Dueling accounts emerge as to whether the Falcons informed Matt Ryan about Deshaun Watson trade talks

The Deshaun Watson trade reports came on so quickly and with so many conflicting indicators of interest that it was hard to parse them at first. One of the questions looming in the background of all that was this: Did Matt Ryan know the Falcons were going after Watson, and where would he be headed if they landed the soon-to-be-former Texans quarterback?

We don’t have an answer for the second item yet, and it turns out we may not even have an answer for the first. ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen are saying the Falcons told Matt Ryan about their interest in Watson over the weekend, well before the rest of us found about it. A member of Ryan’s family is saying that didn’t happen.

It always seemed odd to me that an organization that has had Matt Ryan at the helm for nearly 15 years would be keeping him in the dark about their trade talks and letting him find out through the media, but we didn’t have any indications one way or the other about what was going on. The report from Mortensen and Schefter might have cleared that up, but it’s being disputed.

Matt Ryan’s sister-in-law responded to Schefter’s tweet disputing that report. She would presumably know quite well what Ryan was told, and if she’s right it creates the impression the organization is belatedly covering it collective butt. This may still get very messy.

We’re still waiting to see where Watson is going to go, but we may have seen Matt Ryan play his last game in Atlanta either way.