By Jordan Long.
The Atlanta Falcons ended the year at 7-10, missing the postseason for the 4th straight year. They are looking at ways to improve the team. The Falcons though need to figure out how to shred salary. Right now, they are around $5.85 million over the NFL cap space for 2022. One player who could help that is quarterback Matt Ryan but he is most likely going to stay.
Ryan finished his 14th season in the NFL. He played well passing for 3,968 yards and 20 touchdowns. Ryan looked at the whole field and didn’t lock onto one receiver, helping him find the open one. He took a few chances throwing into coverage with 12 interceptions. His play kept Atlanta in games but it wasn’t his fault the team went 7-10.
The Falcons will look at all options to make the team better. Falcons owner Arthur Blank believes Ryan will not be moved during the offseason. According to MSN.com, Blank said, “Ryan loves the game. He loves the Falcons. He loves the city, and he wants to stay here. That’s a decision the coach and general manager will make. But we have no reason to think he won’t continue to be playing quarterback for us.”
Blank is saying the right thing here. Ryan has been the Falcons quarterback since he was drafted by them 3rd overall in the 2008 NFL Draft. His career record as a starter is 120-102. In those games, he passed for 59,735 yards, 367 touchdowns, and 170 interceptions. He is their franchise quarterback. It would be tough to want to trade him because quarterbacks like Ryan are hard to find.
The problem with Ryan staying or even being dealt is his cap hit for the next 2 years. For 2022, it is around $48.662 million and in 2023 that goes down to around $43.612 million, a lot of money for the Falcons or any team to take on. Not many teams are willing to trade for that contract. The only way an exchange makes sense is if Atlanta is willing to pay for some of his salary next year. So, it is expected Ryan will stay in Atlanta.
Atlanta has two options to help them with the salary cap. The first is pretty obvious and that is to restructure Ryan’s current deal. They could make the hit less but add incentives for him to earn the money back. This would make the most sense if they want to keep him. Ryan may be willing to do this if this helps the team. The other alternative which won’t happen is for the Falcons to cut him. This year it wouldn’t make sense to do so. His dead cap hit would be around $40.525 million. Next year would be easier since that number goes down to around $15.612 million.
For now, it seems like Matt Ryan is the quarterback moving forward. The Falcons will need to figure out ways to save money since they are over the cap. Once that is completed, then they can worry about fixing the team.
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