Matt Ryan sets Falcons’ passing record with jaw-dropping numbers

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan looked like he was playing Madden on the rookie difficulty setting Sunday while taking apart the Carolina Panthers, 48-33.

Ryan personified the word unstoppable, throwing for a franchise record 503 yards with four touchdowns, averaging better than 13 yards per attempt.

The team captured the moment Ryan broke the yardage record:

Here is @M_Ryan02 and @juliojones_11 both setting franchise records.#JetJones – 300 yds rec#MattyIce – 503 passhttps://t.co/tHNYzU09OA

— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) October 2, 2016

By the way, Julio Jones made a little history himself by catching 12 passes for 300 yards and a touchdown.

Here are a few notes to put Ryan’s amazing start to the season into perspective:

With a quarter of the season in the books, Matt Ryan is on pace for 5,892 yards.

— Patrick Daugherty (@RotoPat) October 2, 2016

Matt Ryan at the quarter-pole: 101 of 140 (72.1%) for 1,473 yards (10.5 YPA), 11:2 TD-to-INT ratio, 126.3 passer rating.

— Chris Wesseling (@ChrisWesseling) October 2, 2016

The MVP talk has already begun, and deservingly so:

And I usually wait until Week 4 to start thinking about it, but without many good candidates, I'd say…

MVP is Matt Ryan by default so far

— Scott Kacsmar (@ScottKacsmar) October 2, 2016

It’s hard to argue right now with the way Ryan has played. Carolina’s vaunted secondary looked lost at best trying to keep Ryan in check, even though it seemed pretty obvious where the ball would go most times he dropped back.

In what might have been a changing of the guard in the NFC South, Ryan made franchise history and announced Atlanta’s arrival.