Full disclosure: Way back in 2008, when Mocking The Draft was just a baby website and I was weighing in on the network-wide mock, I had the Falcons landing Jake Long and Joe Flacco with their first two picks. Long’s sad injury history and Flacco’s career suggest that wouldn’t have ended as well for Atlanta as Ryan has, but it’s a fun sort of alternative timeline to think about.
Of course, Ryan and Flacco have inevitably been compared over and over again as the best two quarterbacks to come out of that fateful 2008 class.