It was a bad day at the office and Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan intends to shake it off.
He knows the undefeated Falcons (5-0) will need him to be sharper than he was last Sunday when he faces struggling New Orleans (1-4) on Thursday at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
“It happens,” Ryan said on Tuesday of his off performance. “It happens to everybody. It comes down to making good decisions and you’ve got to be accurate. I think the best way to do that is work really hard during the week in practice.”
Ryan had a passer rating of 55.1 against a stout Washington defense in the 25-19 overtime victory. It was the second-lowest passer-rated game of his career in which the Falcons still won the game. He previously had a 40.5 and threw five interceptions in a 23-19 victory over Arizona on Nov. 18, 2012.
Against Washington, Ryan missed deep passes to wide receivers Leonard Hankerson, Nick Williams and Julio Jones. He skipped a couple of passes short to the outside and sailed one slightly behind Jones that was intercepted.
For the normally accurate, Ryan it was stunning to behold. He finished with two interceptions and fumble.
In 115 regular season games, Ryan has just 12 outings with a sub-60 passer rating. The Falcons are 5-7 when he has a sub-60 game.
Normally, he bounces back with a big showing.
Ryan’s Sunday rating against the Redskins was his lowest since he recorded a 48.6 in Week 2 last season against Cincinnati. The following week, he torched Tampa Bay in a 56-14 victory, completing 21-of-24 passes for 286 yards and three touchdowns. He had a 155.9 rating that day.
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“It comes down to execution,” Ryan said. “We didn’t play as well as would have liked. Certainly, we made enough plays to get the job done. We want to play better. We can’t turn the football over the way that we did.”
When he had to, Ryan came through with a big touchdown drive to give the Falcons a 19-16 lead with 24 seconds left in regulation.
“When it came down to it, on that last drive, we made the plays,” Ryan said.
Left tackle Jake Matthews said Ryan maintained his composure in the huddle before the start of that final drive.
“He was Matty Ice,” Matthews said. “He’s always calm cool and collected. He told us before we went out there, ‘If everybody does their jobs, we’re going to win this game.’ That’s what we did.”
Ryan’s accuracy may have been off because of Washington’s pass rush, which sacked him three times and had three other quarterback hits.
“Up front, if we give him time to throw the ball, he’s such a good player that he’s going to make something happen,” Matthews said. “It worked out well on the last drive.”
Washington also tried to take away Jones with bracketed coverage. That left some holes for running back Devonta Freeman to rush for 153 yards on 27 carries.
“I makes it harder on a lot of defenses because they have to play our offense fair,” Freeman said. “They can’t cheat in the box or they can’t double Julio. Lately, they’ve been doubling Julio, which has been creating a lot of space for the running game. We’ve just been taking advantage of it.”
Ryan threw 10 passes to tight end Jacob Tamme, who caught eight for 94 yards.
“We did some good things offensively,” Tamme said. “But we kept sputtering out down there in the strike zone area where you’re not quite in the red zone area. We didn’t finish drives like we want to do.”
Ryan doesn’t want to short-change a Saints defense that has been leaking yardage this season (2,045 yards allowed, most in the NFL).
“I know we’re going to take their best shot,” Ryan said. “We must have ourselves ready to go.”
