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Last week, Matt Ryan did something that many quarterbacks aren’t able to do: show up Drew Brees. Ryan led the Atlanta Falcons to a 37-34 win over the New Orleans Saints, large in part to his 448 yards and three touchdowns. That performance was good enough to mark the top fantasy performance of Week 1, but he won’t be able to quite match that stat line this week against the Cincinnati Bengals.
In their matchup against the Baltimore Ravens, they allowed 345 yards and one touchdown from Joe Flacco. Keep in mind that the Ravens aren’t the most pass-heavy team, and hardly have the weapons the Falcons possess. That being said though, we can’t buy into first week stats too heavily because their body of work isn’t representative of teams and players on the whole.
In Ryan’s first and only matchup against the Bengals in 2010, he posted 299 yards with three scores and an interception. Of course, there’s been personnel and roster changes since then, and that came in a game at home for the Falcons — playing indoors like he had last week in New Orleans. This week he’ll be playing outdoors, which he’s shown to be less reliable in.
Games in which Ryan played outdoors last season, he threw for 10 touchdowns opposed to 13 interceptions. That’s quite unremarkable as it is, but comparing it to his 16 touchdowns to four interceptions indoors, it pales in comparison.
However, I think this will be a close game in the end, coming within seven points. In these games of a margin from 0-7, he throws over 2.5 touchdowns for every interception (compared to 10 touchdowns to 11 interceptions in all other games last season).
There’s a lot of mixed signals here for Ryan and his fantasy owners, but ultimately he’ll have a serviceable day. I’m projecting him to have 305 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. Not quite as good as last week, but 18 points is certainly a respectable total for any quarterback.
Sean Cordy is a featured fantasy sports columnist for Rant Sports. You can follow him on Twitter@SicEm18 and you can add him to your network on Google.
