Atlanta Falcons: Five things Matt Ryan needs to do in 2016
Matt Ryan is the Atlanta Falcons’ franchise quarterback heading into 2016, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to hold that spot forever. Ryan has had his ups and downs in the past couple of seasons, but heading in 2016, Ryan has a lot of great things going for him.
The Falcons have done a great job in the offseason of building around Ryan and giving him. Not only does Ryan have a better offensive line and better core of receivers around him, but he also has more confidence with his offensive playbook.
Ryan struggled in first-year offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan’s offense last season. There is no denying that, but he’s feeling as confident as ever heading into year two.
Here are five things Ryan needs to do in 2016 to lead this Falcons’ team into the playoffs.
5) Play more confident
Ryan was as confident as ever in the Falcons’ run to the 2013 NFC championship game but that fire hasn’t been there in the past three seasons. The Falcons are a much better team than they have been in these past three seasons and hopefully Ryan’s confidence will be right back up there like it needs to be. Ryan is the leader of this team and he needs to have more confidence in himself and in his team if they want to make it back into the postseason.
4) Spread the ball around more
Ryan didn’t do a very good job of spreading the ball around in 2015. Sure, its pretty easy to get carried away when you have the best wide receiver in the NFL on your team, but in order to have a successful offense, Ryan needs to get his other receivers involved more.
Julio Jones was thrown to 204 times. The next best target was running back Devonta Freeman who was thrown to 97 times. The second leading receiver was Jacob Tamme with 82 targets and the fourth receiver came in at just 70 targets.
We need to see less targets for Jones and more for his supporting cast. Jones cannot keep up a heavy workload year after year and Ryan needs to understand that.
3) Throw more down the field
Ryan has never been a deep ball quarterback and that has never made sense to me. With Jones on the team, why not take more shots down the field to him? We saw what can happen when he does do it. Ryan connected with Jones for the best play of the year against the Carolina Panthers.
Ryan may not have any other receivers that are capable of making the deep pass other than Jones and maybe Mohamed Sanu, but that shouldn’t stop them from taking shots more often. Both Jones and Sanu are big, tall receivers and will out leap pretty much any corner or safety in the NFL.
2) Run more no huddle
Ryan was a beast at running the no-huddle offense under Dirk Koetter’s offense but didn’t do it very much last season under Shanahan. That needs to change in 2016 no matter what. I know that Shanahan doesn’t run a lot of no-huddle in his schemes, but that’s Ryan’s bread-and-butter.
Shanahan needs to let Ryan have more freedom in the play-calling and allow him to run more of a fast paced style of offense. If we get to see Ryan do that in 2016, he’s in for a big season.
1) Play well in the red zone
Ryan was atrocious in the red zone last season. Anything and everything that is bad happened once the Falcons’ reached the red zone in 2015 and that ultimately shot down any chance they had of making it to the playoffs.
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Ryan is too good not to succeed in the red zone. He had never had a major problem before and we cannot have him break down like that again. The players around him are much better than last season so Ryan will have no excuses.