Should We Have Signed Matt Ryan to a Long-Term Contract Sooner?

Quick discussion post for y'all, and guess what? It's about Matt Ryan's contract!

Ryan's new contract will come to fruition any day now. We have no reason to think it won't. But with Joe Flacco and Tony Romo setting the bar this off-season, we can't reasonably expect the value of his contract to be south of $100 million.

Ryan is coming off his best professional season. He also just won his first playoff game. Each year the potential for greatness is obvious, but expectations for the young man may never be greater. In turn, the Falcons will need to compensate him in a manner commensurate with his abilities.

Arguably we could have locked him down sooner. By doing so, maybe you save a little money, though there's risk involved when you go that route. What sort of risk? Well maybe you give him more than he's worth, and he starts sucking more than you'd like. Methinks we knew that wouldn't happen last off-season, but there's other variables. Bloody Monday showed us how prohibitive the front office viewed certain contracts, and to be fair, maybe the front office wanted to give Ryan an opportunity to earn a bigger contract. Nothing particularly offensive or objectionable about that.

Your thoughts?