Will the Falcons find Matt Ryan’s replacement in 2021 NFL Draft?

The Atlanta Falcons currently hold the fourth overall selection in the 2021 NFL Draft. Some believe that Atlanta will use that pick to bolster their offense, a popular choice being tight end Kyle Pitts. However, long-time starting quarterback Matt Ryan is turning 36 next month, and he won’t be around forever. As a result, the Falcons are faced with a unique choice — take their pick of the draft’s elite playmakers or draft their potential quarterback of the future?

Matt Ryan hasn’t been the same since 2016

To talk about whether Ryan has played well enough in recent seasons to warrant further investment, we first need to look back at what was undeniably the best season of his impressive career: 2016.

That season is now a sore spot for many Falcons fans due to its unfortunate ending, but Ryan and Atlanta’s offense was something to behold. The team led the NFL in points per game and was second in total yards, and currently rank eighth on the list of the highest-scoring offenses in NFL history.

This was one of the best offenses the NFL has ever seen, thanks in no small part to Ryan, who threw for 4,944 yards and 38 touchdowns (both career-highs) and a career-low 7 interceptions. As a result of his spectacular play, Ryan earned almost every conceivable regular-season accolade: Pro Bowl, first-team All-Pro, Offensive Player of the Year, and MVP.

Yes, the team will be most remembered for their catastrophic collapse in the second half of Super Bowl LI, but that shouldn’t take away from their excellence or Ryan’s.

Ryan’s advanced metrics were just as impressive

Given his success in the box score, it should come as no surprise that Ryan’s performance on numerous advanced metrics, including the Offensive Value Metric (OVM), was equally spectacular.

The OVM is a measuring system created by the (Bx) Movement to evaluate players based on how much they contributed to their offense. In  2016, Ryan was more valuable to his offense than almost any other quarterback on record.

His OVM grade of 35.58 was the highest grade earned by any quarterback that season and the second-highest season-long OVM grade produced by any quarterback in five years of OVM data.

The last four seasons have been difficult for Atlanta, but Ryan has performed reasonably well

Unfortunately, the last four seasons have been less kind to Ryan and to the Falcons in general, which is why they might be looking for his replacement in the 2021 NFL Draft. They made the playoffs again in 2017 but have since produced losing records in three consecutive seasons.

However, while the team has struggled, Ryan has continued to perform reasonably well, although he hasn’t seen the same level of success as in 2016. The chart below shows his passing statistics since 2016.

As you can see, while the decline from 2016 to 2017 was significant, Ryan rebounded quickly and has performed at a reasonably high level in each of the last three years.

Ryan’s OVM grades have relatively been stable since 2017

That same pattern of consistency appears in Ryan’s OVM grades as well. In the chart below, you can see his grades from each of the last four years, along with where they ranked among the other qualifying quarterbacks during those seasons.

Those are far from the grades of a washed-up player, with Ryan ranking inside the top 10 twice and inside the top five once. There was some fluctuation, but not enough to suggest that Ryan’s play has nosedived in recent seasons.

A deep dive into Ryan’s 2020 OVM grades

Of course, the NFL is a “what have you done for me lately” league, so we need a closer look at the advanced metrics involved in calculating Ryan’s 2020 grade. His performance was relatively average on many of them, but Ryan excelled in one area — pushing the ball downfield.

Ryan threw the ball 8.7 yards downfield across all of his pass attempts, which was the eleventh-farthest among all quarterbacks who qualified for an OVM grade.

Even more impressively, that number didn’t drop significantly when only looking at his completions, which traveled 7.2 yards downfield on average (fifth-highest total).

Examining Ryan’s weekly grades from 2020

For a more in-depth look at Ryan’s 2020, let’s examine his week-to-week performances. The graph below shows Ryan’s grades from each week of the 2020 season. For comparison, the yellow line shows the average season-long OVM grade for quarterbacks.

As you can see, the vast majority of Ryan’s grades ranked at or above the league average. The only true low point was a grade of 6.85 in Week 12 against the Las Vegas Raiders. Fortunately, Ryan’s low-impact performance was virtually irrelevant, as Atlanta won 43-6 thanks to 5 Las Vegas turnovers.

In short, while Ryan rarely produced elite grades, he played at a high level for almost the entire season.

Can Ryan recapture the magic of the 2016 season?

While the statistics show that Ryan has continued to perform at a high level in recent seasons, there was still an obvious drop-off after 2016, both for him and the team overall.

Now, one could argue that Ryan’s 2016 performance was merely an outlier. Yet, there was one obvious change following that year — the departure of offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, now the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers.

Pinning a player’s regression on a single factor is generally an oversimplification. Still, the sudden and dramatic decline in Ryan’s level of play in the aftermath of Shanahan leaving for San Francisco and in the seasons that followed is almost certainly not entirely coincidental.

Now, however, Atlanta is starting the season with a new head coach for just the second time in Ryan’s career.

Shanahan is widely regarded as an offensive mastermind, so it’s doubtful that new head coach Arthur Smith will be able to replicate his success entirely. On the other hand, perhaps the change in the coaching staff will inject new life into Ryan’s play and into the team overall.

The question is, does the Falcons’ new coaching staff think the roster is strong enough to warrant making a Super Bowl push with Ryan at the helm, or is it time to begin the process of moving on in the 2021 NFL Draft?

What the Falcons do in the 2021 NFL Draft will determine the future of their franchise

The Falcons are at a fork in the road of their franchise. Atlanta can either: A) double down on Ryan, drafting an elite skill-position player like Kyle Pitts, or B) use their draft position to select Ryan’s replacement. The strategy would be similar to the one the Green Bay Packers opted for last season when they drafted Jordan Love instead of helping their offense.

As was the case with the Packers, though, such a decision will inevitably draw criticism so long as the rookie sits on the bench. And if whoever it is turns out to be a bust, the team will look back on the move as a massive missed opportunity.

Consequently, if they can adequately replace Ryan (not a small task), the franchise’s future will be secure for years to come. Ryan might still be capable of playing at a high level, but the chance to draft their quarterback of the future might be too enticing for Atlanta to pass up.

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