Matt Ryan's problem?

Things haven't exactly gone as planned for the Atlanta Falcons Jack Eichel Jerseythis season. Sure, it wouldn't have been crazy to predict before September that the Falcons would find themselves at 6-6 with four games left to go in the season, but after a 5-0 start, average is an awful disappointing place to land. Dan Quinn's hopes of making the playoffs in his debut season as head coach lay in tatters. Atlanta has just a 1.6 percent chance of making the postseason, according to ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI). The Falcons will surely need to sweep their remaining four games and get to 10-6 to even have a shot at beating out the likes of Seattle and Minnesota for a playoff nod. Their schedule isn't too tough; they only have to play the league's last undefeated team, the 12-0 Carolina Panthers, twice in three weeks. Their home-and-home set starts on Sunday in Charlotte. As Atlanta's season http://www.officialsabresteamshop.com/Womens_Youth_Jack_Eichel_Jersey has gone pear-shaped, star quarterback Matt Ryan has come under criticism. He has thrown seven picks during this current five-game losing streak, including a pair of critical interceptions in the shadow of the end zone during a bitter loss to the Indianapolis Colts. It's hardly uncommon for a passer to come under fire when his team collapses, but Ryan had managed to duck most of the criticism surrounding the Falcons during their frustrating 2013 and 2014 campaigns. Now, both Ryan and new offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan are taking the blame for Atlanta's dizzying spiral down the drain. With Ryan occupying the fifth-largest cap charge in the league (and the seventh-highest figure next year), some Falcons fans are publicly grumbling that they might be better off without their franchise quarterback. With four games left in the 2015 campaign, now is a good time to look at what has gone wrong for Ryan during this ugly stretch and see whether it's something that will continue to bother the former Boston College star, both over the remainder of the season and in the years to come. First, let's start with the simple fact that Ryan's stretches of excellent and subpar play this year don't necessarily coincide with http://www.officialsabresteamshop.com/Womens_Youth_Jack_Eichel_Jersey Atlanta's wins and losses. He had two multiple-interception games during the five-game winning streak that started the Falcons' season, then played well during the nasty loss to the New Orleans Saints that ended that stretch in Week 6. Not only is it more accurate in terms of Ryan's performance to split his 12 games into two six-game stretches, but it also allows for fairer comparisons. Ryan is throwing interceptions twice as often as he did during the first half of the campaign. The good news is that this matches up with what's on tape, and it's not necessarily a problem with Ryan. The bad news is that it's a problem that's going to be hard to fix, especially before the offseason: very simply, nobody on the Falcons is getting open. A deeper look into the numbersConnor McDavid Jersey confirms that disappointing truth. Ryan isn't hitting plays downfield. After posting the league's 11th-best QBR on throws traveling 16 yards or more in the air -- what the league defines as "deep" passes -- during the first part of the season, Ryan's QBR on those same throws has fallen to 30th over the past six games. He hasn't thrown a deep touchdown pass since Week 3, and to their credit, the Falcons recognized this week that they need to create more big plays downfield. The other problem you would look for when receivers are struggling to get open is an inability to do much after the catch, and that has also been a major issue for Atlanta recently. Ryan's receivers were 22nd in average yards after the catch during the 5-1 start. Since Week 7, though, Julio Jones and company are averaging just 3.8 yards after the catch per Ryan pass. That's dead last among the 36 qualifying quarterbacks over these past seven weeks. The two problems are at least partially related -- it's easier to get 30 yards after the catch when you burn a cornerback down the sidelines on a go route than it is on a shallow cross -- but they're both serious concerns. Six of Ryan's nine interceptions during this disappointing stretch came on passes over the middle. There's http://www.officialoilersteamshop.com/Womens_Youth_Connor_Mcdavid_JerseyCaptain Munnerlyn in trail coverage. Bucs linebackers Kwon Alexander and Lavonte David dropping into zones for picks in separate games. Even the most frustrating pick of all, D'Qwell Jackson's 5-yard pick-six, was going into a virtually nonexistent window. Over the past six games, Ryan has thrown picks on 4.6 percent of his passes over the middle of the field. That's not the worst rate in football -- Peyton Manning has somehow thrown interceptions on 10.6 percent of his passes between the numbers -- but it's the fourth-worst rate in the league. That's a serious problem because Ryan lives over the middle. He has thrown 300 passes between the numbers this year; the only quarterback who has thrown more is Philip Rivers, at 301. Ryan was second in the league in the same category in 2013 and 2014. If teams choke up the middle of the field and Matty Ice's receivers can't get open, that's a major problem. At the same time, though, this is a six-game, 250-pass sample. A lot of goofy things can happen over six games that aren't a reliable indicator of what will happen in the future. Look back at Ryan's career and you'll see stretches in which he kept turning the ball over, but they were followed by a run in which he was relatively careful with the football. During Atlanta's last great season, 2012, Ryan threw five picks in one game against Arizona as part of a stretch in which he threw 10 picks in five games. He followed that up by throwing just two interceptions over his final six starts that year. After his worst career six-game stretch, which came in 2009 when he threw 11 picks over six games, Ryan finished with two picks over his last five outings. He has bad stretches and then pulls out of the skid. Even on those passes over the middle, Ryan has had stretches in which he plays without the kind of issues that are plaguing him now. During the first half of the season, when he was throwing passes between the numbers just as frequently as he is now, Ryan threw picks on 2.0 percent of his passes in that area of the field. Between 2013 and 2014, with Dirk Koetter as offensive coordinator, Ryan threw picks on 2.2 percent of those throws.