Let’s be clear: Matt Ryan has had a brilliant season. He might well be the NFL’s MVP. Without Ryan, these Falcons would be nowhere. But the reason they’re 7-5 and not 8-4 is because the splendid quarterback made two throws that yielded nine Kansas City points in a game his team lost 29-28.
Interceptions were the major reason Ryan came under heavy criticism over the three seasons that saw his team slip from playoff perennial to raging mediocrity. He has spent the past three months turning doubters – and there were several, this correspondent among them – into wide-eyed believers. Rather than offer an exhaustive breakdown of his 2016 work, we’ll leave it this: Ryan has been better than he has ever been, which is saying something.
But even the best quarterbacks have lesser moments, and we file these two alongside the inexplicable throws at Wembley in 2014 and to D’Qwell Jackson here last year. The Atlanta native Eric Berry was the beneficiary on both Sunday. He returned his leaping interception 37 yards for the touchdown that gave the Chiefs their first lead with 37 seconds remaining in the first half. With 4:24 to play, he took Ryan’s pass on a 2-point conversion the distance to put K.C., which had just fallen behind, ahead again.
Said Falcons coach Dan Quinn of his quarterback: “He’s definitely disappointed in those throws and wants them back.”
Berry’s touchdown changed the game. His 2-pointer won it. Only once after the ball left Ryan’s hand did a Falcon touch it, and that was when Matt Bosher booted it deep on the ensuing kickoff. In hindsight, the Falcons would have been better served by trying an onside kick, but Quinn admitted afterward that – even with only one timeout remaining – he didn’t really consider it. He thought his defense could stop the Chiefs. He figured wrong.
Two first downs and the game was gone. The Falcons’ offense had outscored its K.C. counterpart 15-0 over the final 37 minutes, and somehow the Falcons lost. They didn’t just leave points on the field. (Six trips inside the Chiefs’ 20 yielded only three touchdowns.) They also assisted on nine opposing points. Figuratively and literally, this game was thrown away.
Berry’s touchdown was the result of a bad throw: Ryan delivered high for Taylor Gabriel, which is easy to do given that the receiver is 5-foot-8. “A decision I can’t make,” Ryan said of that interception, but Berry’s later Pick-2 was much the worse choice.
After 26 minutes of playing from behind, the Falcons nosed ahead on Devonta Freeman’s touchdown run. Officially, they held their one-point lead for zero seconds. On the conversion try, Ryan threw for tight end Austin Hooper in the left flat, which – given the benefit of replay – was the last place he should have thrown. Safety Daniel Sorensen was on Hooper’s hip. Berry closed so fast that Hooper was bracketed.
“It was a poor play on my part,” Ryan said. “We were expecting combination coverage (a mix of zone and man-to-man). Eric Berry did a good job. A bad play on my part.”
Berry is a great player and a great story – an Atlanta guy making his comeback from cancer comes home and works two wonders, handing the ball he snatched in the first half to his mom in the stands – and he left Atlanta’s NFL team in his wake. But this was a game that was harder for the Falcons to lose than to win, and they contrived to lose it.
They kicked first-half field goals after first downs at the K.C. 11 and 4. They were halted on fourth-and-1 at the 10 in the third quarter. Frank Zombo appeared to hold Freeman on the play, but the officials had surely wearied of penalizing the visitors, who were flagged for 15 penalties, 13 accepted.
In keeping with this game’s schizoid nature, the Chiefs were both thick-headed and as clever as all get-out. Andy Reid stole seven points by having his offense rush to the line on fourth-and-1 at its 45. After a quick Quinn timeout — a lost timeout that would assume massive importance near game’s end — the Chiefs arrayed themselves in punt formation. Albert Wilson took a direct snap and broke through the middle for a 55-yard touchdown.
The Falcons had no excuse. They had their punt-coverage team, as opposed to their defense, on the field. “They hit it right in the A-gap,” Quinn said. “That’s one we do cover.”
Just not that time, apparently. This has been a mostly sunny season for the men of Quinn, but this one hurt. It hurt more than the overtime loss to San Diego after failing on fourth-and-1, more even than the no-call on Richard Sherman in Seattle. They looked like the better team – they had 32 first downs to K.C.’s 17 – but not the smarter. And that began and ended with the man who has been their best player.
Quinn: “When you have a loss like this, it’s hard to find a place to put it … It definitely stings.”
Of the 2-point conversion converted by Berry, Ryan said: “We had a great drive leading up to that. We made some great plays. And then we made a mistake.”
Someone asked what Ryan was thinking as Berry fled downfield for the the decisive deuce. “It’s a lot worse than, ‘Oh, darn.’ I’m not sure you can print it.”
Then: “You’re ticked. There’s no other way around it.”
Mad at himself. Mad Matty Ice. In his greatest season, Ryan had his oddest day: He was the MVP for both the losing and winning teams.
