Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
This 2013 season was a disaster for Matt Ryan and his fantasy owners. Ryan was the seventh quarterback selected on draft day according to ESPN’s average draft position and he likely cost prospective fantasy owners a fourth or fifth round pick. Through the first seven weeks, Ryan was everything you expected him to be on draft day; the Atlanta Falcons‘ quarterback had scored at least 15 fantasy points in each of his first six games (the Falcons had their bye in Week 6) and in three of those games he scored 22 fantasy points.
Ryan and his fantasy owners were rolling through the first seven weeks, and then the injuries that the Falcons had to overcome began affecting the quarterback’s box score performance. Julio Jones went down with a season-ending injury in Week 5, Roddy White couldn’t get healthy until the very end of the season and Steven Jackson missed four weeks before coming back and performing miserably for another four weeks.
Ryan and the Falcons entered the season with two of the best wide receivers in football and one of the most reliable running backs as well, but due to injuries ended up spending a good portion of the season relying on Harry Douglas, Drew Davis and Darius Johnson.
Ryan certainly had a disappointing season, but when it’s time to draft your fantasy football squad for 2014, remember: you’ll be drafting the Matt Ryan who will be surrounded by Julio Jones and a healthy-not-banged-up-trying-to-preserve-a-start-streak Roddy White, not the one who was forced to throw to reserves. Ryan is a very talented quarterback and barring another slew of serious injuries, he should return to the top 10 among quarterbacks in 2014.
Billy Moy is a Fantasy Sports writer at www.RantSports.com. You can follow him on Twitter @william_moy6, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.
