Some clarifications out of the way:

• Ryan is not retired, and he is NOT under contract by the Colts. In the offseason he said he was open to the right situation
• Ryan’s stats last year were actually similar to Heinicke (but with a worse team, see below).
• Anyone who paid attention to the Colts last year, saw a terrible team. The only time they won games was with Ryan. Any QB they tried looked/played 100x worse

I think if AS, TF, and Blank swallowed their pride and apologized to Ryan they’d have considered it. This was considered to be a stacked team minus QB in the offseason. Ryan would be a much better mentor than Heinicke or Mariota. He actually played under Arthur Smith and has played under lots of HCs and OCs. He has playoff wins and been to the superbowl and won MVP. There’s experience and perspective in that that I don’t think Ridder has gotten. Think about your own job, if you’ve ever had a good mentor you know the difference it makes.

Ryan is still very connected to Atlanta, shows up around the city, including offseason practice so I think he’d have done it. And if Ridder still played poorly, I think Ryan would’ve been at least just as good as Heinicke

I suggested this in the offseason and got flamed for suggesting it:

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Mods, please don’t remove, look at the sidebar & tell me what rules I’m breaking of the sub. I’m simply looking for a discussion about the Falcons and this is the only place on the internet to do so. Again, see my first point and you’ll see Matt Ryan isn’t retired nor under contract by the colts.