McLane: Matt Ryan not at fault in Falcons collapse
STAFF WRITER HOUSTON - When Matt Ryan played for the Little Quakers as an eighth grader, he and his team traveled to Florida to play in one of their biggest games of the season. With less than a minute remaining, the Quakers faced fourth down at the 1-yard line and needed a touchdown to win.
HOUSTON - When Matt Ryan played for the Little Quakers as an eighth grader, he and his team traveled to Florida to play in one of their biggest games of the season. With less than a minute remaining, the Quakers faced fourth down at the 1-yard line and needed a touchdown to win.
When Ryan went to hand off, though, his exchange with the fullback got bungled and the football popped out. The opposing team picked up the fumble and ran it back 99 yards the other way.
It was a gut-wrenching loss, and Ryan had been part of the crucial mistake that cost the Quakers the game. But it couldn't have prepared the Exton native for Sunday's devastating defeat in Super Bowl LI. The Falcons held a 25-point lead midway through the third quarter and somehow, inconceivably, lost to the Patriots, 34-28, in overtime.
"There's nothing you can really say. That's a tough loss," Ryan said afterward. "Obviously very disappointed, very close to getting done what we wanted to get done, but it's hard to find words tonight."
It's difficult to find fault in Ryan's performance, though. Through three quarters, the quarterback did virtually all he could as the Falcons first built a 28-3 lead, and even as they held a 28-9 margin entering the fourth. To that point, he had completed 13 of 17 passes for 203 yards and two touchdowns and the highest-possible passer rating of 158.3.
Even in the fourth quarter, Ryan was hardly the primary culprit in the Falcons' collapse. Could he have avoided two costly sacks? Perhaps. Should he have done a better job of protecting the ball when Patriots linebacker Dont'a Hightower stripped him? Maybe. But it was team-wide disintegration, and if there was a chief architect, it was Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan.
He had called a solid game to that point, but when it mattered most he was aggressive when he should have been prudent, cautious when he should have been assertive.
The Patriots, of course, played a significant role in pulling off the rally. Tom Brady cemented his place atop the quarterback pantheon with a performance for the ages. But if the question is: "Did New England win or Atlanta lose?" the answer here favors the latter proposition.
When you hold a 25-point lead with 8 minutes, 31 seconds left in the third quarter, that should be enough. When you successfully field an onsides kick - still up, 28-9 - and are in field-goal range, that should be enough. And when you have the ball on the Patriots 23, needing only a field goal to make it a two-score game with under four minutes to play, that should be enough.
But a perfect storm of questionable decisions backfired on Shanahan. Falcons head coach Dan Quinn had given his assistant full autonomy over play calling for the entire season, so it's hard to knock him for not stepping in at some point, but it may be a decision he regrets because the soon-to-be-named 49ers head coach made some mind-boggling calls late Sunday.
Shanahan's postgame explanations were even more confounding.
After the Patriots had trimmed the lead to 28-20, the Falcons bounced back on their ensuing possession. Ryan dumped to a wide-open Devonta Freeman for 35 yards and followed that up with a 27-yard pass to Julio Jones, in which the wide receiver juggled the seemingly unreachable pass and dragged both feet inbounds.
That gave Atlanta the ball on the Patriots 22. And for some reason, the Falcons weren't draining the play clock down to one or two seconds during the drive. Freeman was dropped for a 1-yard loss on first down, and on second and 11, Shanahan inexplicably had Ryan drop back to throw. The quarterback was sacked and lost 12 yards.
"That was a tough one," Ryan said. "I wish I could have done a better job of trying to get rid of that ball."
On third down from the 35, Ryan threw to Mohamed Sanu for 9 yards, but a Jake Matthews hold negated the play and pushed the Falcons back to the 45. A third-and-33 toss by Ryan was incomplete and Atlanta, now out of field-goal range, was forced to punt.
"The thought is to get as many yards as you can," Shanahan said. "And we were right there on the fringe. It was by no means an easy field goal."
If the Falcons had run twice without even gaining any yards on second and third down, kicker Matt Bryant would have had around a 41-yard field-goal try. The veteran kicker was a perfect 9 of 9 in between 40-49 yards this season. Over his career, Bryant has been successful on 86 of 110 attempts from that distance (78.2 percent), with his rate much greater from the low-40 range.
"Too aggressive? No. I thought Kyle did a good job," Ryan said. "I thought we played the way that we play."
While that series may have been the most egregious, there were other dubious decisions. Up 28-12 with 9:40 left in the game, the Falcons turtled up and ran on first and second down.
On their three earlier offensive touchdowns, Atlanta opened with down-the-field passes, thus setting up the run for later on each drive. In three of their four previous possessions that failed to net points, they started with rushes.
Tevin Coleman carried for 8 yards on first down in this situation, but he picked up only 1 yard on second down, and on third and 1, Shahanan called a pass that had Ryan take a five-step drop. Freeman missed his block and Hightower had himself a game-turning sack-forced fumble.
"We thought we'd have a good look based on the personnel that was in the game for them," Quinn said, explaining Shanahan's decision to throw there. "We trust our guys, so we thought that was the opportunity to let it rip. When it doesn't go that way, then it's easy to question it."
The play calling following the Patriots' failed onsides kick wasn't as problematic. Execution failed the Falcons. New England had narrowed the margin to 28-9 with just over two minutes left in the third when it gave the Falcons the ball at their own 41. A 9-yard pass advanced Atlanta to the Patriots 32. But Matthews was called for holding, and after Ryan threw incomplete on the second-down redo, he was sacked back at the Atlanta 49.
"It felt like we should have come away with points there," Ryan said, "and didn't."
When the collapse/comeback (however you choose to see it) was complete, and the numbers tallied, the Falcons' run-pass ratio after they led, 28-9, (4 to 12) and Jones' low number of targets (he caught all four for 87 yards) were criticized by some.
"It's not really the run-pass ratio I look at," Shanahan said. "It's you stay on the field and you run your offense."
As high-flying as the Falcons were through three quarters, their offense couldn't sustain long drives, converting only 1 of 8 third downs, and their defense couldn't keep the Patriots, who had more than double the number of plays (93-46), off the field,
"I think for sure we ran out of gas some," Quinn said.
Ryan, while mentally anguished, looked as though he could have played another 60 minutes after the game. Getting back to the Super Bowl isn't guaranteed. It took the 31-year old nine seasons to get here. He still has time, but it will be hard to top his MVP season.
The Super Bowl was his, then it wasn't, and it's hard to find much of what he could have done better. Ryan and the young Falcons will have to regroup, but, for now, the gut punch will linger.
"It'll sting tonight, for sure," Ryan said. "I think everybody is disappointed, for sure. It's not easy when you've come this far and didn't get the result that you want. Like all things, we'll move past it, come together and hopefully put ourselves right back in this position."
@Jeff_McLane