Projecting a full stat-line for Matt Ryan in the 2022 season
After 14 years in Atlanta, Matt Ryan will take snaps for the Indianapolis Colts. What could his numbers be for the 2022 season?
Matt Ryan has arguably had a Hall of Fame career thus far. After 14 years in Atlanta, he’s earned an MVP award, 120 regular season games won, and 367 passing touchdowns.
After his 14 seasons as a Falcon, Ryan was traded to the Indianapolis Colts, where the team will trot out another different face to begin a season.
The Carson Wentz experience lasted just one season, even though Wentz looked sharp on paper. His late-season collapse was the reason why the Colts missed the playoffs, so they shipped him to Washington.
Since many fans are obsessed with numbers and statistics, I figured I’d make an educated attempt at projecting Matt Ryan’s stat line for the 2022 NFL season.
He just turned 37, so there are valid concerns about how many more years he can play at a respectable level. His 2021 season wasn’t that great on paper, but the Falcons were devoid of talent on both sides of the ball, so the blame cannot be put on Ryan’s shoulders.
So the first thing I want to do is to find how frequently the Colts throw the ball in the Frank Reich era. He took over as Head Coach in 2018, and the Colts have thrown the ball an average of 39.6, 32.1, 35.2, and 30.6 per game.
If we average these numbers out, we get 34.38, which rounds down to 34, meaning the Colts have thrown it an average of 34 times per game in the Frank Reich era.
We can reasonably expect them to throw the ball 34 times per game in 2022. If we multiply this by a 17-game season, we get 578 passing attempts.
Matt Ryan has a career completion percentage of 65.5%, so if Matt Ryan completes roughly 65.5% of his passes, he’ll complete about 379 passes of 578 attempted this season. Ryan has thrown the ball as many as 651 times in a season, so 578 attempts are well within his range.
Next, we need to figure out how many passing yards he will throw for this season.
Since we know how many completions and attempts he’ll compile, the passing yards will be easy to figure out.
Matt Ryan has thrown for 59,735 yards in his career on 5,242 completions.
This means that Matt Ryan is gaining roughly 11.39 yards per completion. This means that, if that number holds true in 2022, we can estimate that Matt Ryan will throw for 4,317 yards this upcoming season.
In 10 seasons Matt Ryan has thrown for 4,000 yards, so this number is again very attainable.
So far, I am projecting that Matt Ryan will go 379/578 with 4,317 yards and a 65.5% completion percentage.
Now for the touchdowns and interceptions.
Matt Ryan has a touchdown percentage of 4.6%, meaning he will throw a touchdown pass on 4.6% of his attempts.
Well, we’ve already projected that he’ll attempt 578 passes this season, so if we take 4.6% of that number, we’d get 26.58 touchdown passes, which rounds up to 27.
Conveniently, that’s the same number that Carson Wentz threw for the Colts in 2021.
We would use the same method for the interceptions.
His interception rate is 2.1%. If we take 2.1% of 578, we get 12.14 interceptions, which rounds down to 12 interceptions.
For reference, Carson Wentz threw just seven interceptions in 2021.
OK, so I think his entire stat-line is complete.
I am projecting that Matt Ryan will complete 379 of 578 passes for 4,317 yards, 27 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 65.5% completion percentage, and a passer rating of 94.8.
This season is normal output for Matt Ryan. He’s thrown for 4,000 yards 10 times in his career, has thrown for at least 25 touchdown passes in nine seasons, and has a career rating of 94.2.
If the Colts get this production from Matt Ryan, I am not sure that would be enough to make the playoffs. Perhaps they could squeeze into a Wild Card slot, but I do not think these numbers are appreciably better than Carson Wentz’ from 2021.
Matt Ryan does possess more consistent habits as a passer but has not been able to go blow for blow with the best QBs in the league for a few years.