Matt Ryan is doing whatever it takes to win now

Matt Ryan gets a lot of unfair criticism from Falcon nation when they lose and even when they win, but he did something a franchise player is supposed to do.

The offense accounts for more than 50 percent of the Falcons cap space due to the big contracts for Matt Ryan and Julio Jones (both of whom are deserving of their money). On defense, giving Grady Jarrett the franchise tag ($15.2 million) and the $13.9 million owed to Desmond Trufant are the biggest hits to the defense.

Coming into free agency, the Atlanta Falcons had a little bit of money to spend after letting some of the key pieces of the team walk away. They didn’t have the cap space like some of these others to make the big time splashes that most of the Falcon faithful are waiting on.

The Falcons are desperate for help and I assume they will address most of their defense woes during the draft since there is an abundance on defensive players available this year. That didn’t stop Matt Ryan from doing something that ALL fans should appreciate.

He signed a five year worth $150 million dollars with a then record $100 million guaranteed (since broken by Aaron Rodgers). Matt Ryan, just like everyone else knows he needs help, hell Matt Ryan knows he needs help. So what did he do?

He restructured his contract to give the Falcons an extra $7 million dollars in cap space which essentially doubles what they would have had to spend if Ryan would not have done that. That might seem not like a big deal but by Ryan restructuring his contract, this allowed for his team to go out and find some extra protection for him. They did so by going out and picking up Jamon Brown and James Carpenter.

Moves like this could have a ripple effect on the team by showing how much of a team guy Matt Ryan is during this day and age where athletes’ are out trying to “get theirs”. Only time will tell how these signings will affect the team overall but no one can question Ryan’s desire to win with this team.