Start or Sit Matt Ryan?
In this article we answer the question: should you start or sit Matt Ryan in week two as the Falcons host the Carolina Panthers?
The first week of the NFL fantasy football season is in the book, and at this point you’re either on pace to go undefeated, or more likely you’re an endless pit of depth and despair, wondering why you wasted your time even thinking about fantasy football. After all, Joan from Accounting auto-drafted Tyreek Hill, Alvin Kamara, Patrick Mahomes, and Jared Cook and smashed the thoroughly-researched players you took after countless hours of studying during the long offseason. A wasted summer spent on nightly mock drafts instead of tending to your relationships with your loved ones. Whether you won or lost, it’s time to move on from week one and set your lineups for week two. Here at Football Absurdity, we try to help you out with your weekly lineup questions.
Things have been rough for Matt Ryan since Kyle Shanahan absconded off to San Francisco following the 2016 season. He has thrown for a ton of yards, but can’t make the touchdown play to save his life. Without Shanahan, he’s sitting at 1.17 touchdowns a game over the last two years. The yardage is there (272 yards a game), but he scores touchdowns at an absurdly low rate compared to the league average (one touchdown every 217 yards compared to the league average of 163 yards per touchdown thrown). The problem is fundamental: the Falcons offense isn’t built around scoring in the red zone. Seems like a weird problem to have, but Steve Sarkisian does baffling things, including pulling Julio Jones out for entire red zone stands at a time. Matt Ryan also cannot hit Julio Jones in the end zone to save his life: he’s 1-20 targeting Julio in the red zone over the last two seasons, according to ESPN. Those stats go a long way toward helping us decide to start or sit Matt Ryan.
This week will be rough on Ryan, who plays a Carolina Panthers defense fresh off a drubbing of Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys. They held Dak to a paltry 170 yards passing last week and made his life hell on wheels. That won’t be any better for Matt Ryan this week, or any other week until the Falcons fix their offense. There’s too much wrong swirling around Ryan and too many other, better matchups, to recommend sitting him this week. This week you shouldn’t even think about whether you should start or sit Matt Ryan, as he is an extremely easy sit.
