Who Won The NFL Divisional Round? Matt Ryan, The Best In A Weekend Of Great Quarterback Play

We are now down to four teams left in the NFL Playoffs, and all of them have marquee franchise quarterbacks leading very good-to-great offenses. Patriots-Steelers will be the matchup of Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady, while Packers-Falcons could be an air show between Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan. No one is more intimidating than Rodgers right now, but the Falcons are still favored to win, because they’re at home and because Matt Ryan has been elite as well.

No passer had a higher rating than Ryan in the divisional round, and he was also the only quarterback in any of the four games not to throw an interception. Ryan’s performance went beyond tossing it up to Julio Jones and seeing what happened: Of Ryan’s 338 passing yards, no one receiver had more than 80 of them. Five receivers had at least three receptions, and six of them averaged over 10 yards per catch. Ryan’s throws don’t break the sound barrier like Rodgers’ bombs, but he’s still a spectacularly accurate QB, as he proved on these throws, to Mohamed Sanu and Taylor Gabriel:

You can see that Ryan has less margin for error than Rodgers — without as much velocity, he needs to anticipate his receivers’ breaks earlier, giving defensive backs more air time to adjust to the ball. But all season, it hasn’t mattered, and Ryan has led the most productive offense in football.

And offense does seem like it will decide our Super Bowl participants (and eventually the champion). Though there’s talent on the defensive end for all four teams remaining, all of them have been driven by their offenses, and none of them have that Super Bowl-worthy defense we’ve seen from the Broncos and Seahawks of recent years. The closest team to it, the Giants, were ousted by the very same Packers who will be taking on Ryan’s Falcons. But those Packers, as Dak Prescott showed, are vulnerable against teams that can air it out, and the Falcons can very much do that.

Let’s be clear — though the Vegas betting line may favor the Falcons now, they’re still the underdog of the final four. Ryan is the only quarterback left who doesn’t already have a Super Bowl ring, and that’s a pedigree that isn’t forgotten around the game. But while Rodgers has been on an unbelievable run since his “run the table” comments eight games ago, Ryan’s performance over that very same time period has arguably been better. He’s got the edge in completion percentage, yards per attempt, quarterback rating and QBR, and has thrown only one more pick than Rodgers. In other words, the Packers may not have quite the edge at quarterback everyone thinks they have.

Based on his excellent regular season (and Rodgers’ lack of full-season consistency, and Brady’s suspension), Ryan has a better shot at winning the MVP than he’s ever had. But that award will mean nothing if the Falcons once again fall to the legacy names left in the postseason. Ryan seems poised to crack that group, and to do so he’ll just need to outperform them like he has all year.