"He'd had three wretched quarters, but history teaches that Matt Ryan cannot be judged on his first three quarters. In three NFL seasons, he has engineered 14 winning drives in the fourth quarter or overtime, and three of those had come against Tampa Bay.

And here he went again, Matty Ice in rally mode with the Buccaneers scrambling to hang on. This time he stitched together three fourth-quarter drives, but the first and last finished without point. Down by 13 points after three quarters, the Falcons lost by six. This time Ryan and his team only came close.

"We just have to start faster," Ryan said afterward. "That's something we try to do every week. Against good football teams, you can't put yourself in the hole every week.""