DEL.ICIO.USFor his seventh game, Falcons rookie QB goes home
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Philadelphia — This is where Matt Ryan practiced his fade routes with his brother Michael, running slightly uphill in the front yard. The driveway was a touchdown.
This is where he played for the Downingtown Youth Whippets, the Marsh Creek Eagles, and the Philadelphia Little Quakers.
Philadelphia Inquirer
As a youngster growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs he was the quarterback for Penn Charter.
Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com
Matt Ryan has lead the Falcons to a 4-2 start. He has thrown for 1,164 yards with five touchdowns and three interceptions.
He was born at Holy Redeemer Hospital, played Little League at Foster Field and abused the 205-foot fence in left field. He played high school football on Friday afternoons at Penn Charter School, ate his cheesesteaks at a place called Chubby’s, and spent Thanksgivings playing backyard football with some of his 30-some-odd cousins, mostly boys.
This is where his family of three brothers and a sister kept a cardboard cutout of Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb in their basement.
This is where one Christmas morning, wearing a Bo Jackson uniform with his brother Michael in Mark Rypien gear, Matt Ryan made the tackle of his life. But the fall into an irrigation system dislocated his brother’s shoulder, something the brothers plotted to keep quiet until their football game the next day.
This is where Ryan will play the seventh game of his budding NFL career. The Falcons’ rookie quarterback comes home to face the Eagles at 1 p.m. Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field.
It’s a date that has been marked on the family calendar since Ryan walked off the stage of the NFL draft as the overall No. 3 pick, and cell phones in his family entourage started ringing.
“It happened like that,” said his father Mike Ryan, snapping his fingers.
He and his wife, Bernie, have been directing traffic for about 70 family and friends going to the game — many getting tickets through friends who are Eagles season-ticket holders. A friend is bringing an RV for them to use Sunday morning at a tailgate, complete with pork-roll-and-bagel sandwiches, sausage and Matt’s favorite: soft pretzels.
For Matt Ryan, though, he has tried to keep the excitement in check, despite daily questions about it, a visit from a Philadelphia Inquirer writer, and Games 1 and 2 of the Phillies-Rays World Series to build the momentum of all that’s going on in Philadelphia this weekend.
“There’s a lot made of being able to go home, and it is exciting to be able to have your family there watching,” Ryan said. “But for me it’s about preparing to play this game no differently than playing any other game.”
That meant staying at the team hotel across the river in New Jersey on Saturday night, going to team mass and then meetings, and watching the Phillies at the hotel. Somewhere in there was a quick visit from his mother and brother Michael.
To that end, Ryan did one thing differently this week.
“I got my hair cut, so my mom will be happy,” he said Monday.
At 23 years old, Ryan is opening eyes around the NFL. His last-second pass helped the Falcons beat the Bears to bring a 4-2 record to Philadelphia. He has passed for 1,164 yards, five touchdowns, three interceptions and has a quarterback rating of 82.9.
He’s defying the odds for rookie NFL quarterbacks, something the Eagles will challenge with a full array of blitzes.
So how exactly did Ryan get here?
His family and friends trace reasons back to Philadelphia with stories about the kid they knew long before 67,000 fans in a stadium did.
First of all, he’s smart. He showed his quarterbacking aptitude from the start.
In Ryan’s first year at quarterback in the eighth grade, coach Brian McCloskey let him audible at the line. On JV the next year, Ryan called every play in the second half of a rivalry game.
By his senior year it was a foregone conclusion that Ryan could check into what he saw fit for Penn Charter. Like a third-and-long fullback dive against Malvern Prep that went for 15 yards when he was supposed to throw a pass.
“I remember him coming over, and I said ‘What are you doing?’ ” said McCloskey, who coached Ryan through high school. “He says ‘Coach, it was there. I took advantage.’ I said ‘That’s why you’re out there, buddy. That’s why you have the freedom to make that call.’ “
Ryan is prepared. His younger brother John, now a senior at Penn Charter who started at quarterback until a season-ending injury, remembers Matt coming home from New York after the draft with DVDs the Falcons had sent him of their offense. He immediately went to work, making flash cards to study.
He is grounded. Ryan’s mother, Bernie, collects his newspaper clippings in a Rubbermaid bin. He won’t read them, but she thinks maybe one day his children will.
And on the day he turned 16, Matt gained enough perspective to last a lifetime.
Michael, who was home from college, drove Matt to the golf course for a birthday round. Taking a left into the club, their Volkswagon Jetta was rear-ended and sent into the path of an oncoming military convoy.
Michael was knocked unconscious and doesn’t remember the accident. Matt does. By the time his parents met them at the hospital, Matt still thought his brother was dead.
Michael’s head had split open and his right elbow shattered. His days of playing quarterback at Division III Widener were over, and Matt was in the room when Michael woke up to hear it.
Matt let guilt build inside him before finally breaking down the morning of Penn Charter’s first football game his junior year, riding to school with his mother.
“He said ‘Why can I play and Michael can’t?’ ” Bernie Ryan said.
That afternoon Michael surprised him by showing up on the Penn Charter sideline. He gave Matt a high five and his blessing.
“I just went up to him and said ‘Put it behind you, just move on and have fun,’ ” Michael said. “After the accident, once everyone was OK, Matt probably got a good appreciation — me, too — of how fortunate you are and how quick the game can go for you. That just tells you to make sure you play hard all the time.”
Ryan plays for two, in a way. He plays driven. He told McCloskey the day of the draft that he was setting out to become the best quarterback in NFL history.
“I believed him,” McCloskey said. “He’s setting the groundwork.”
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