Michael Turner | Atlanta Falcons Tickets

Ryan Throws 4 TDs, Falcons Rally Past Eagles 35-31

This is Matt Ryan’s house now.

Ryan tossed a career-high four touchdown passes, shaking off all the hoopla over Vick coming back to face his old team as Philadelphia’s starter, and rallied Atlanta from a 10-point deficit for a 35-31 victory over the Eagles in a Sunday night thriller.

Vick wasn’t around for the end, wobbling to the locker room with a concussion late in the third quarter.

Matty Ice was there to the end, celebrating a comeback win.

“He is a guy who will never give up,” Falcons coach Mike Smith said. “When you have a guy like that leading your football, it’s going to pay dividends in the long run.”

It sure did on this night.

Two of Ryan’s TD throws went to ageless tight end Tony Gonzalez, who went past Terrell Owens into the fifth spot on the NFL’s career receiving list. Then, Ryan hooked up with Ovie Mughelli on a 1-yard score that brought Atlanta to 31-28 with just under 11 minutes remaining.

The Falcons (1-1) completed the comeback with Michael Turner breaking off a 61-yard run, then powering over from the 3 with 4:48 remaining. Turner finished with 114 yards on 21 carries.

“It was a wild one, for sure, but we hung in there,” Ryan said.

Vick threw for a pair of touchdowns for the Eagles (1-1) but couldn’t go on after getting spun by a Falcons rusher into one of his own players, right tackle Todd Herremans. No. 7 staggered to the sideline and Mike Kafka came in for the first game of his two-year career.

Vince Young, normally the backup, was inactive because of a hamstring injury. Now, the Eagles have to worry about Vick’s health, though he was cleared to travel with the team back to Philadelphia.

“I know Mike is upset,” Kafka said. “When you’re hit like that, you can’t do anything about it. It’s out of his control.”

Kafka did a good job in a tough situation, guiding the Eagles down the field on a potentially winning drive in the closing minutes. But on fourth down from Atlanta’s 22, Jeremy Maclin dropped a pass over the middle that would have kept it going.

The buildup for the prime-time contest was one of the biggest in years for a regular-season game in Atlanta. Many fans in the sellout crowd wore Vick’s old No. 7 jersey from his Falcons days, but plenty broke out Ryan’s No. 2.

In some ways, it seemed like a head-to-head matchup — even though they were never on the field at the same time. Vick was the one-of-a-kind quarterback who put the Falcons on the NFL map before he was caught running a operation, sending him to prison.

Banished by the Falcons, he revitalized his career in Philadelphia and took over as the starter last season. He returned to Atlanta once before, as a backup in 2009, but this was different.

“I feel for him,” Maclin said. “Obviously, he wanted to come home and make a statement.”

Ryan insisted that he never paid much attention to the other team’s quarterback. He’s already led the Falcons to a pair of playoff appearances, making it much easier for Vick’s fans to move on.

“Not being here when he was here, not playing with him,” Ryan said, “I couldn’t allow myself to get caught up in those things.”

They even gave each other a hug in the center of the field after both came out as captains for the coin toss.

“Hopefully he’s OK,” Ryan said. “You never like to see anybody go down.”

Vick has said before the game that he wouldn’t make any Deion Sanders-like pronouncements about the Georgia Dome being “my house.” He certainly couldn’t after fumbling twice and throwing an interception, the Falcons turning two of those mistakes into touchdowns.

Still, Vick had seemingly done enough before he wobbled off. Kafka came on and handed off to LeSean McCoy, who scored his second touchdown on a 2-yard run with 1:59 left in the third quarter. McCoy had 95 yards on 18 carries.

But Ryan and the Falcons hung in there, even though the quarterback was sacked four more times after taking five in a 30-12 loss at Chicago to open the season.

“You just keep getting up,” Ryan said. “There’s a lot of tough guys on this football team and I try and stay in line with those guys and just keep bouncing up.”

There were plenty of big hits, most notably a shot by Atlanta cornerback Dunta Robinson on an Eagles receiver for the second year in a row. Last year, Robinson knocked out himself and DeSean Jackson with a brutal collision. This time, the defensive back leveled Maclin with a shot that drew a flag for slamming into a defenseless player with a helmet-first shot in the third quarter.

Smith disputed it was illegal hit, saying “that’s the way we teach it,” but the NFL could dole out a suspension after it reviews the play. Maclin went to the sideline to be checked but wasn’t out for long. Robinson insisted he did nothing wrong.

“It definitely wasn’t a dirty hit,” the cornerback said. “I’m not a dirty player.”

Gonzalez’s first TD catch was a thing of beauty — perhaps one of the best he’s ever made. In the back of the end zone, he reached up to snare the ball with his right hand and brought it down to his body just as he dragged a second foot inbounds

“I knew I had the catch,” said Gonzalez, who now has 1,081 career receptions. “I didn’t know if I had the feet down.”

Vick completed 19 of 28 for 242 yards, also going to Maclin on a 5-yard touchdown. In addition, the quarterback ran six times for 25 yards.

It wasn’t enough.

He’s just a visitor now.

___

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Eagles Have History on Their Side vs. Falcons

Sounds like a decent matchup, huh?

The Eagles have defeated the Falcons in each of the last three seasons, and each time, with a different cast of players and even a couple different defensive coordinators, they slammed the door on the vaunted Atlanta rushing attack.

The Falcons have averaged 129 rushing yards per game the last three years, but in losses to the Eagles the last three years, they’ve gained just 77, 61 and 65 yards.

But the Falcons (0-1) will likely try again to establish their running attack Sunday when they play host to the Eagles (1-0) at the Georgia Dome. The Falcons will try to avoid their first 0-2 start since 2007, and the Eagles are after their first 2-0 start since 2004.

Atlanta’s two-time Pro Bowl running back, Michael Turner, gained 100 yards in a 30-12 loss to the Bears Sunday despite getting just 10 carries, since the Falcons fell behind quickly.

So, even in a loss, the run game was there.

“Michael Turner is one of the best running backs in the league,” Eagles safety Kurt Coleman said. “You look at him on film, and there’s not many flaws to his game. He can block, he can catch, he can run. He can do almost anything. When he’s out there, we have to honor the run. When he’s on the field, he always poses a threat.”

The Eagles allowed 154 rushing yards in their 31-13 win over the Rams, even though St. Louis starting running back Steven Jackson left the game after two carries. So, there has to be a little concern headed into Atlanta.

Turner has rushed for 5,298 yards in his career with a 4.7 average. But he has just 103 yards and a 3.2 average in two games vs. the Eagles, his fourth-lowest average against any opponent.

Either way, the Eagles expect a healthy dose of Turner Sunday.

“He’s a very physical back, a very hard runner,” Eagles linebacker Jamar Chaney said. “He led the NFL in yards-after-contact the last couple years. They have a real good offensive line, too. Physical bunch. Nasty bunch.”

The Eagles defense was put together to rush the passer, but defensive end Jason Babin, who had two of the line’s five sacks against the Rams, said the linemen enjoy stopping the run, because that puts teams in position where they have to pass.

And that’s when the sacks come.

“That’s the No. 1 goal: Stop the run, so we can rush the passer,” Babin said. “First and foremost, we know we have to stop the run. It’s like when you’re dating, there’s certain things you’ve got to do. That’s what stopping the run is: Buying ’em dinner.”

The Eagles were encouraged that, after allowing 98 rushing yards in the first quarter against the Rams, they gave up only 56 the rest of the game.

“The more you play, the better you’re going to be, and I think we did that,” Chaney said. “We’re looking forward to this week and not coming out like we did in the first quarter and not have to go through that before we start playing well.”

The Eagles have dropped in run defense the last few years, from fourth in the NFL in 2008 to ninth in 2009 to 15th last year.

“We can be a really good run defense,” Chaney said. “The more we play, the better we’re going to be. Just got to continue to work at it and go out there and do it.”

Ryan, Jones Become Fast Friends for Falcons

Over the past two months, the new teammates have met at Ryan’s suburban Atlanta home to study formations and discuss how Jones, the NFL’s No. 6 overall draft pick, will fit into the offense.

They eat lunch. They study football. They learn each other’s background.

One guy mostly talks. The other guy mostly listens.

“I think for him, it was extra important to do this,” Ryan said. “We have veteran guys who know the offense, who know what they are doing and how to prepare. For me, it was really good just to stay in his ear every day.”

The Falcons held their last session of 7-on-7 drills on Thursday that Ryan first organized six weeks ago.

When everyone had cleared the roasting field at Buford High School, Jones stayed extra time to run lengthy sideline routes with Ryan.

They were trying to establish their timing for an over-the-shoulder catch, a hard-thrown arc that Jones was catching with relative ease. Third-string quarterback John Parker Wilson, Jones’ former teammate at Alabama, worked as a translator of sorts, helping the rookie understand Falcons’ jargon and Ryan relate to Jones’ college playbook.

“I kind of recognize everything because it’s the same pro set we ran at Alabama,” Jones said. “It’s just the terminology that’s really getting to me, you? But it’s a good thing I’ve got Matt and the other guys. They help me out because there’s so much information coming in, but it’s my job to learn it.”

As Ryan sees it, he must help Jones blend into the offense quickly.

Atlanta, despite earning the NFC’s No. 1 playoff seed last season, managed just 44 plays of 20 yards or longer, tying Carolina for the fewest in the league.

Ryan has acknowledged that his pride was hurt in the postseason, getting blown out at home by eventual champion Green Bay as the offense broke down.

Everything failed even though wideout Roddy White had led the NFL in catches, Michael Turner ranked sixth in rushing, tight end Tony Gonzalez was playing at a high level and the quarterback went 13-3.

Now that Ryan has Jones in the mix, however, he wants to focus on 2011. He believes the workouts at Buford High have been helpful and spirited.

“I think we did a great job,” Ryan said. “We kept it loose and we kept it fun every day. I think it’s going to serve us well. We won’t be as rusty when we get into training camp. We kind of used our verbiage, ran the routes and did the things we needed to do.”

White worked with Jones on Thursday for the second time, even playfully lining up occasionally at cornerback directly opposite his new teammate.

“We did a lot of good things last year, and now we’ve got Julio,” White said. “That does nothing but improve the offense, and we expect to do better. That’s our goal, to lead the NFL in everything. Every offensive category.”

Ryan has enjoyed some circumstances of the lockout, building a relationship with Jones that otherwise would’ve been largely orchestrated by coaches.

Not this year.

“I think what we’ve tried to do is keep it as similar to what would be doing as possible,” Ryan said. “This would kind of be our last week with weightlifting, conditioning and OTAs and stuff if we were at Flowery Branch.”

When Ryan first met Jones in early May, he was struck with his new teammate’s 6-foot-3, 220-pound frame, but it took little time to see Jones’ stoic temperament when compared to White’s giggly persona.

“I think what fuels them is different,” Ryan said. “Roddy is out there talking and have a great time. That’s great because people feed off that energy, but Julio seems to be a little bit different, and that’s good. It’s tough when you’ve got everybody being vocal, so I think he’s a good fit in our wide receiver room, and he will do a great job. I think he’ll be vocal when he needs to be.”