Matt Ryan was perfect. With under nine minutes left to play in Super Bowl LI, the Atlanta Falcons quarterback had completed 13 of 16 attempted passes for 202 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. Through the arcane calculations of the NFL’s statisticians, that gave him a passer rating of 158.3 - the highest score possible. Literally, perfection.
At that moment, he appeared the likely winner of the Super Bowl’s Most Valuable Player award. The Falcons had just given up a field goal, but they still held a 28-12 lead over New England. All they needed to do was keep their cool, eke out a few first downs and keep the clock ticking. All they had to do was keep breathing.
Instead, they choked like no team has ever choked before in NFL history – blowing what had been, at one stage, a 25-point lead. To put the collapse in context, no team had ever lost a Super Bowl after leading by more than 10 points. Ryan was hardly the only player culpable, but after the performance he delivered through the first part of this game, and this season, the errors he made were the most jarring.
First came the fumble that gifted New England with possession at Atlanta’s 25-yard line. We might reasonably ask what the Falcons’ coaching staff were thinking when they called for a pass on third-and-one, but even a sack need not have been a disaster. What was catastrophic was what unfolded, Ryan losing his grip on the ball as he was clobbered by Dont’a Hightower. The ball spilled loose, and Alan Branch recovered for New England.
Even after the Patriots punished that mistake, closing the gap to eight points with a Tom Brady touchdown pass, and James White two-point conversion, Ryan still looked to be steering his team safely towards the finish. Devonta Freeman turned a short pass into a 39-yard gain, before Julio Jones pulled in a jaw-dropping catch and toe-tap on the right sideline.
NFL (@NFL)Ladies and gentlemen, @JulioJones_11.
February 6, 2017
This is just unbelievable. #SB51 #RiseUp https://t.co/sUGgrtyevc
Ryan’s passer rating was still perfect. But what have we learned this year about alternative facts? Two plays later, he took a sack that knocked the Falcons back from New England’s 22-yard line to the 35. They had been in easy field goal range for kicker Matt Bryant, but now were right on the edge. A holding penalty on the next play took them out of it.
The rest is history. Atlanta punted, Tom Brady marched the Patriots back down the field for another touchdown and game-tying two-point conversion. Ryan barely had a chance to get back on the field. New England won the overtime coin toss, took the ball and won the game.
A little less than half an hour later, Ryan sat at a small podium in the bowels of NRG Stadium. Anyone who has ever seen him speak will know how he handles his press obligations. He is the consummate media-trained professional, a man who can speak for 20 minutes without saying anything.
If you had heard only the audio of this conversation, you would have immediately recognised it as more of the same. Ryan answered each question with a steady voice, using terms like “inopportune” and “got away from us”. His face, though, told another story. His lips shivered as a journalist asked what he would say to his team-mates. His eyes were glassy from tears shed and still brewing.
“There’s nothing you can really say,” Ryan acknowledged in what felt like the closest he came to an unguarded moment. “It’s hard to find words tonight.”
The painful truth is that this might always be the game that Ryan is remembered for. He has had an extraordinary, once-in-a-career, type of season, averaging 9.3 yards per passing attempt, leading the NFL’s most prolific scoring offense and winning the regular season MVP. His numbers got even better in the playoffs, which he finished with a 71.4% completion rate, nine touchdowns and no interceptions.
But the knock on Ryan has always been that he crumbles in critical moments. He had only won one playoff game in five attempts before this year. And even as Atlanta rolled to the Super Bowl this year, there was still the occasional red flag.
In week 13, he led the Falcons on a brilliant fourth-quarter comeback against Kansas City, turning a 12-point deficit into a one-point lead. But then, after the coaches decided to go for a two-point conversion, he threw an interception that was returned all the way to the end zone by Chiefs safety Eric Berry - the NFL’s first-ever “pick-two”. Atlanta lost the game.
What will hurt the most, after getting so close, will be the knowledge of how his own mistakes cost his team-mates. This was an occasion that could, and should, have been remembered not only for Jones’s sideline catch but also Robert Alford’s pick-six on Tom Brady, and Grady Jarrett’s three sacks.
But perhaps, instead of taking it all on his own shoulders, it might also be an occasion for Ryan to lean on those same individuals. Of all the Falcons who arrived at the post-game podiums on Sunday night, none seemed more philosophical about the defeat that Jarrett himself - a 23-year-old whose own father, Jessie Tuggle, played for the Falcons in their only previous Super Bowl appearance - a defeat to Denver in January 1999.
“You got to get over it,” Jarrett insisted when asked if it was possible to bounce back from such a defeat. “I’m not the type to sit around and cry over spilled milk, man. We went out there and gave our best, did our best, and at the end of the day that’s all you can ask for. As long as you leave it out there, you let the results take care of itself. We can’t do nothing but go back to work. Get excited to go back to work.”
That might be the perfect response for dealing with a setback – even one as painful as this. But Ryan can attest that perfection is not all it’s cracked up to be. What the Falcons need to do right now, is to take some time to remember how to breathe.
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