With Ryan, Falcons turn page

ATLANTA — Place all you think you know about Mike Vick in a strongbox, and bury it somewhere deep. Absolutely nothing in there is relevant to the story that follows.

The Falcons' fallen star is at one pole of the quarterback planet. At the exact opposite is the third of Mike and Bernie Ryan's four kids from the not-so-mean cul-de-sacs of Exton, Pa. He's a striking piece of statuary in the pocket, who agrees that his upbringing was '50s-sitcom idyllic and who comes off about as hip as a pair of Birkenstocks.

"I think I'm just pretty normal, like everybody else," said Matt Ryan after his second Falcons minicamp practice Saturday.

"I enjoy going out getting some good food. I love the beach — my family has a house on the Jersey Shore, I love spending the summers there just kind of hanging out. Beach-goer, golfer, TV watcher, just like everybody else. Normal — kind of boring, really."

The Falcons could use a touch of boring after a wild ride through the animal cruelty statutes this past year and change.

When the Falcons took Ryan with their No. 3 pick in the NFL draft, it represented a turning of the page. Actually, they ripped out the page, burned it and scattered the ashes to the wind.

If there are no other promises in selecting Ryan to lead the Falcons back to self-respect — and former Baltimore coach-turned NFL Network analyst Brian Billick has put his chances at long-term success at no better than 50-50 — there is this:

"He'll do everything he possibly can to turn Atlanta into a winning franchise," assured his high school coach, Brian McCloskey. "He'll always say the right things and do the right things."

Here is a player reeking of stability, one very ordered guy.

A little guarded on the details, Ryan already has his house in the Atlanta area secured. He and his father knocked out that detail during a visit shortly after the draft. He has been seeing the same young woman for a while now. Per his request, we'll leave it at the fact she is a former basketball player at his alma mater, Boston College.

Dad has a business wiring new offices. Mom is in the field of raising Ryans, all of them tilting toward the athletic, even though their parents weren't exactly built that way.

Matt's uncle, John Loughery, was a good man to have onboard. A quarterback, too, at Boston College, he laughingly pegs himself as, "the guy Doug Flutie replaced." He also was the guy who could begin to fill in his nephew on the wonderful methods of turning a safety to pudding.

Matt's oldest brother, Mike, his father's namesake, began the tradition of game-playing in the Ryan household. He was the light in the distance to which Matt was always drawn. He was the big brother who inspired a powerful competitive instinct.

A Division III quarterback at Widener University, Mike Ryan was home in the spring of 2001, out with his little brother to do what else — compete. With 16-year-old Matt at the wheel of the car, they were waiting to turn left into a local golf course when they were rear-ended. The collision pushed them into the path of an oncoming fuel truck. Matt suffered a broken ankle. Mike had a shattered throwing elbow that a series of surgeries couldn't make completely right. Football career over.

"Looking back, he and Michael were very fortunate to walk away from that," said their father. "Obviously, they were very close before (the accident). I think they were even closer after that."

It was difficult for Matt to take anything for granted after the accident. Seemed that everything he was and did could be traced back to the bedrock of family. That has been his biggest asset through the first 22 years (he'll turn 23 Saturday).

Even the man's high school is a monument to a well-grounded life. There aren't many Matt Ryan mementos in the halls of the William Penn Charter School, said his former football coach, McCloskey. As the nation's oldest Quaker school, founded by Mr. Penn himself in 1689, it's not that kind of place. They tend to take pride in not being prideful. You don't have to be a Quaker — and the Ryans are not — to absorb a little of the ethos of the place.

What they do have are the memories of a three-sport athlete who always seemed to hit the big three-point shot, drive in the key run or convert on third down on demand. The player who wowed the Falcons with his ability to riff on offense as they tested him before the draft — the master of the dry-erase board — was showing his stuff early. Big game against Malvern Prep his senior year; third and long, and the big-play quarterback checks off to a fullback dive. Someone wrap the coaches in blankets, they're in shock. But the play goes for 15.

"'You know what? That's why we're on the sidelines and he's out there,'" McCloskey remembers telling his coaches at the time.

"Matty Ice" was the nickname he picked up in high school for his coolness under duress, and it followed him to Boston College. His father can't remember the last time he saw his boy rattled, that is, if you don't count when the Ryan men are on the golf course.

Wait until he gets his hands on these Falcons, the nickname will undergo a real crash test.

Need more evidence that there's a different sheriff in town?

Others come by their YouTube stardom by juggling beer kegs or setting their hair on fire or even, say, flipping off the fans in the stands. Ryan's arrived when, out of a sense of release, he threw up on the sidelines after leading B.C. to two touchdowns in 131 seconds to beat Virginia Tech on the road last year.

His was a college career that peaked with 11 wins in 2007, Boston College's highest total since 1940. He threw for 4,507 yards, 31 touchdowns and those troublesome 19 interceptions. Along the way, heroic odes were written to his ability to tough it out, whether it was popping up after his head went one way and his helmet went the other against Clemson or playing the bulk of his junior season with a broken foot.

Ryan calls a time out.

"The things I've gone through are similar to what everybody on this team has gone through at some point," he said, once more securing his own anchor.

Ryan's first impressions of Atlanta were all lollipops and rainbows. He came into town last September, spent a night at a nice hotel and threw for 435 yards against Georgia Tech with the lights of the city as a shimmering backdrop. Then he sent a foreshadowing text message to his mother about what a great place this Atlanta seemed to be. Why, he wouldn't mind playing there one day.

On his return for Falcons minicamp, he was talking to old Boston College teammate Tony Gonzalez, a Falcons free-agent tryout receiver. The setting has changed. He has a dome-full of disaffected fans to win over.

But the tone of his message hasn't changed all that much.

"The thing he was real adamant about," said Gonzalez, recalling their conversation, "was getting down here and working, proving to everyone that he's not just a first-round draft pick, the wonder boy. He's coming in here to show — not only the Atlanta Falcons, but every team in the NFL — that's he's here for real."

Steve Hummer writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.