Looking at the Falcons offensive rankings during Matt Ryan era

It is certainly no secret that the Atlanta Falcons have been an offensive-minded team for a long time now, they have had to rely on scoring points to win games due to their defense struggling to stop anyone.

It will be interesting to see which unit ranks higher than the other this upcoming year, one would think it would be the offense but with a question mark at the quarterback spot you just never know.

The Atlanta Falcons’ offensive rankings each year with Matt Ryan as the QB

The Falcons have put a lot on the plate of their quarterback’s plate over the past ten years, that being Matt Ryan, other than one game in which Matt Schaub started. He was routinely asked to go out and score 30 plus points.

That same thing cannot be asked of Marcus Mariota or Desmond Ridder, but with this team likely being more predicated on running the ball, it should shorten the length of the game, which would then mean, in theory, that each team will score fewer points.

After more than a decade of having Matt Ryan as the unquestioned starter, here are the year-by-year rankings of the Falcons’ offense since 2008 based on points per game:

• 2008: 24.4 ppg – 10th in NFL
• 2009: 22.7 ppg – 13th in NFL
• 2010: 25.9 ppg – 5th in NFL
• 2011: 25.1 ppg – 7th in NFL
• 2012: 26.2 ppg – 7th in NFL
• 2013: 22.1 ppg – 14th in NFL
• 2014: 23.8 ppg – 12th in NFL
• 2015: 21.2 ppg – 21st in NFL
• 2016: 33.8 ppg – 1st in NFL
• 2017: 22.1 ppg – 15th in NFL
• 2018: 25.9 ppg – 10th in NFL
• 2019: 23.8 ppg – 13th in NFL
• 2020: 24.8 ppg – 16th in NFL
• 2021: 18.4 ppg – 26th in NFL

Matt Ryan was able to lead the Falcons to be top ten in the NFL in points per game a total of six times during his 14-years with the team. When you factor in all the times he had to learn a new playbook, the times he had terrible offensive lines, and the times he did not have a running game to help him out, that is pretty impressive.

There were only two times where they ranked in the bottom half of the league, both coming during the first year of a new head coach. That is interesting and shows how hard it can be to adjust to new coaches.

Maybe we could see another giant leap from year one to year two of a new coach like we did with Dan Quinn? Arthur Smith will be entering his second year as head coach and the last time the Falcons had that they went from 21st to 1st in PPG, leading them to their second-ever Super Bowl.

It would take a lot of things going right for that to happen, starting with either Desmond Ridder or Marcus Mariota breaking out as a top quarterback in the league, not to be pessimistic but that will likely not happen.

Matt Ryan was able to bring consistency to the Falcons and going forward they will be looking for a new quarterback to bring that same type of consistency but it will take some time to figure out.