As cold as ice: Perception of Matt Ryan’s legacy after ‘28-3’
General
Published on : 4/13/2024
By Ryan Michael
Special to the Pro Football Hall of Fame
(Editor’s note: This article is the latest in an ongoing series looking at quarterbacks’ achievements that have aged well over the past 80 NFL seasons.)
As the confetti fell at NRG Stadium following the end of Super Bowl LI, the National Football League’s Most Valuable Player exited the field just short of reaching professional football’s summit.
The football world was in shock. Tom Brady and the New England Patriots moments earlier had conquered a 28-3 deficit to win in overtime, 34-28.
Pain would follow. So too would the narratives.
The expression “28-3” didn’t acknowledge only the Patriots for their historic 25-point comeback, it eventually morphed into a disparaging social media term aimed to mock Ryan for — bereft of any and all context — his failure to leave the field as a Super Bowl champion.
That absence of context lays at the root of this retrospective.
True, the Falcons did lose Super Bowl LI. There’s no escaping that.
Also true: Ryan exited the game without hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
This begs the question: If a franchise quarterback fails to see the sport’s ultimate team goal realized, how should fans view his career?
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?
If Atlanta won the coin toss before overtime, elected to receive and returned the kickoff all the way for a touchdown, would that make Ryan a greater quarterback?
In that scenario, Ryan would have been named Super Bowl LI MVP without running a play any differently.
Ryan didn’t participate in overtime. In terms of what could have been had Atlanta won the coin flip, no one will ever know.
What is known: Ryan’s 144.1 passer rating against Bill Belichick’s Patriots remains the highest mark of any Super Bowl quarterback since 1990 (34 Super Bowls, 68 starting quarterback opportunities).
When a team falls short collectively, fans hone in on small windows in an attempt to distribute blame. It’s as easy to hone in on Ryan’s sack-fumble as it would be to spotlight Brady’s 82-yard pick-six in the second quarter. The game’s final score determines which turnover that history chooses to remember.
Beyond the pick-six, 18 of Brady’s passes hit the turf that night. We don’t remember those. Ryan threw only six incompletions in four quarters.
Quarterbacks have no say in the caliber of defense they face, either.
If given the choice, Ryan would not have elected to face the Patriots and their No. 1-ranked scoring defense, a unit that had surrendered only 15.6 points per game in 2016. Brady faced the Falcons’ 27th-ranked scoring defense (25.4 points per game), the second lowest ranked unit in NFL history to reach a Super Bowl.
If totality of on-field performance in relation to context of playing situation and caliber of competition faced were the measure, it’s easy to see why Ryan was named the league’s Most Valuable Player.
After leading the NFL in passer rating (117.1) and setting the NFL’s all-time record for passing yards per-attempt (minimum 500 attempts: 9.3), Ryan ascended even further in the postseason.
There, he completed 70 of 98 passes (71.4%) for 1,014 yards (10.3 YPA), nine touchdown passes, one rushing touchdown, zero interceptions and a 135.3 passer rating.
When combining his regular season and postseason performance, Ryan’s 119.6 passer rating in 2016 remains the highest mark in the history of the National Football League.
Pick your measure: regular season performance, postseason performance, Super Bowl performance, the majority of all Super Bowl winning quarterback seasons in the game’s 58-year history fall well short of Ryan’s 2016 from an on-field performance standpoint.
Ryan’s resilience and class exhibited in the face of seething criticism epitomizes what made him special from the time he entered the league in 2008.
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.
Defensive support (points per drive surrendered) for Ryan:
To have sustained the level of performance Ryan did and to have won as many games as he did with that caliber of support on the opposite side of the ball is nothing short of miraculous — one of the greatest over-achievements in relation to context of playing situation the sport has seen.
Reducing his career achievements to four Pro Bowl selections, one MVP, one conference championship and a lot of raw passing numbers misses the mark entirely. A deeper look inside the resume reveals consistency and excellence over an extended period of time, with highs that peers of his era — Hall of Famer PEYTON MANNING, Brady, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes — failed to reach.
The argument here isn’t that Ryan’s career was necessarily greater than those five quarterbacks (all potential first-ballot Hall of Famers), but rather that Ryan’s career is easily defended among the greatest the game has seen.
Almost anyone fans would rank above him enjoyed stronger team support, and the list of quarterbacks who accomplished more with less than Ryan did is infinitesimally small.
Ryan’s notable career accomplishments:
Most fans probably are not familiar with at least half of those notes. Ryan’s ability to deliver in spite of acknowledgement for his on-field accomplishments is further evidence of his greatness. The morale boost that comes from global acknowledgement for excellence at the position might be impossible to quantify, but everyone in life can relate to how easy or difficult their job becomes when they’re fully acknowledged for their performance versus when they’re criticized in spite of excelling individually.
Many will choose to see “28-3” as the defining point of Ryan’s career, and they’re not wrong.
Those who emphasize brief windows of play versus those who value totality of on-field performance that night will walk away with two entirely different perspectives.
Ryan, did not play in the 2023 season, announced his retirement officially April 22. He will become eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2028.
Ryan Michael is a sportswriter, a statistician for KOA’s “Broncos Country Tonight” and a contributor to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. You can follow him on X (@theryanmichael) and on “Broncos Country Tonight”.
This article is the latest in an ongoing series highlighting noteworthy quarterback play over the past 80 seasons. Information from Pro-Football-Reference.com’s database helped make the research possible. Total QBR via ESPN.
Special to the Pro Football Hall of Fame
(Editor’s note: This article is the latest in an ongoing series looking at quarterbacks’ achievements that have aged well over the past 80 NFL seasons.)
As the confetti fell at NRG Stadium following the end of Super Bowl LI, the National Football League’s Most Valuable Player exited the field just short of reaching professional football’s summit.
The football world was in shock. Tom Brady and the New England Patriots moments earlier had conquered a 28-3 deficit to win in overtime, 34-28.
Pain would follow. So too would the narratives.
The expression “28-3” didn’t acknowledge only the Patriots for their historic 25-point comeback, it eventually morphed into a disparaging social media term aimed to mock Ryan for — bereft of any and all context — his failure to leave the field as a Super Bowl champion.
That absence of context lays at the root of this retrospective.
True, the Falcons did lose Super Bowl LI. There’s no escaping that.
Also true: Ryan exited the game without hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
This begs the question: If a franchise quarterback fails to see the sport’s ultimate team goal realized, how should fans view his career?
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?
If Atlanta won the coin toss before overtime, elected to receive and returned the kickoff all the way for a touchdown, would that make Ryan a greater quarterback?
In that scenario, Ryan would have been named Super Bowl LI MVP without running a play any differently.
Ryan didn’t participate in overtime. In terms of what could have been had Atlanta won the coin flip, no one will ever know.
What is known: Ryan’s 144.1 passer rating against Bill Belichick’s Patriots remains the highest mark of any Super Bowl quarterback since 1990 (34 Super Bowls, 68 starting quarterback opportunities).
When a team falls short collectively, fans hone in on small windows in an attempt to distribute blame. It’s as easy to hone in on Ryan’s sack-fumble as it would be to spotlight Brady’s 82-yard pick-six in the second quarter. The game’s final score determines which turnover that history chooses to remember.
Beyond the pick-six, 18 of Brady’s passes hit the turf that night. We don’t remember those. Ryan threw only six incompletions in four quarters.
Quarterbacks have no say in the caliber of defense they face, either.
If given the choice, Ryan would not have elected to face the Patriots and their No. 1-ranked scoring defense, a unit that had surrendered only 15.6 points per game in 2016. Brady faced the Falcons’ 27th-ranked scoring defense (25.4 points per game), the second lowest ranked unit in NFL history to reach a Super Bowl.
If totality of on-field performance in relation to context of playing situation and caliber of competition faced were the measure, it’s easy to see why Ryan was named the league’s Most Valuable Player.
After leading the NFL in passer rating (117.1) and setting the NFL’s all-time record for passing yards per-attempt (minimum 500 attempts: 9.3), Ryan ascended even further in the postseason.
There, he completed 70 of 98 passes (71.4%) for 1,014 yards (10.3 YPA), nine touchdown passes, one rushing touchdown, zero interceptions and a 135.3 passer rating.
When combining his regular season and postseason performance, Ryan’s 119.6 passer rating in 2016 remains the highest mark in the history of the National Football League.
Pick your measure: regular season performance, postseason performance, Super Bowl performance, the majority of all Super Bowl winning quarterback seasons in the game’s 58-year history fall well short of Ryan’s 2016 from an on-field performance standpoint.
Ryan’s resilience and class exhibited in the face of seething criticism epitomizes what made him special from the time he entered the league in 2008.
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.
Defensive support
Defensive support (points per drive surrendered) for Ryan:
- 2022: 23rd
- 2021: 30th
- 2020: 22nd
- 2019: 26th
- 2018: 29th
- 2017: 20th
- 2016: 28th
- 2015: 18th
- 2014: 30th
- 2013: 32nd
- 2012: 10th
- 2011: 17th
- 2010: 6th
- 2009: 19th
- 2008: 16th
To have sustained the level of performance Ryan did and to have won as many games as he did with that caliber of support on the opposite side of the ball is nothing short of miraculous — one of the greatest over-achievements in relation to context of playing situation the sport has seen.
Reducing his career achievements to four Pro Bowl selections, one MVP, one conference championship and a lot of raw passing numbers misses the mark entirely. A deeper look inside the resume reveals consistency and excellence over an extended period of time, with highs that peers of his era — Hall of Famer PEYTON MANNING, Brady, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes — failed to reach.
The argument here isn’t that Ryan’s career was necessarily greater than those five quarterbacks (all potential first-ballot Hall of Famers), but rather that Ryan’s career is easily defended among the greatest the game has seen.
Almost anyone fans would rank above him enjoyed stronger team support, and the list of quarterbacks who accomplished more with less than Ryan did is infinitesimally small.
Career highlights
Ryan’s notable career accomplishments:
- Career: 5,551 completions, 62,792 passing yards, 381 touchdown passes
- 100.8 career passer rating in the postseason
- 144.1 passer rating in Super Bowl LI (highest mark of any quarterback from 1990-2023)
- 2008 AP NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year
- Top 6 in Total QBR seven times (2008, 2010-13, 2016-17)
- 3rd in Total QBR as a rookie (68.8 in 2008)
- 2016 AP NFL MVP
- 2016 AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year
- Highest passer rating in NFL history, regular season and postseason combined (119.9 in 2016)
- Highest YPA average in NFL history, regular season and postseason combined (9.43 in 2016)
- NFC champion (2016) with the lowest ranked scoring defense in NFL history to ever win 11-plus regular-season games and a conference campionship
- 124 wins as a starting quarterback
- 38 fourth-quarter comebacks (fourth in NFL history)
- Led the NFL in fourth-quarter comebacks in 2010 and 2015, led the NFC in 2017 and led the AFC in 2022
- 416 touchdowns: passing, rushing, receiving combined, including postseason
- 5,551 career pass completions (fifth in NFL history)
- 32,263 career passing yards on the road (fifth in NFL history)
- Second in NFL history among quarterbacks taken first in the NFL Draft in career passing yards (62,792) and touchdown passes (381)
- 11 seasons with 4,000 or more total yards produced on offense
- Seven seasons with a winning percentage above 64.0% (13-3 in 2010, 13-3 in 2012, 11-5 in 2016, 11-5 in 2008, 9-5 in 2009, 10-6 in 2017, 10-6 in 2011)
Most fans probably are not familiar with at least half of those notes. Ryan’s ability to deliver in spite of acknowledgement for his on-field accomplishments is further evidence of his greatness. The morale boost that comes from global acknowledgement for excellence at the position might be impossible to quantify, but everyone in life can relate to how easy or difficult their job becomes when they’re fully acknowledged for their performance versus when they’re criticized in spite of excelling individually.
Many will choose to see “28-3” as the defining point of Ryan’s career, and they’re not wrong.
Those who emphasize brief windows of play versus those who value totality of on-field performance that night will walk away with two entirely different perspectives.
Ryan, did not play in the 2023 season, announced his retirement officially April 22. He will become eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2028.
Ryan Michael is a sportswriter, a statistician for KOA’s “Broncos Country Tonight” and a contributor to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. You can follow him on X (@theryanmichael) and on “Broncos Country Tonight”.
This article is the latest in an ongoing series highlighting noteworthy quarterback play over the past 80 seasons. Information from Pro-Football-Reference.com’s database helped make the research possible. Total QBR via ESPN.
More of this series
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- Silver anniversary: Randall Cunningham’s solid gold season with Vikings
- 50 years since Unitas’ last pass: Some things you might not know about No. 19
- Race to the top: Brady’s battle with Brees for the NFL’s most hallowed record
- Analysis: Did Andrew Luck exceed hype or fall short?
- Silver anniversary of John’s Elway’s sterling final game
- As cold as ice: Perception of Matt Ryan’s legacy after ‘28-3’
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