Matt Ryan has a winning record in nine career cold weather games

There are plenty of reasons to be nervous about the matchup ahead, but is the cold weather one of them? As you’ve heard thousands of times by now, this Eagles-Falcons Divisional Round Game is going to be quite frigid, with temperatures reaching the upper end of what I’ve been experiencing in New England for the past two months. Not that I am bitter.

The good news is that Ryan is 6-3 all-time in games where the weather is 45 or lower. The sour note her is that he’s just 1-1 in games where the temperature dips beneath freezing, which happened in 2013 against Green Bay (nine dang degrees and a 22-21 loss) and in 2009 against the Jets (29 degrees and a 10-7 win). The other note is that quarterback wins are of course a terrible way to evaluate quarterbacks in particular conditions, but it at least gives us the sense that the Falcons aren’t going to wilt because it’s a mite chilly outside.

The sample size is too small to tell us a lot, but I tend to think the idea that the cold is going to impact the Falcons much more significantly than the Eagles is a little overblown. The Eagles are used to playing in the elements and more used to playing in the cold, for certain, and there’s got to be some kind of small advantage there. But when you’re talking about wind chills and blustery breezes impacting the flight of the football, that’s going to hit both teams, unless the Falcons are dumb enough not to dress for the cold.

Hopefully Ryan will be a nice 7-3 when today is over in these cold games, adding yet another reason to continue to call him Matty Ice.