CHARLOTTE - Matt Ryan and Drew Brees spent years trying to solve Luke Kuechly, and neither quarterback talks about those matchups like they were just another division game.
For both of them, the Carolina Panthers linebacker became the player their plans had to revolve around. Ryan and Brees each described the same weekly feeling: once Carolina was on the schedule, Kuechly sat at the center of everything.
Ryan remembered seeing the edge Kuechly had right away, even as a rookie. Tony Gonzalez was Atlanta’s tight end then, and Ryan recalled Gonzalez heading to the sideline and saying, “man this rookie man he keeps chirping me; he’s hitting me.” Ryan said that was the moment he understood exactly what kind of player Kuechly was becoming.
Brees said Kuechly changed the way he processed the defense before the snap. Against most teams, Brees explained, the routine was about checking the clock, scanning the front, and working his way to the linebackers and safeties to read coverage and leverage. Against Carolina, his eyes went straight to Kuechly.
That kind of attention came from the fact that Kuechly could wreck a game plan before it even got rolling. Ryan said Atlanta would build in calls that were intentionally unsound, banking on Kuechly checking them into something the Falcons wanted. Brees said the entire question became whether they could fool him at all.
“He was that guy that could sniff something out so (Matt Ryan laughing at this) quickly and literally from a game planning perspective all we would do was sit there and ask ourselves on any given play are we going to be able to trick Luke with this or is he going to sniff this one out”
Ryan said there were times when Kuechly called out exactly what Atlanta was about to do, leaving him stunned that the linebacker had seen it coming so quickly.
“Then you’re sitting there as a quarterback like shoot, what do we do now we just spent all this time scheming up this play and this guy already has it sniffed out”
Even with all that, beating him carried real satisfaction. Ryan said there was a special feeling when an offense actually won a battle against Kuechly, because nothing came easy against him.
Brees said the week of preparation could turn into a game of wagers inside the offensive meeting rooms. They would ask whether they could get Kuechly on a certain look, and when they did land something, he wanted to study his reaction on film.
“It was literally when I say he was the focal point whenever we played those guys and if we ever could get him on something when we watched the tape back we would want to watch him because he would get emotional at times he’d kind of snap, and you’d see him get upset go yelling at something."
Both quarterbacks also stressed that Kuechly was much more than a sharp mind. Ryan called him the emotional leader of that defense, the heartbeat as well as the brain. He pointed to Kuechly’s range in coverage, his ability to erase the middle of the field, and the way he could still be underrated even with all of that on his résumé.
Brees praised the tackling and the space awareness. He said he could not remember Kuechly missing a tackle, and described him as a linebacker who not only made stops but also rerouted routes, diagnosed concepts, and put teammates in the right spots.
Then there was the leadership piece, which both men kept coming back to. Brees said Kuechly made everyone around him better, and that Carolina’s defense was what it was because of his communication and the confidence he spread through the group.
Ryan got a reminder of that last offseason during a golf event. He said the two were having a beer after the round when Kuechly spent two hours asking about why Atlanta had canned certain runs against specific looks. Ryan said he could barely remember the details, because the rules changed so often, but Kuechly’s curiosity told the whole story.
Brees said his own appreciation has only grown since he moved into broadcasting, where he watches more tape and sees more of the league as a whole. Ryan said the same thing from his perspective, noting that the broader view makes Kuechly’s skill even more obvious.
The respect goes both ways. Brees said the division was so demanding that it pushed everyone to raise their level. Ryan put it more directly: “Luke made me a better player; he forced me to be a smarter football player, more prepared.
You didn’t have a choice; you had to bring it, otherwise you were going to get wiped.
I enjoyed every minute going against him and I’m so happy hes a Hall of Famer. No one deserves it as much as Drew and Luke."
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