#9. Matt Ryan– It’s incredible to think he’s now an established veteran in the National Football League and he was drafted in 2008 and people really didn’t know what to expect from him when he broke into the league. He was replacing a well-known guy and fan favorite in Atlanta at the time in Michael Vick after the team decided to part ways and go in a different direction. He’s shown the potential to be a great quarterback. When Tony Dungy was breaking down his attributes, he said he saw a few flashes of Peyton Manning in his game. Now, that’s saying a lot when you are being compared to one of the all-time greats in the history of the NFL. He’s had his ups and downs, he’s been known to have those great regular seasons then become a ghost come playoff time. Last season, he finally elevated his game and ended up having the best season of his career and it earned him a spot on my ten best players list as my ninth best player in the game right now, the first of three quarterbacks featured and the second of the six new faces making their debut on the list. For years, he’s bounced off many people’s top quarterbacks list and he’s been knocking on that door for years to be mentioned in the elite conversation. We’ve also wondered when Matt Ryan would have that breakout season because the skill-set has been there. He has the strong arm, he can make all the throws and he’s able to move around to buy time to keep the play going. My biggest knock on him has been throwing to one receiver and continuously throwing to that guy. I get it though because who wouldn’t want to keep throwing to a guy like Julio Jones? It isn’t just throwing it to his top weapon now, he’s improved tremendously as a passer and spreads the football around to the open guy. 2016 was good to Matty Ice. He threw 38 touchdown passes, the most in his career, seven interceptions and helped lead the Falcons to an 11-5 record, their first division title since 2012 and the two seed in the NFC. Once playoff time rolled around, he stepped it up even more and defeated who many have considered to be the classes of the NFC in the Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay Packers and he defeated them both in back to back weeks in the playoffs and led the Falcons to the Super Bowl. Derek Carr was my MVP until he got hurt then after he, unfortunately, went down, it was Matt’s for the taking and those victories in January sealed the deal.
e Seahawks and Packers sealed the MVP up for him.
