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MMQB: How the Colts and Falcons Negotiated the Matt Ryan Trade

Atlanta’s big decision was 14 months in the making. Here’s how they approached QB-needy teams and involved the longtime face of their franchise. Plus, the overtime rules may change this week, the impact of Deshaun Watson’s guaranteed contract and more.
ALBERT BREERMAR 28, 2022

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PALM BEACH, Fla. — It was summer in South Florida, Matt Ryan was still the Falcons’ quarterback, and after the team’s joint practice with Miami, Dolphins general manager Chris Grier went to his new Atlanta counterpart, Terry Fontenot, to give the first-year GM the proverbial pat on the back.

You guys are going to be better than people think.

Grier was right. The Falcons found a way to win seven games, and if you looked hard enough at how the season went, you might’ve come out of it convinced that Atlanta was indeed closer than people had thought six months after that conversation. They even beat that Dolphins team, one that sure looked like the more talented group in August, two months after Grier offered Fontenot that small piece of encouragement.

Fontenot wasn’t fooled, though. He knew a reckoning was coming. And the truth in the Ryan trade of last week is that a year in as Falcons GM and coach, he and Arthur Smith simply went through with a conscious decision—the time for that reckoning was now.

That didn’t make trading away a 14-year veteran and face of the franchise—one who helped dig the Falcons out of a deep ditch back in 2008—any easier. But where it might’ve appeared that Atlanta’s failed run at Deshaun Watson forced the team’s hand on Ryan, the facts were that the calls that Fontenot and Smith made last Monday, the former to Colts GM Chris Ballard and the latter to Ryan himself, were 14 months in the making.

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But now that it’s done, the Falcons’ rebuild is really underway.

We’re about to tell you the story of how it happened.

Matt Ryan at introductory Colts press conference; Deshaun Watson at introductory Browns press conference; Tyreek Hill as a Chief
Marc Lebryk/USA TODAY Sports (Ryan); Jeff Lange/USA TODAY Network (Watson); Denny Medley/USA TODAY Sports (Hill)

We’re at the league’s annual meeting, and the offseason’s pace hasn’t skipped a beat, so we’ve got plenty to get to in this week’s MMQB. Inside the column, you’ll find …

• A deep dive into the NFL’s looming overtime decision.

• A rundown of the top free agents available—and why they’re available.

• More on the trade prospects of Jimmy Garoppolo and Baker Mayfield.

But we’re starting, for the third straight week, with the ins and outs of a blockbuster quarterback trade. And in this case, we’ll tell you why it was bound to happen.

There’s one number that best illustrates the problem that Smith and Fontenot faced when they started working in Atlanta two Januarys ago—$105 million. That was the combined cap charge for franchise cornerstones Ryan, Julio Jones, Jake Matthews and Grady Jarrett for the 2021 league year before any decisions were made.

That was also 58% of the NFL’s 2021 cap number.

After years of restructures, mortgaging charges against the limit into the future, something was going to have to give. And it did. Smith and Fontenot decided that, at least for a year, they were going to work to field a competitive team with the Atlanta’s longtime leaders in place to try to establish the kind of foundation they’d need to lean on when the time did come to rip the Band-Aid off.


So they restructured Ryan and Matthews. They traded Jones. They decided to swallow hard and keep Jarrett’s number where it was. In doing so, they went young in a lot of areas, cheap in others and lacked depth across the roster. It was enough to give Smith and his staff a chance to coach the team into playoff contention until the new year before the wheels came off at the end of the season.

And yes, the Falcons could’ve restructured Ryan again, kicking the can down the road another time. But in the end, what would that have accomplished?

Over the last few weeks, what crystallized for everyone involved was how the team and player, in this case, were in much different places—the Falcons needing to turn the page, clean up their cap and get younger and deeper, and Ryan, at 37, being at a win-now age for a team that simply couldn’t operate that way.

Which meant that as the team started negotiating extensions for Matthews (that one’s done) and Jarrett (the team is hopeful that one will happen), it was time to do with Ryan what it did with Jones last year and consider all options on perhaps the greatest player in franchise history.




• The process started at the combine when the Falcons met with other teams, and Fontenot and Smith wanted to get a gauge on Ryan’s market value—while being careful about how his name came up in those conversations. The plan was to be communicative and above board with Ryan throughout, so Atlanta couldn’t create the appearance it was shopping Ryan because at that point the Falcons weren’t.

But the small circle involved had a way of getting the information it needed. When Ryan’s name came up, the answer would be, We’re not shopping anyone, but we’ll listen on everyone. And then, Well, if you’re looking at what the Lions and Rams did, then we can talk. That’d elicit a laugh because the Matthew Stafford price would certainly be too high. But then the Falcons would follow back up with, O.K., then what’s the value?

Based on Ryan’s age and price tag, it became clear that getting more than a fourth-round pick was going to be difficult.

• Over the course of last season, the Falcons had heard Watson would have an interest in playing in Atlanta, which is an hour away from his hometown of Gainesville, Ga., and wouldn’t be afraid of being part of a rebuild if it meant getting to play in front of his friends and family. The Falcons knew that wasn’t going to be possible last summer or before the trade deadline—but going into 2022, it’d be feasible.


So they launched an investigation into Watson’s background, and when the grand jury in Harris County, Texas, returned no charges on nine cases filed against the quarterback, they decided to throw their hat in the ring.

But first, they wanted to go to Ryan. Smith told him it was a unique opportunity to get 11 years younger at the position and promised to keep him apprised throughout—and involve him in a trade if it came to that. From there, Ryan agreed to push back the “earned” date of his roster bonus to grease the skids on a trade, if the Falcons were to land Watson. The $7.5 million roster bonus had been due on March 18. It was moved to March 21.

• At that point, Colts assistant GM Ed Dodds and Falcons vice president of player personnel Kyle Smith had started preliminary conversations on a trade, and Arthur Smith and Frank Reich had spoken, too. And around the time that Fontenot, Arthur Smith, Falcons owner Arthur Blank and president Rich McKay met with Watson over Zoom on March 16, Fontenot called Ballard for the first time, knowing that groundwork had been laid by Dodds and Kyle Smith.

“Is there really interest?” Fontenot asked.

“There is,” Ballard responded.


Ballard and Fontenot resolved to keep talking as the situation with Watson drove toward a conclusion.

• On March 18, Watson stunned the NFL by reversing course and choosing the Browns, a team he’d eliminated already, with the Falcons and Saints having been the presumed finalists at daybreak. And where some assumed that the Falcons would then try to patch things up with Ryan, Smith called his quarterback and told him that the Colts had called about him and asked if he was interested in going there.

“I’d love to look into it,” Ryan said.

Ryan’s agent, Todd France, affirmed to Fontenot that the quarterback wanted a meeting.

So on that Saturday morning, Fontenot called Ballard and gave him permission to call Ryan over Zoom—with an email communicating that the Colts would have a four-hour window, from 4 to 8 p.m. ET, to talk to him. Ballard got Reich, offensive coordinator Marcus Brady and assistant quarterback coach Parks Frazier rounded up to make the call with him.

Over a long talk, Ryan’s passion to keep playing, and start winning again, resonated with the Colts’ group.


• On Sunday morning, Ballard reached out to Fontenot and told him he’d call him around 3 p.m. When he did, Ballard’s message was simple: Yes, we want Matt, but we can’t do more than a fourth-round pick for him.

Ballard had, more or less, nailed the market price that those talks at the combine established for the Falcons, and made the argument that it was tough to find a comp for a player like Ryan in a trade. Fontenot threw out names that were a little younger, like Alex Smith’s. And eventually, the cajoling got the Colts to move their offer up to the lower of their third-round picks, 82nd overall (the Colts acquired the 73rd pick in the Carson Wentz trade).

For the Colts, Ryan represented the type of opportunity that Ballard hoped would arise if the team was just patient in filling the hole, which wasn’t an easy position to take, given that they simultaneously thought being aggressive in moving Wentz would get them ahead of the market and, thus, a better return.

• On Monday, Arthur Smith had a speaking engagement at his alma mater in Chapel Hill, N.C., in conjunction with a book tour Blank was on and was meeting with UNC prospects to try to get the most out of the trip. Fontenot was at Kenny Pickett’s pro day at Pitt. Ballard was in Indianapolis, huddled in draft meetings with his scouts.


Ballard called Fontenot from his office with just a few hours left until the roster bonus would be earned at 4 p.m. ET to push the deal over the goal line—82 for Ryan. Fontenot was on the field after the workout was over, waiting for the team’s private meeting with Pickett.

Arthur Smith called Ryan and told him. Fontenot called Ryan while that call was still going on, and Ryan called Fontenot back after he was done with the Atlanta head coach. And that was that.

Fontenot was then called upstairs and went to watch tape with Pickett.

Normally, these things can get messy. But the Falcons resolved this one wouldn’t, and the Colts made sure they wouldn’t be the reason it did, either.

So the upshot for the Falcons?

The page is officially turned. They’ve maintained a veteran presence by bringing back Matthews, working on an extension with Jarrett and signing economical pros like Casey Hayward. They’ll be young this year. They have the eighth pick in the draft, an extra two from the Jones trade and an extra three from this trade. They project, as it stands now, to be top three in the league in cap space in 2023.


Meanwhile, the Colts have their quarterback. And Ryan has a new home.

He never said to the Falcons specifically that he wanted to go to the Colts. But it was clear from the minute Indianapolis was raised as a possibility that he’d be good with it. Ryan knew it was time.

By then, everyone did.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2022/03/28/mmqb-inside-matt-ryan-trade-falcons-colts

Pete, you bring up some very good points. I don't think it will happen because I believe that Baker and his crew feel much the same way that another poster did. The feel mistreated and that is a pile of dog poop. I think it's Baker who backed himself into the corner by acting like a spoiled little brat. He has been immature on and off the field. He thinks he is better than he actually is. He alienates people and he is not a top tier QB. Poor combination when you are looking for a job.

Guys like Ryan and Jimmy G handled their situation w/class and dignity. Baker displayed his immaturity and sense of entitlement. I had to laugh when Baker mentioned Indy as a landing spot. No way was Indy going from one emotional midget in Wentz to another in Baker. They chose Ryan. He's mature. He is classy. He is professional. The bad thing about him is that he is old and isn't as good as he used to be, but at least he won't bring all the arrogance and immaturity to the locker room like a couple of other qbs.

j/c...

Deal for Baker getting close?

j/c...

Deal for Baker getting close?

As usual, he is telling stories. He and 888 spin lie after lie after lie. I have provided proof that Watson did not quit on the Texans because he couldn't choose the HC.

j/c...

Deal for Baker getting close?

j/c...

Deal for Baker getting close?

All the garbage about nobody wants Baker is BS.