TAMPA — He’d had three wretched quarters, but history teaches that Matt Ryan cannot be judged on his first three quarters. In three NFL seasons, he has engineered 14 winning drives in the fourth quarter or overtime, and three of those had come against Tampa Bay.
And here he went again, Matty Ice in rally mode with the Buccaneers scrambling to hang on. This time he stitched together three fourth-quarter drives, but the first and last finished without point. Down by 13 points after three quarters, the Falcons lost by six. This time Ryan and his team only came close.
“We just have to start faster,” Ryan said afterward. “That’s something we try to do every week. Against good football teams, you can’t put yourself in the hole every week.”
Through three games, that has become the 2011 Falcons’ signature. They’ve trailed by at least 10 points every week. Last weekend they overrode a fourth-quarter deficit against the Eagles, but that was at home. Seven days later, in an unfilled Raymond James Stadium, the Falcons did just enough wrong to defuse their surge.
The first fourth-quarter drive ended when Ryan’s inside slant to rookie back Jacquizz Rodgers was deflected on fourth-and-goal. “We thought we had a good play,” Ryan said, though it appeared he might have found Tony Gonzalez open elsewhere.
The second drive lasted two plays — a 49-yard Ryan pass to rookie Julio Jones and a 10-yard touchdown to Tony Gonzalez. That brought the Falcons within six points. Two minutes later, they were rolling — occasionally lurching — toward the go-ahead touchdown. Roddy White caught four passes on the possession, but dropped one that might have yielded six points. And Ryan himself held the ball too long on first-and-goal from the 5, the 10-yard sack essentially forcing the Falcons to kick a field that left them three points short.
“That’s just on me,” Ryan said. “I’ve got to find a place to get rid of it. That was a poor play on my part.”
In the first half he lost two fumbles after being sacked and threw an interception. Through three quarters he completed 17 of 30 passes for 179 yards. In the final period he was 9-of-17 for 151 yards, lending further weight to the notion that Ryan plays best when driven by desperation.
Speaking of White’s two fourth-quarter drops, Ryan said: “Roddy’s been a great player for us for a long time. I have complete confidence in him and will continue to have complete confidence in him. We — and I count myself — just didn’t make those [winning] plays today.”
And what of his Falcons, who lost only three regular-season games last season, but are 1-2 after three weeks? “Certainly we’re not playing up to our potential,” Ryan said. “We’ve got to find a way to correct that.”
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