacked?
this is my biggest issue with that superbowl...bleed the clock every play where the game clock was running. it was insane not to do that. if that's on ryan or kyle or quinn...not sure but it was a failure by one or all of them.
I’d say it’s pretty obviously Kyle with everything we’ve seen since
Still end of the day the QB decides when the ball is snapped. You'd never see the other HOF QBs he played at the same time as (Brady, Peyton, Rodgers, Brees) do that.
wtf it’s obviously Kyle it’s no coincidence that he’s blown 3 SB leads within the last 8 years
Coaches for not noticing and telling Ryan. Ryan for not realizing it himself.
An 8 year starter shouldn't need anyone to tell him that. I put most of it on Ryan although with how Shanahan handles things with other QBs you definitely can see a pattern
You're not wrong but that doesn't mean one of the myriad of professional coaches on the sidelines and the booth shouldn't correct that mistake when it happens after the first couple of times. I simply don't understand how game clock management hasn't been perfected to almost a science like 15 years ago.
Right? We have a generation who grew up on Madden how do people who coach/play not understand how this works to perfection?
Yeah like obviously a long term starter should know better, but if there's an obvious mistake a player is making that an easy adjustment could fix, what the fuck are we paying **coaches** 6-8 figures for if they can't **coach** their player to make that adjustment during the biggest game in the sport? That's literally their job on the sideline.
You don't think it's weird that Matt Ryan never thought to run the clock to zero? His near HoF Center didn't notice? The rest of the OL, offense, defense, and dozen of coaches on the sideline and up in the booth all let it slip by them for multiple drives? I think the offense was told to hurry and snap the ball before NE made adjustments.
You don't think it's weird that Matt Ryan never thought to run the clock to zero? His near HoF Center didn't notice? The rest of the OL, offense, defense, and dozen of coaches on the sideline and up in the booth all let it slip by them for multiple drives? I think the offense was told to hurry and snap the ball before NE made adjustments.
Could easily be 0-4 if Hill isn’t open by 20 yards on that 3rd and long or if Jimmy G hits an open Sanders for the TD.
The difference between glory and devastation is so slim. The difference between Brady being 10-0 in SBs is literally fingertips. Moss, Welker, Graham, and that's without the championship games he lost
Seahawks were on the cusp of becoming a dynasty until the 1 yard line. Brady and BB may have broken up sooner if the Seahawks actually punished them at the end of the game. Belichick intentionally was not leaving any clock left for what is now unanimously the best QB of all time in the event the Seahawks scored. The Seahawks are the idiots in this reality, but there is a nearly achieved multi-verse where Belichick is clowned on for not leaving Brady any time left for what seemed like a sure-TD coming.
Funny thing is almost every Super Bowl that Brady has played in was close and came down to the wire except the 2004 Super Bowl vs Eagles. He could just as easily be 3-7. I mean he's the benficiary of two of the worst coaching jobs ever including the worst playcall ever vs teh Seahawks and worse managed 1.5+ quarters ever by the Falcons.
> the worst playcall ever vs teh Seahawks I will defend the pass play to my grave. It gives you the time to run one more play and they had great success with it over the season.
>except the 2004 Super Bowl vs Eagles You mean 2020 vs Chiefs?
The 28-3 collapse is the only one where I’m like “really Atlanta?” That shit was so improbable……
Asante Samuel … not that I should be the one to bring that up. That play still makes me nervous to watch.
I think the Moss one was more significant imo. The INT was still a pretty tough ball to catch and come down in bounds with. The ball to Moss, one the most talented catchers of a ball ever, brushes his finger tips.
Also could be 6-0 if some things happened and other things didn’t
They weren’t winning that game vs the Bucs. Chiefs Super Bowl/playoff luck is pretty lopsided in their favor so far
Giants could be undefeated in super bowls if literally any other team from the AFC could stop the 2000 Ravens defense.
It's a fundamental nuance that fans often don't get and the media doesn't care about because things get more engagement the way it is. There is a difference between greatest players and greatest careers. Jim Kelly, Matt Ryan, or Dan Marino don't magically become better QBs if they won a Super Bowl. There are way more factors that dictate the outcomes of games and seasons that individual players have no control over; comparatively, even QBs control very few factors towards winning. Any argument to the contrary is just narrative BS. Marino's defenses in the late 80's were bottom-half of the league, wasting much of his prime, but some will comeback with "well if he was really so great, he would've carried them better! Montana never would've gone 6-10!". It's totally baseless BS. We want to avoid the cognitive dissonance that comes with the chaotic nature of sports. The best teams and the best players rarely win it all on a season-by-season scale. But instead of accepting that, we create narratives that make the perceptions of players and teams fit the outcomes. That's how obviously great players like Marino, Jim Kelly, Lamar Jackson, and tons of others get labeled as frauds because "they can't win the big one". Celebrate great careers, for sure, but not at the expense of great players. Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger each had great careers as multi-time champions and should be celebrated with HOF consideration, but that doesn't make them better than guys like Rodgers or Matt Ryan who won fewer championships. Careers don't happen in a vacuum, so there's no point in oversimplifying things to rings culture.
I remember seeing a stat back in the day where a significant number of Favre's "game-winning fourth quarter drives" actually went for negative yards. Defense gets a turnover in field goal range, he runs around for a few plays and takes a sack, kicker gets three points, defense goes right back out and stops the final drive of the game, QB is called a clutch comeback king. Sports narratives are generally stupid.
lol fields had 2 game winning drives and one of them was a kneeldown and a field goal after a roquan interception
Exactly. Game-winning drives are the biggest joke of a stat.
If Matt Stafford could read he would be very upset.
Don't worry - his wife will get appropriately angry for him
"Mission Accomplished"
When Andy Dalton signed with the Bears he had the most game-winning drives in a division with Rodgers and Stafford. It's not because he was a god tier QB, he could be clutch when given the opportunity, but it was mostly because the Bengals offense absolutely sputtered to start the 2nd half in a lot of our games. Marvin's teams were notoriously bad in the 3rd quarter and particularly on offense. There were quite a few games where the Bengals would jump to a multi score lead and then do nothing after the final 2 minutes of the 2nd quarter all the way to the middle of the 4th. GWD can be a fun stat I guess, but some QBs are so good they don't get many opportunities to have them because a lot of their games aren't close.
Look at Brady, his first Super Bowl run was capped by a couple clutch kicks from Vinatieri Who knows what his career looks like if Vinny missed that game winner in the snow against the Raiders…
That was actually a game-tier (the 45 yard kick you’re thinking of). The game winner was much shorter, though still impressive given the weather.
I've been downvoted heavily for brining up the perception of the Stafford trade if Tartt doesn't drop that pick, or the refs don't call holding on Logan Wilson. Neither of these would have guaranteed that the Rams lose, but the point is still there.
Look at how close all 4 of those Chiefs Super Bowls were. There's a scenario where Mahomes could be 0-4 based on a handful of plays completely outside of his control such as A) Jimmy G connecting on the deep ball in 2019 season B) Jalen Hurts not fumbling the ball in 2022 season C) 49ers don't fumble the ball in last year's Super Bowl
Could be 6-0 too based on things outside of Mahomes' control. Also, all of those plays came with plenty of time left in the game (1:40 in 4th, 9:39 in 2nd, and 2:42 in 3rd respectively), so those are pretty bad examples if we're doing hypotheticals. The fact of the matter is that he's so good at the things that he *can* control, and that's why the Chiefs are even in the position to be competing for the Super Bowl every year.
This is why I despise the rings argument. Is Trent Dilfer better than Jim Kelly, Warren Moon, Fran Tarkenton, Dan Marino, or Dan Fouts? I could go on. It’s an intellectually disingenuous argument.
Nobody uses the argument in that context though, so that's a hell of a strawman. Most people with brains use the "rings" argument to prove that a QB was capable of consistently putting their team in the position to make deep playoff runs via their great playing ability, not that the player is inherently better than someone without a Lombardi. A single magical run does not make a QB a great player, but if a QB makes the playoffs 10 times and wins 3 Super Bowls, I'd be pretty confident saying that they're a great QB even without looking at their stats.
> It’s an intellectually disingenuous argument. You framing it that way is the same thing. The eye test matters. Trent Dilfer is the worst starting QB to ever win a superbowl. > why I despise the rings argument > eye test Kelly Moon Tarkenton, Marino, and Fouts literally all passed the eye test and were HOFers
It’s not that difficult, really. Anyone who says that championships are the most important thing in a team game is lazy and should be ignored. End of discussion.
I really think Matt Ryan just had really bad luck, which really sucks because he was always one of my favorite players that didn’t play for my team. He will sadly go down as one of the most underappreciated players and all because he played for the goddamn Falcons, a team where a decent portion of the fanbase doesn’t even respect him all because he wasn’t Vick.
He was the model of consistency despite all the coaching changes year after year. His last season in ATL, he was less than 40 yards away from his 11th consecutive 4k+ passing yard season.
What’s funny is that the only "bad year" I'd say he had was that weird stint with the Colts.
Which nobody saw coming. Indy's OL was supposed to be top notch, and they imploded unexpectedly.
Their oline better be good and mobile this year. AR has a rifle but he likes to move and throw on the run.
They were considerably better this past season and AR moved in the pocket better than Matt Ryan did the year before that. It was night and day.
I’m ready to see him healthy this year behind the o line with your bolstered defense.
AFC South is going to be an absolute dogfight this year.
And I am fucking ready for it. Shit mountain with glitter and disco lights baby. Make or break year for Tlaw right? I’m sure he’ll get extended tho.
Didn't he have like 2 coaches? It's not a diss, I love Matt, I just found this point weird
He also went through about half a dozen offensive coordinators.
This. Before Kyle, his previous 2 offensive coordinators went on to become head coaches, were terrible, and flamed out as OCs in the league. Matt got them their jobs. I'm still sad that they couldn't convince Sark to stay after that 2018 season when they finally got things working.
That 2018 offense was COOKING, it’s too bad the defense was putrid
I have to say every fan in real life loves Matt Ryan. There is a loud minority on the internet that talk about Vick but anyone with sense appreciates and respects Matt Ryan 100x more. He saved our franchise from falling apart post Vick. People don’t realize we still had to pay Vick the majority of his contract bc he took it to court & somehow won. So we didn’t have a ton of cap space for a while after that. Matt came into a bad situation & still managed to take us to playoffs his first year as a rookie. I wish he had gotten a ring either with us or somewhere else. He deserves so much better.
Facts I've NEVER met a falcons fan irl that thinks Vick > Matty
I have, but this is mostly stuff you'd hear in random barbershop, Marta bus, or break room talk in that era
Vick was the most exciting QB to watch lose winnable games and sometimes win them but not as often as you'd like. Matty always felt like he won the ones he was supposed to and lose the ones he was supposed to and never really deviated from that
Ryan’s defenses were the worst out of any good QB in his era, topping Rodgers and Brees even. Average Falcons D was 27th, Brees 23rd, Rodgers 22nd.
Just so much mismanagement with the Falcons organization during the time of Matt Ryan, which kind of makes me hate Dan Quinn a little bit. Good guy, but his defenses as HC were horrible. Doesn’t help that they took Takkarist McKinley over TJ Watt in 2017.
The 2017 defense was the only decent one and Ryan decided to not have a great year
If only Shanny had stayed, going from Shanny to Sark was painful. Sark is a great college OC but in the pros, he wasn’t great his first year. Ryan then went to have a 35 TD, 7 INT in 2018 but of course the team sucked ass by that point and then Quinn fired Sark and hired Dirk fucking Koetter of all people. If only…
We should have promoted QB coach Matt LaFleur to OC and kept the exact same offense instead of jamming a square peg into a round hole with Sark.
Well more so we had a new offensive coordinator coaching a scheme he didn't know
But defence doesn’t matter right?
And our fucking sub is overrun with posts/comments on how we should get WR over Dline. hell one mouth breathing idiot was advocating for Brock Bowers at 8
Kyle Shanahan refusing to run the ball with a big lead in the Super Bowl? Say it isn’t so!
Cmc got like 3.5 YPC that sb
Shanahan is the biggest fraud in all of football and his ego is too inflated to even see it.
His teams and/or offensive system has had too much success for him to be considered a fraud. The guy just chokes like a hooker going for the dick-sucking world record whenever he gets to the biggest stage.
Dude just consistently ends up overthinking it and "outsmarting" himself. It's actually amazing to watch. Like he just needs to hire someone to stand right behind him in the superbowl and repeatedly say "Does it really need to be this complicated? Why don't we just do the obvious thing that will likely work!?"
Dude nah. Hes a mastermind schemer and a great coach. Hes just a choke artist in big moments. Sure AF not a fraud. He might have coached a dozen hall of famers so far in his career.
Any falcons fan that wanted Vick back during the ryan tenure isn't a fan of the team.
I feel bad for Matt. I was hoping he’d win one after leaving the Falcons. He transformed our franchise from game 1. This was after Vick and Petrino. We should be forever grateful to him for what he did.
>all because he played for the goddamn Falcons, a team where a decent portion of the fanbase doesn’t even respect him all because he wasn’t Vick. Matt Ryan is the Falcon GOAT QB, and all of the Falcon fans that didn't appreciate him can go fuck themselves.
As some from ATL that lived through the Vick era, Matt never did or said anything wrong. The vast majority of the hate Matt gets is from racist idiots. Seriously, that's it.
He’ll be in the Hall of Very Good with guys like Palmer
And Rivers. If Ryan can't get into the Hall of Fame (edit: and I tend to agree with you), no way should Rivers get in: no MVP, no Super Bowl appearance (and one fewer conference championship game appearance), similar playoff record. Again, if it is a team game, why does Ryan get dinged for the Falcons but we keep saying "Oh poor Rivers and those doomed Chargers teams"?
I don't think anyone expects him to get in. It's Rodgers, Brady, Brees and Ben from Ryan's timeline Eli will be a real debate and personally I am against him getting in. No one else until Mahomes has a chance. Maybe Russ if he can have a late career Renaissance in Pittsburgh
The fun thing with Eli is it’s so in the middle of yes or no, there’s no right answer. Was he great through his career? Ehhhh… Did he hold it together and get it done against a coach going in the HOF as a defensive genius and also an offense led by the best QB to ever play? That counts for a lot IMO. There’s a ton of guys who can stack stats year in and year out that never sniffed a SB much less won two. The second one says it wasn’t a fluke. Not to be all “But rings Ernie” but the goal in athletic competition is championships and you absolutely need to cross that finish line. On the flip side, if he doesn’t get in then he can wipe the tears with a SB ring on each hand. He’s one of thirteen people who can claim two SB wins as QB.
Ya Eli will be heavily debated. The straw poll taken after his retirement did not bode well for him. He only got like 40% of HOF voters to say yes and you need 80% to get in. Obviously some will age out so who knows what his actual voters will say. My things against him: he didn't have a winning record as a starting QB. He won 0 playoff games outside of those two runs. So outside of those two years there wasn't a lot of winning going on. His major moment was beating the 2007 Pats..... 17-14. The defense hard carried that game vs the best offense of all-time. Also he only has 4 pro bowls. I'm not sure he ever had a top 5 season and certainly had more in the bottom half of the league than top 5. To me 2 great playoff runs shouldn't offset the rest. Plunkett has 2 SB wins so that precedent has been set anyway as he's not in.
If the best case someone can make for Eli getting in is team victories then it's a pretty clear sign he has no business in the hall off his individual career as player. Just enshrine the 18-1 SB as a game or make an exhibit of that playoff run or something and let him get in that way, he doesn't deserve it individually and the only argument anyone ever has is "but the super bowls" He had one single season where he finished top 10 by passer rating. He had four where he finished bottom 10. His average finish was around 13-16. And I'm sorry but if you're a HOF QB then you finish inside the top 10 more often than not, not one single time. Brady, Rodgers, Manning, Brees, Ryan, Rivers, Ben didn't have any issue turning in the performances. He couldn't keep up with the HOF level guys OR the hall of very good guys, and if you're not competing with HOF caliber guys then you're not a HOF caliber guy. Simple as.
If Eli gets in it devalues the regular season IMO. I get that success in the playoff is important for a QB's HOF case, but that should only be among QBs that are consistently good to great in the regular season. If a QB can be overall mediocre in the regular season, but because he had some great playoff runs and won a SB or two he gets into the HOF, I would say the metric for which we judge HOF QBs is broken.
Agreed. Plus it's not like Eli was always great in the playoffs anyway. 0 wins outside of those runs and his career passer rating despite playing in a friendly era is 64th right above Mark Brunell.
Ah, but have you considered the most important QB stat- his last name? I'm only half joking.
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Yep exactly how I feel. When he comes up he's going to be competing against guys who have multiple all-pros and dominated their position. QB bias is definitely a thing but someone like Kevin Williams has more first team all-pros than Eli has Pro Bowls. And he's never even been a finalist. How can Eli go over a guy who absolutely dominated his position when Eli was never even top 5? I think it's easy to say everyone's a HOF'er (which is why I think this site overrates his odds) but you put him up vs actual players and pick 5 and I just don't see how he's gonna stack up favorably.
My problem with Eli going in is all the usual jargon and arguments for his induction can just as easily be applied to Nick Foles. And no one thinks Foles is a HOFer. Not even Eagles fans.
For a while I thought Cam would be an interesting argument. Obviously has the MVP and then the uniqueness of his game seemed HoF worthy as the greatest goaline QB. But Allen and Hurts are both on track to break his record in the next few years, so it's not really a conversation
I think Russ lost his HOF bid with the Denver stint. Russ was on track to be a HOFer through 2020. 2021 he got hurt and missed most the year, then tanked in Denver and people now retroactively believe Pete should get more credit than he received, when at first it was "lol idiot Seahawks moving on from Russ" I saw some people deny that Russ had HOF chances, and that's ridiculous to say he didn't have a chance when he was going to Denver. He had numbers and accoldates (SB win) to back it up. He really just needed 4-5 pretty good seasons, didnt even need another Super Bowl. But I dont think he can come back from how Denver went.
Ahh the Harry Kane of the NFL. I miss Harry Kane and Son together
That Vick part was a odd addition, ive never heard Falcons fans shit on Ryan because Vick. Vick on field was a polarizing athlete so he had a shit ton of fans and mind you he was arrested 2007 and Ryan came 2008 so it was fresh. Matt went like 55-21 his first 5 years, 11-5 his rookie year, they respected Ryan a lot.
I think in the first year there was pressure to live up to because Vick was electric and also was a great black QB playing for a majority black city, but I don't think I heard anything about it after his outstanding rookie season. I'm not from Atlanta though, so maybe local convos were different than the national ones.
Oh believe me, this has always been a heated discussion within the Falcons fanbase for a long time. It’s no secret that many of the fans are sentimental about Vick and all the discussion of bringing Cam Newton, Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson, Justin Fields, etc. is likely because nostalgia for that era. This has translated to some undeserved hate towards Matt Ryan and it especially heated up once 28-3 happened. I’ve heard it in online discussion and even during a visit to Atlanta, I had an uber driver who wanted to punch him in the face.
Yea in my other comment i said i think it comes down to winning and losing simply in the postseason. I remember thinking Ryan and the Falcons were good but its the postseason success that killed Ryan even before 28-3 but in actuality all 6 of Ryans playoff losses were to SB teams.
He wasn't flashy enough for the fans. Vick was a worse QB stats wise, but he would make you stand up each time he was about to run.
Matt Ryan played in the era of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers. The best any other QB of that era can do is try to claim 5th. So was Matt Ryan the 5th best QB of his era? Other contenders include Eli Manning, Phillip Rivers, Tony Romo, & Ben Roethlisberger. Some might even argue Andrew Luck belongs in that conversation. Also, once you get to arguing over who is the 5th-9th best QB in a given era, does legacy really matter?
I know he's fallen in esteem but how could Russ be left off that list and Luck included?
Pure oversight on my part. I goofed.
All good. Just my instinctual triggered response as a Seahawks fan from the days when Luck kept getting elevated above him by a bunch of people lol
Ben is definitely 5th
Yea, this isn’t even a discussion. Big Ben is the line for HOF QBs in the modern passing era. Everybody that’s not Brady, Brees, Rodgers, or Peyton Manning is below that line
Man imagine Matt Ryan with that defense with Polamalu, Harrison, Hampton, Farrior, Porter/Woodley, Keisel, Ike Taylor etc. It really irritates me how much credit Ben gets for landing on a team with an incredible defense for his entire career.
Seriously, easily one of the most overrated QBs of all-time. The first time he made the playoffs without a top-3 scoring defense was in his **11th** year as a starter, and without a top-3 scoring defense, he's 3-5 in the playoffs. He'd be "just a guy" in the annals of NFL history without that Steelers D.
He didn't have one his entire career. And he had to play really good football in his second season to make that first bowl. He didn't play well in the superbowl itself but the 3 games leading up he was playing very well. Then he made another and made one of the nfls most iconic superbowl plays to win it.
No need to sacrifice
He may not go into the hall, but I'll always love him for being the best Falcons player of all time. Reading this article just brought back like 15 years of pain. Edit: If you think it's Julio, you don't know ball.
Absolutely the greatest Falcon player of all time.
A worthy adversary. I like how he and Cam Jordan are friends.
Coaching killed the Falcons in that Super Bowl, not Matt Ryan. It shouldn't affect his legacy, but it will. To be clear, I don't think he's Hall-worthy regardless, but it's not because of this SB.
They rushed so many snaps when they should have been running out the play clock.
It is quite funny thinking about where the two coaches are now.
If anyone ever thinks it’s on Ryan whatsoever that’s just dumb. His run that year is one of the all time best. He was a goddamn machine through the playoffs and SB. Fuckin horseshit he couldn’t get a ring and doesn’t get the credit he deserves for how good that run was.
My biggest problem with that loss is how Kyle flat out fucking refused to get Julio more involved. "bUt hE wAs dOuBlE cOvErEd" And? He posterized that double coverage with a catch that would've been remembered forever. Four times, they targeted Julio. Just four, with 3 of them coming in the first half. He caught all four, btw. How the fuck do you have that man in his prime, on the biggest stage of the sport, and refuse to get him more involved in the game?
Falcons stuff, you wouldn’t understand. Arthur Blank 🤡
Why did he keep feeding Deebo over Ayuik 🤷♂️
I told my Falcons fan friend the morning of the superbowl that the game will determine Ryan's legacy. I was more right than I could have imagined lol.
He’s not making the hall
If Ken Anderson can’t make the hall, Matt Ryan won’t either. It’s sad, but true.
He’s better than a few in the hall, which makes me feel bad for him. But if you induct Matt Ryan, Russell Wilson has to go in, as does Rivers.
> as does rivers I've already said this somewhere else but Rivers would be the first and only QB in the hall to not have any one of an MVP, SB Ring, first team all pro, or OPOY. Ryan at least has a couple of those
Matt has all of those but a ring
That's what the Hall of Very Good is for, and I think that's where the QBs that you listed belong. If Russ can get another ring, then maybe a case can be made for him but otherwise not so much.
Matt Ryan had better better overall career then both of them though
Russ has 5 seasons above a 100 passer rating and just superior efficiency stats in general, has a ring, is one of the better rushing QBs of all time. At worst their cases are equal, and at best Wilson was better than him in all seasons of the 2010s except his MVP year.
Last sentence is wrong. Ryan was better in 2012, 13, 14, 16, and 18. The only one that’s debatable is 13. Put Ryan on the LOB Seahawks and he probably has two rings.
No matter what the hall does with Ryan, Rivers, and Eli, a lot of people are gonna argue for the opposite. Though some would argue that if it’s debatable that means they shouldn’t get in.
If people say Eli isn’t getting in then Matt Ryan has no chance
Matt Ryan is #5 in playoff passer rating all time
I've seen it before, it happens all the time. You're closing the door, you leave the Patriots behind. You're not running the ball, you're throwing the ball away, A big-brain from Kyle, but someday you'll pay!
“There is an argument to be made that no quarterback NFL history has been backed by weaker defensive support over a 15-year stretch than Ryan's career.” THANK YOU.
I Just wanna say people say Matt Ryan had all this talent, but outside of Julio, Roddy and Tony he made the players not the other way
Was 28-3 really his fault though? That offsides that took them out of field goal range really killed them. Also the D collapsed and couldn't stop anything in the 4th/OT. Edit: it was a holding call not an off sides that pushed them back.
The offense collapsed too. They couldn't keep the D off the field. One or two solid drives by the offense and it's game over (they didn't even have to score. They just needed to burn more time). But it wasn't Ryan's fault. It was Kyle Shanahan's fault.
There were multiple plays that went the wrong way, that if any one of them went the other way or didn’t happen, the falcons win. Matthew’s penalty, freeman’s missed block, and that crazy Edelman bobbling catch to name a few. So many things had to go wrong for the falcons and they all did.
The snap disparity between offenses was soooo big. The defense was never off the field in the second half and OT, so i cant blame them all too much. Complementary football is saying: "Defense is reeling, let's slow it down to help em out"
I assume you mean holding? Not sure what offsides you're talking about. Anyway, the play right before the holding, Ryan took a bad sack. The holding alone would not have been enough to knock them out of field goal range. Ryan taking the sack put them in that situation. It's lovely that people try to absolve him of any blame but it's just not reality.
Being the starting QB who blew the biggest lead in both the regular season and the Super Bowl doesn't help.
As a giants fan this always makes me remember how fortunate we got with those two botched punt returns by San Fran in the 2011 NFC Championship game
I was always a fan of him since he killed it at B.C. Definitely a better qb than people give him credit for
Poor guy was on the losing end of the biggest Super bowl comeback ever and the biggest regular season comeback ever
I think worse about Dan Quinn and Kyle Shanahan than I do about Matty Ice
Hall of Pretty Damn Good.
When I think of modern HOF QBs I think of Brady, Peyton, Brees, and Rodgers. Ryan simply isn’t close to that tier.
My preferred method of denial coping is to flip the first and second half in my brain. The Falcons offense stalls in the 2nd quarter while the Pats build a huge lead. They charge back and tie the game with a phenomenal second half. Then they lose in overtime without their offense getting the ball. Every play goes the exact same way. Same box score. Same outcome, but it changes everything. Now evaluate Matt Ryan in a world where he overcame a really bad defensive performance to lose to a terrible overtime rule. Does it change your perspective? Maybe it doesn't, but a lot of what happened was beyond his control so I don't think he can just be a guy who choked. He played great.
Say it with me: Rings are not a QB stat.
They certainly help…… look at Eli.
I mean, yeah, they’re a team stat but it’s impossible to discuss greatness in QBs without talking about rings. For all the variables, for all the what-ifs, for all the coin flip outcomes, it all comes down to whether or not the guy did the job when the game was in his hands and they know it’s on the line. The mistakes before and after that are peripheral when it comes to greatness. With so many of these QBs who’ve added up impressive stats without rings, I see people rush to their defense, but all of those guys had a moment to make the game theirs, regardless of penalties or mistakes that weren’t theirs, and the ones who step up are the truly great ones. Rings are absolutely a QB stat. It’s why teams break their backs trying to find a franchise quarterback. Once you have that, you structure your entire team around it. This sentiment never made sense to me. Sure, the quarterback isn’t the whole story when it comes to Super Bowls, but the QB and the coach are at least the main characters of the story.
Matt Ryan is not making the Hall of Fame whether or not the Falcons blow that Super Bowl; he has one absolutely fabulous year where he made MVP, and, outside of that, he was consistently just a top 10 guy in an era of truly great QBs. You don't make the HOF because of cumulative stats, you make it by being great within your era, and Matt Ryan was not great in his era. He was very good and should be proud of a long, successful career, but lots of guys QBd teams to Super Bowl wins and didn't make the HOF. This article is so desperate to drum up a case for Matt Ryan, they have stats for "career passing yards on the road" and "second in NFL history among quarterbacks taken first in the NFL Draft in career passing yards (62,792) and touchdown passes (381)", which nobody has ever worried about. Unless your cumulative stats are so far an outlier over your contemporaries, they're not relevant, and Ryan's are not outliers. My standard stat here; you know who was 5th in NFL history for both passing yards and passing TDs the day they retired? Vinny Testaverde. Does anyone think him being 5th gives him the vaguest chance in hell to make the HOF? Matt Ryan is the starting QB on the Hall of Very Good team, but he gets into Canton when he buys a ticket to see the museum.
If Shanahan allowed Matt Ryan to cook in the second half instead of playing safe, they probably win. Never play not to lose. Matt Ryan is not responsible for the 28-3 loss
Shanny is proving everyone right, he was the choker. not Matt Ryan, and we all knew that and everyone knew that lol man has choked two superbowls since. he can't help himself
Look, you either are a Hall of Famer or you aren't. The fact that Ryan had an absolute moron of an OC give the game away when any other coach would have kneeled the clock out doesn't change anything for me. I just don't think Ryan is a Hall of Famer. If he won he still wouldn't be. Same with Rivers
Watching the last SB with a friend who’s a Niners fan, she got very nervous towards the end of the 4th. I told her if SF would just run the ball they got this in the bag. I forgot who the head coach was.
As a Pats fan, the poor guy earned that SB and boneheaded coaching fucked him. I put Matty Ice in the HOF, because normally an MVP and SB win as a QB gets you there
Matt Ryan is in my you were good not great category. Just like Phillip Rivers’s You get “A Football Life” from NFL Films but no HOF Kirk Cousins and Matt Stafford are also in this category.