Matt Ryan is underthrown into the underworld for his Week 1 performance

Who could say what weighed Matt Ryan’s arm down on that wet, hot night in Philadelphia. Perhaps it was the weight of expectations, or sleeplessness and fatherhood, or an injury we could not see and could not know.

Or maybe it was the weight of the Great Metal Falcon, who wished to see the season begin with a message that no one involved with the Falcons could forget.

That gloomy thought loomed large in Ryan’s head as he put on his Dockers pants and Docker shoes made out of Dockers pants and Dockers shirt made out of Dockers pants and crept through the silent halls of Flowery Branch the morning after the game. He had come to throw on the practice field and to quiet the whirring in his mind,…