Atlanta Falcons: Matt Ryan picks apart terrible Bucs secondary

The Atlanta Falcons systematically destroyed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers thanks to Matt Ryan’s shredding of their horrendous secondary…

The Atlanta Falcons made quick work of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday Night Football, running away with a 43-28 victory. It was a slow, painful loss for the Buccaneers, who gave up at least 10 points in each quarter of the game, thanks to the right arm of Matt Ryan.

Ryan was incredibly sharp throughout this game, completing touchdown passes to four different receivers. He completed passes of 20 yards or more to six of seven players who recorded a reception on the night, and it was a masterful display of offense by the Falcons as a whole.

Ryan is playing MVP caliber football this year, there’s no question about it. The Falcons have the number one offense in the NFL in both scoring and total yards, and Ryan has thrown 23 touchdowns compared to just four interceptions with a QB rating of 119.0.

That’s ridiculous at this point in the season.

He’s completing over 69 percent of his passes, the highest percentage of his career (drafted in 2008). After starting 6-0 last year and faltering, the Falcons find themselves with a fairly comfortable lead in the NFC South right now at 6-3, but they need to continue to play like they did against the Buccaneers.

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We won’t make a huge deal out of it because it was the Buccaneers, but this is an impressive performance by Ryan, nonetheless.

He’s just not making many mistakes right now. He’s taking too many sacks — already just eight off of his 2015 total — but Ryan isn’t making mistakes with the football and is setting up this vastly talented group of skill players with opportunities to score.

The Falcons have made a star once more out of Taylor Gabriel, a castoff of the Cleveland Browns who has performed well in his role for Atlanta. He scored on a rushing touchdown Thursday night, and also caught five passes for 52 yards.

Ryan is seeing the field better than a lot of quarterbacks in the league right now. The problem with the Falcons and Ryan has consistently been performing in the playoffs, and Atlanta needs to figure that out at some point. If the offense can continue playing like this, they should easily have a shot at the NFC title, but what happens from there?

Matt Ryan will be key, and just over halfway through the season, he’s playing the best football of his career, arguably.

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