ATLANTA -- For the second time in eight years, the Atlanta Falcons opened the vault and dropped a ton of cash on a franchise quarterback.
Matt Ryan, the No. 3 pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, signed a $72 million, six-year contract Tuesday. The announcement of the new deal came with smiles, confident talk of the future and no mention of Michael Vick, the first pick in 2001 who signed a $130 million extension, the richest in the league at the time, in December 2005.
Blank and the Falcons were especially eager to sign Ryan, avoid a holdout and help the franchise move away from the Vick era with new general manager Thomas Dimitroff, new coach Mike Smith and now a new quarterback.
"The circumstances are always different when it comes to a player, and in Matt's case the research that Thomas did and Coach Smith did, they were extremely comfortable in Matt and what Matt stood for and what he's going to be for the long term," said team president Rich McKay, the Falcons' lead negotiator.
"I don't think there was any hesitancy because of the experience we just had."
Vick last year began a 23-month prison sentence after he confessed to bankrolling a dogfighting ring.
The Falcons' haste in finalizing the deal with Ryan received a boost when word leaked the NFL owners, who met Tuesday in Atlanta, were about to opt out of a labor deal with the players' union in 2011. Before the owners' unanimous vote, the deal could not have gone through 2013.
The Falcons and Ryan's agent, Tom Condon, already had agreed on six years as the basis for their deal, and to make that happen they needed to complete the negotiations by Tuesday.
"We couldn't have gotten a six-year contract if we didn't get this deal done by 4 today," Blank said.
"That was the urgency in getting it done today. The structure of the contract would not have been permissible because of the opt out."
McKay said he was involved in negotiations until 3 a.m. Tuesday and started again at 6 a.m.
Ryan is guaranteed $34.75 million. His guaranteed money is $4.75 million more than that given to Jake Long, the No. 1 overall choice who also is represented by Condon.
Ryan worked behind quarterbacks Chris Redman and Joey Harrington at his first minicamp with the team this month, but he's getting paid to be the starter. He said he'll enter training camp expecting to play immediately.
FSU Brian 
