The Falcons formally introduced Matt Ryan as their president of football on Tuesday, officially welcoming the best quarterback in franchise history back to the organization.
Ryan had been working for CBS first as a game analyst and then a studio analyst since 2023. He told reporters in Tuesday’s press conference that he wasn’t necessarily seeking out a new opportunity. And this job with the Falcons is the only one like it that he would’ve been interested in.
“I think it’s the right opportunity,” Ryan said, via transcript from the team. “No. 1, I think when you look at organizations and you think about places you’d like to be, it comes down to ownership, ownership, ownership, ownership. Bill Cowher, I’ve sat next to him for the last three years, and he would hammer that home all the time. He would joke, the three most important people in the building are the owner, the owner, and the owner. So when you get an opportunity with a previous relationship and knowing what Arthur [Blank] stands for and what his family stands for, and you respect all of those core values, to me, that’s what makes it so exciting in terms of an opportunity.”
Ryan added that he missed getting the sense of wins and losses each week while working on television.
“So, getting back into that gets me excited,” Ryan said. “As you mentioned, not having previous experience in a role like this, nobody does. I’ve been around guys who have been hired as first-time head coaches after being a play caller. I’ve been around coaches who have been position coaches and never play callers and they step into different roles, and they adjust. That’s something that I’ve done my entire life, whether that be in football or whether that be transitioning into TV or doing things. I’ve never been scared of that.”
Plus, his experience as a franchise quarterback put him in conversations that your average player might not have been a part of, patricianly within the Falcons organization.
“When you are quarterback of an organization for a long time, the interactions that you have with the head coach and the meetings that you sit in in their office and talk about all the different things that are going on with the football team and decisions that need to be made or alterations in a plan or in a season of maybe changing directions, it’s different from other players,” Ryan said. “I feel really well versed in those conversations. I feel like I’ve done it with a number of different guys that I have a lot of respect for and seen it from a lot of different angles. I think the same can be true on the front office side of it. The longer I was here, the more discussions that were had. It was never, ‘I was going to be a part of the decision,’ but I was asked for my opinion, and I was asked to interact with them.
“So, I think some of those things will inform what I’m doing now. I’ve got a lot to earn — there’s no doubt about that. But in preparing for this, I talked to a lot of people from around the league, who have moved on as players. And I’m able to multitask. I can listen to noise in the background and not panic and keep going. … I think some of those relationships that I have from around the league, whether it be execs or coaches, owners, GMs, etc., I’m going to lean on those. I feel like I’ve got really strong relationships both inside and outside the building that are going to help me in this role.”
