Just because Schefter says something, doesn’t make it so. He’s full of crap as often as not, like most of the talking heads.

If the Falcons ARE stupid enough to start Ryan right away, I’ll be very disappointed with the new brain trust (and Blank). Disappointed, but not surprised, the way the last 40+ years have gone.

Let’s hope they get it right this time!

Personally I wouldn’t put too much weight behind his comments, much less any of those guys. They are usually so off base because they think they are getting the “scoop” when really the people on the inside are more than likely just feeding these guys crap stories to keep all the other teams off balance and guessing. So, on that, I say bah, it’s nothing to worry about.

But, it is an interesting topic of discussion so let’s discuss. Should Ryan start week one or should he sit half a season or, should he sit for year one?

Scenario A reeks of poor management and bad PR moves. Is Ryan the best QB on the roster? Talent wise sure, but he is a rookie learning an entirely new offensive scheme and this isn’t college anymore. Everyone in the league was an All-something so the level of talent and competition he will face every down is clearly leaps and bounds above what he faced every week in the lowly ACC. (I’m a GT fan, trust me, I know.) I guess one could argue that the game time would be an invaluable experience for Ryan and that we would have a better chance at winning more games with him under center than Redman or Joey. I guess. I would argue that one would only need to look at Carr to see what happens when you put a rookie Q behind a complete mess of an offensive line. Sure, Ryan will break records, but do we really want him to break the sacks record in year one?

Scenario B is a much more sensible approach to the development of Ryan and the teams progression than the above plan. The team could start Redman with smatterings of Joey from time to time while Ryan calls plays from the sideline and reads that nice clipboard every Sunday so that every play gets branded into his memory. This plan of attack would give the team plenty of time to fully analyze and evaluate the offensive line, while also allowing time for any early season injuries to occur and be taken care of, so that they can make a better call on when Ryan should take over, or better yet, if we need to hit up the trade market for some more O-line help (which I think they should). Of course, this could mean that a certain amount of the fan base will be screaming for Ryan after every short pass from Joey and every time we lose, but I really don’t think Ryan starting in week one is going to change our win total that much. At least not this year anyways.

Scenario C is an obvious extension of B, but there are still some pro’s and con’s that should be mentioned. Keeping Ryan out for a whole year allows him to learn the system fully through practice, watching the game in action but from a safe distance, as well as possibly during some late fourth quarter duty. This keeps Ryan (hopefully) safe from any major crushing injury from all of those big bad defensive players out there on the opposing teams and protecting a 34mil asset is never a bad thing. The flip side to this plan is that you are paying a guy almost 6mil to sit on the bench for a year and to me that negates the work, if you can call it that, in getting the deal done so early. It would mean that management got trigger happy and should have waited and negotiated a lesser deal, in the least being 6mil less that the current one.

I believe that scenario B is the best course of action for the Falcons. It’s the best of both worlds in that Ryan doesn’t get thrown into the fire early and gets a chance to learn the system, and it also gets Ryan under center this year, which will obviously make a lot of people happy. Surely there will be many factors that go into determining what the true outcome will be such as his pay, how he performs in camp, injuries, and unfortunately Blanks desire to make any thought of Vick disappear, but that’s another topic for a separate thread I suppose.

Here’s to hoping Ryan will live up to that huge contract!

Just cause he is getting paid does not mean the team should try and get value by throwing him to the wolves. You can’t risk him getting shell shocked David Carr style. Give him time to learn the game and adjust to the league. Give the team time to build up around him. Him starting is not a make or break decision for the team this year, but starting him too early could be a make or break decision for the future. Its not worth it.

Point 1: Yes, Ryan should sit for 6-10 weeks before starting.

Point 2: Hey, it’s a new offense so Ryan doesn’t have anything more to learn than Redman and Harrington except how fast everything moves in the NFL.

Point 3: Ryan isn’t making 6 times the money of the rest of the quarterbacks on the roster to sit and watch. So get used to the idea of seeing #2 under center for the first game of the season. And get used to watching #2 get sacked 6 times a game…

Peyton Manning is used as an example of a success story of a rookie starting from day one, the 1997 and 1998 Colts were bad no doubt (3-13 both years) they weren’t the ordinary bad team looking for a QB. Their two previous 1st round picks were Marvin Harrison and Tarik Glenn, Peyton’s go-to WR and left tackle were in place before he arrived. Those Colts sucked because had one of the worse defenses in the league (29th) and Manning struggled like you would expect a rookie QB to (Only season with more INTs than TDs and one of the two years of his 10 year career where he didn’t make the Pro-Bowl). Manning joined a good offense, Marshall Faulk, Marvin Harrison, and an O-line that only gave up 22 sacks despite having a rookie QB drop back to pass 575 times.
Never throw a rookie QB in unless your offense (especially O-line) is already good.