Matt Ryan is trying to bounce back from a bad performance Sunday against the Houston Texans.
Ryan’s 50.6 rating against the Texans was the fourth-lowest of his career and his worst showing since he had a 46.6 passer rating against the Saints in 2009. In the previous game against the Vikings, he had his highest passer rating (128.2) of the season.
Here’s a brief Q&A involving Ryan and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s D. Orlando Ledbetter.
Q: Are the Falcons positioned for a strong finish over the fourth quarter of the season?
A: Well, [coach Mike Smith] talks all the time about being relevant in December. That's one of the focus points at the beginning of the year. We're certainly relevant. We've got four games left in order for us to get to where we want to get to.
Q: What do you expect from Carolina?
A: I expect to see a few wrinkles here and there from their defense, but one of the most fun parts about division games and really the second time you play them, is there's really not a whole lot of secrets. You know what they're going do, they kind of know what we're going to do and it comes down to making plays.
Q: Have the Panthers improved since the last meeting?
A: It's a team that's playing well. [Panthers coach] Ron [Rivera] does a great job with defenses. I think they've got great effort. That's one thing when you look at them, they play with really good effort and they're solid. They're doing some things differently, so I expect to see a couple different things than we saw in the first game. But for us, it's not about them. It really isn't. Our focus has to be about us and playing well and executing at a high level.
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