Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan talks Julio Jones, Roddy White and more
Julio Jones, (left) when he was with the Atlanta Falcons. (Atlanta Falcons)
Every National Football League playoff team but one lost its last game of the season. But no last game was as soul-crushing as the Atlanta Falcons’ 34-28 overtime loss to the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl in February – a game Atlanta led 28-3 in the third quarter.
So how do players get past such a game? For Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, the reigning NFL Most Valuable Player, returning to work was a huge help.
“It’s obviously tough when you make it that far and you don’t come away with a championship. It’s disappointing,” Ryan said Monday during a visit to Birmingham. “I think myself and the rest of my teammates when we got back to work as a team in April and started to focus on what we wanted to accomplish in 2017, starting that process really helped us.
“I feel good about where we’re at. I’m optimistic. We’ll learn from that experience we went through, but hopefully it’ll make us better and tougher as we move forward,” said Ryan who is entering his 10th year in the league, all in Atlanta.
Atlanta Falcons QB Matt Ryan on Julio Jones, Roddy White and being fueled by failure from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
And yes, six months after the Super Bowl Ryan acknowledges, nicely, that he’s tired of questions about the historic loss. “It’s safe to say, I’ve answered it a few times. It’s part of it, it’s part of the business and industry we’re in,” he said. “You have to answer some tough questions from time to time. Such is life.”
Another way Ryan has chosen to move beyond the Super Bowl loss is through a new Gatorade commercial titled “The Secret to Victory.”
“I’ve always believed in my life that you learn more from your shortcomings than you do your success,” he said. “From those situations, you learn and you use it as motivation moving forward. When the Gatorade spot came around, I thought it fit who I was, what I was about, and also what we were going through last year.”
Ryan loved that world-class athletes including Michael Jordan, Peyton and Eli Manning, J.J. Watt and Serena Williams “shared a little bit of their story and what motivates them and what caused their success.”
Having grown up in the 1990s when Jordan ruled the NBA, Ryan said being in a commercial with him “was a thrill for me.”
In the one-minute spot, after Jordan asks, “You really want to know the secret to victory?” a devastated Ryan, walking off the field after the Super Bowl loss, says: “Defeat.” Then, the commercial shows Ryan getting pumped as he throws passes to teammates, and ends with the Gatorade tagline: “Make defeat your fuel.”
“I’m very proud of the way it turned out,” he said.
Ryan also shared some thoughts on his and the Falcons’ strong connections to Alabama – the Crimson Tide and the state.
On former University of Alabama receiver Julio Jones:
“Obviously, Julio Jones, who’s in the prime of his career with the Falcons, is an Alabama legend. I’ve been lucky and very fortunate to have ties to the state of Alabama. I’m a big fan of wide receivers from the state of Alabama,” Ryan said.
That includes former UAB receiver Roddy White, who played eight years with Ryan and retired as an Atlanta Falcon in June after not playing in the 2016 season:
“Roddy, you know, was obviously a standout player at UAB and a great guy. I played with him for eight seasons in Atlanta. Unbelievable.”
Having both players as teammates was a blessing for Ryan.
“I really believe you’re only as good as the people you’re surrounded by, especially in football,” he said. ”And when you’re surrounded by talented players like that, it makes your job a little bit easier.”
One other connection to Alabama is new Falcons offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian, who served as an offensive analyst last year for the Crimson Tide. Sarkisian coached just one game as Alabama’s offensive coordinator, after Lane Kiffin departed the week before the College Football Playoff National Championship, a game won by Clemson 35-31.
“Sark will help us out,” Ryan said. “I’m excited to get him. I think he’s a really good football coach. Obviously, Nick Saban had a lot of confidence in Sark as a play caller and as a coordinator. I think we’re fortunate to get him. I think he’ll do a great job for us.”
With the Falcons having started training camp Wednesday, Ryan is focused on finding ways to better his MVP-caliber play.
“I think there’s always ways to improve. I look back to all of our games last year and every game we played there were a handful of plays … where I could have done better and where our offensive team could have done better,” he said.
“That’s the thing we’re striving for, even if it’s just 10 plays a game, being better in those 10,” Ryan said. “We’re always trying to find ways to do it. That search for constant improvement, you know, is the thing that I think breeds success.”
This year, Ryan and the Falcons hope success means making the playoffs again and winning the season’s last game.
