ATLANTA— It might not seem like it, but there indeed is a quarterback other than Colin Kaepernick playing in today’s NFC Championship.
A pretty darn good one, as a matter of fact.
It’s not often that a prolific, highly decorated passer gets overshadowed in a big game — at home, as the No. 1 seed, no less — but that’s where the Falcons’ Matt Ryan has found himself this week, with the NFL seemingly gripped by Kaepernick Mania after the 49ers QB’s sensational performance last week.
As a result of Kaepernick’s record-setting night against Green Bay, Ryan, the quarterback with the catchy nickname (“Matty Ice”), who led his team to the NFC’s best record (13-3) while throwing for 4,719 yards and 32 touchdowns, has been pretty much an also-ran in the conversation leading up to today’s conference title matchup at the Georgia Dome.
Ryan’s teammates consider that a shame, because — though he isn’t the amazing athlete or exciting dual threat his San Francisco counterpart is — they still consider Ryan among the very best at his position.
And getting better.
“He’s more poised and more comfortable this year than he has been,” Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez said this week. “Matt’s confidence is through the roof right now.”
The numbers bear that out. Not only did Ryan lead the NFL with a career-best 68.6 completion percentage, but no other quarterback in the league could top either his six fourth-quarter comebacks or the eight game-winning drives he has orchestrated so far.
One of those comebacks occurred last week, when Ryan needed just 18 seconds after a Seattle TD to complete two long passes and put the Falcons in position for Matt Bryant’s game-winning, 49-yard field goal.
The result was the first playoff victory of Ryan’s five-year NFL career and what appears to be heightened respect in the eyes of both his teammates and a large segment of the league.
Ryan won’t fully arrive until he gets Atlanta to a Super Bowl, but it sounds as if he has made great progress in that department this year with the help of the NFL’s most dangerous receiving corps and a new offensive coordinator in Dirk Koetter.
“He’s kind of like what he’s always been, but he’s believing it more,” Gonzalez said. “He looks at you and says, ‘We’ve got this. We’ve been here before, let’s just go down the field and do what we did last time and things will take care of themselves.’ That’s what happened [against Seattle].”
On the other hand, it’s not entirely difficult to understand why Ryan is playing a distinct second fiddle to Kaepernick in the pregame hype.
Not only are Ryan’s postseason struggles well-documented (he was 0-3 with three TDs, four interceptions and a woeful 71 passer rating before last week), but the Falcons played a lot of close games against marginal competition during the regular season.
That goes a long way toward explaining why the Falcons are the rarest of the rare this week — home underdogs despite being the conference’s No. 1 seed and despite Ryan’s incredible 34-6 career record (.850) at the Georgia Dome.
Though a lot of the 49ers’ favored status can be attributed to Kaepernick’s unique skill set, a dominant San Francisco defense and Atlanta’s own undersized defense, Ryan’s playoff problems surely figure into the equation, too.
Not that he cares about perception.
“It’s nice not to have that pressure [of having never won a playoff game] on your back anymore,” Ryan told reporters this week. “But what people say about me outside this locker room has never been important to me.”
Nor has hogging the pregame spotlight, which explains why Ryan might be the only Falcons player or coach who isn’t bothered by all the attention being focused so squarely on Kaepernick.
“I’m only worried about one thing,” Ryan said, “and that’s winning the Super Bowl.”
bhubbuch@nypost.com