Matt Ryan: Mom once called about F-bomb on NFL broadcast

CBS Sports NFL analyst Matt Ryan shared a story on Sunday about a phone call his mother made to him in disappointment during his playing career.

Ryan, the 2016 NFL MVP as a quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, explained on The NFL Today how his mom called him after he dropped an F-bomb that ESPN mics picked up on a Monday Night Football broadcast.

The time @M_Ryan02 got caught dropping an F bomb during a game and he got a call… from his mom 😂 pic.twitter.com/U9Q4XXud93

— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) October 19, 2025

“Well, [James Brown], I’ll tell you about a little story about getting caught dropping an F-bomb on Monday Night Football,” Ryan began.

“The mics out there, you know; you don’t expect anybody to hear it,” Ryan said. “Something comes out. I might have told somebody to get set.”

“So, we finish the game; I have no idea this happens,” Ryan continued. “I get a call from my mom. ‘You can’t be doing that.’ I think I was 32, 33 years old at the time. ‘You can’t be doing that out there with microphones… We raised you better than this.'”

“Sorry, Mom,” Ryan said. “Sorry. I apologize. I apologize for doing that.”

In fairness to Ryan’s mom, it was a very loud and clear F-bomb on national television. Unfortunately, Ryan doesn’t have quite as good an excuse as Patrick Mahomes had on Sunday for throwing the F-bomb around. Mahomes’ led directly to a fourth-down conversion for the Chiefs. Ryan’s was simply out of frustration.