Matt Ryan should crack the top ten in every major passing category in 2020

Matt Ryan started chucking passes to the likes of Michael Jenkins and Roddy White in 2008, which is longer ago than any of us would care to admit. Now entering his 13th NFL season, Ryan has been durable and good enough to crack the top ten in NFL history in most every category you can think of.

Here’s where Ryan stands today.A

• Pass Completions: 9th
• Passes Attempted: 11th
• Passing Yards: 10th
• Touchdown Passes: 11th
• Interceptions: 63rd
• Passing Yards Per Game: 5th
• Yards Per Attempt: 28th
• Adjusted Yards Per Attempt: 15th
• Completion Percentage: 6th
• Passer Rating: 11th

Aside from interceptions, where he’s thankfully way behind some of his peers, and yards per attempt stats, where he ranks pretty favorably but falls behind the freely-chucking old-timers, Ryan has a real shot to be top ten across the board. He’s only a handful of attempts behind Warren Moon, 21 touchdown passes behind Fran Tarkenton, and .5 of a point behind Philip Rivers in passer rating. If he has a bounceback year, I like Ryan’s chances of moving up.

Unless he wins a Super Bowl, Ryan’s legacy will likely be complicated by his lack of ringz, the fact that he has played a significant chunk of his career during a flourishing passing era, and his stellar group of receiving options over the years, which have included a Falcons Ring of Honor entrant, a Hall of Famer, and a likely future Hall of Famer. The numbers speak for themselves, though, and a handful of seasons more and he’ll be knocking on the top five in NFL history.

Hopefully Ryan’s getting into the top ten in the midst of one of his finer seasons, because he’ll likely need to perform at that level for Atlanta to win a lot of games next year. Either way, he’ll continue relentlessly moving up the all-time leaderboard at his position, and we’ll enjoy the show as long as we can.