Epic Fails
Super Bowl, huh? Taxpayer-funded stadium upgrades? Right:
Matt Ryan took an awful beating.
Another win for the Atlanta Falcons will make the pain a lot easier to take.
Shaking off a career-high seven sacks, Ryan completed a 59-yard pass to Roddy White with about a minute remaining, setting up Matt Bryant’s 40-yard field goal that kept the Falcons perfect on the season with a wild 30-28 victory over the Carolina Panthers on Sunday.
After squandering a 24-14 lead in the second half, the Falcons needed a crucial fumble by Cam Newton to even have a chance – and they still faced long odds when the Panthers downed a punt at the Atlanta 1 with 1:09 remaining.
Ryan had no timeouts and surely some doubt about how much time his beleaguered offensive line would give him. But he dropped back about as far as he could, threw it about as far as he could, and relied on White to go up and make the catch.
He did, between two defenders.
Bryant’s kick won it with 5 seconds remaining.
“We made the plays when we needed to,” said Ryan, who passed for 369 yards and three touchdowns. “That’s what you need to do week to week in this league.”
Fore! three, two, one…implode!
It will go down as one of the biggest comebacks in Ryder Cup history. It is, more so, one of the biggest collapses.
If anything in golf qualifies as a choke, this was it. It was pathetic.
In 1999, when the Americans mounted that Sunday comeback, they simply steamrolled their way to the win in an avalanche of momentum. Europe didn’t have a chance. It was different this time.
All it would have taken was a few clutch putts to stem the European onslaught and bring what had been a week of renewed American spirit to a happy conclusion. But the Americans had no backbone on this day. As it wore on, you began to expect their putts to stay above ground, for the shoulders to slump and the faces to look on in disbelief.
The U.S. ended up collapsing under the weight of Europe’s front-loaded lineup, getting swept in the first five matches.
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