Now that I have gained your complete trust, I will proceed to deliver the final truth.

Matt Ryan is a better quarterback than Joe Flacco.

Before you doubters begin to doubt and haters begin to hate, I will do it for you.

Point A: Matt Ryan didn't win a playoff game. Joe Flacco did.

Remember little league?  It doesn't matter which sport: baseball, football, basketball.  The coach always told you the same thing over and over:  there's no "I" in "TEAM."  (Although you would later question why his son was always the focus of the "iso" play.)  Well, neither Mike Smith's nor John Harbaugh's son plays for their respective TEAMs, not even at quarterback.  Now, since football is a TEAM sport, the quarterback contributes his equal part to the TEAM, which is oftentimes comprised of more than 60 players, of which 22-30 will play a significant portion of the game.  1/22=4.5%.  Even if the QB did double the work, he would still only contribute to 9% of the team's success.

Point B: Matt Ryan had a better cast of players around him.  He wasn't better, he simply had a better support system.

Let's go back to Point A.  If Matt Ryan had a better supporting cast, how did the Falcons fail to win their first playoff game, while the Ravens won theirs.  Since the TEAM as a whole, which contributes to 100% of the TEAM's success, failed to win the game, then how could one possibly assert that the Falcons as a team are better, especially when both teams had the same final record (11-5) and the same record (1-1) against common opponents.

Point C: The Rookie of the Year Award is awarded by sportswriters and so are NFL Power Rankings, which often prove to be wrong.  It's all subjective, so how can the award be legitimate?

The fact that the ROY is subjective is without a doubt.  Dozens of sports media professionals, who follow the NFL as a career, sometimes fail to reach a consensus, and co-MVPs are quite common.  That being said, these "sportswriters" managed to reach a consensus on the 2009 Rookie of the Year: Matt Ryan.  Matt Ryan, and not Joe Flacco.  However, their election is still just the mutual opinion of a group of professionals, so let's throw that out and go back to previous assertions.  We have proved in Point B that Matt Ryan's Falcons are a worse team than Joe Flacco's Ravens, and that the players on the Falcons, by logical sequence, are inferior (if slightly) to the Ravens players.  One would assume that if Flacco and Ryan were of equal talent level that the Ravens QB would have better statistics (if slightly) than the Falcons QB.  If one would assume that, then one would be DEAD WRONG.  Ryan had a higher passer rating, a better completion percentage, more touchdown passes, and less interceptions than Flacco.  Ryan's statistics do not simply equate to Flacco's, they are better by a significant degree.

Point A => Point B => Point C => Matt Ryan wins => I win.

This leads me to my final point.

Point X:
Is this a Rookie of the Year, superior to all other rookies in the National Football League?



Yes.



No.

-Big Country, Big Business