Atlanta Falcons veteran wide receiver Roddy White doesn't care if the so-called "experts" leave Matt Ryan off the list of elite quarterbacks. All White cares about is having Ryan as his quarterback.

"I'm not a quarterback judge, but I just know we have a good one," White said. "I'm happy with our guy. I've played with not-so-good quarterbacks and saw how hard the game could be with them. I'm just happy that we have a good quarterback.

Falcons QB Matt Ryan (2) on receiver Roddy White (84): "We've been through good seasons; we've been through bad seasons. And we've been able to count on each other ..." Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

"As far as being a top tier quarterback or being second tier, they judge a lot of that off your winning percentage, how many touchdown passes you throw in a year, how many Super Bowl titles you've won. I mean, Drew Brees leads the league in passing yards. Tom Brady leads the league in Super Bowl titles. Peyton Manning leads the league in every statistical passing category during the regular season. Those guys have won Super Bowls. We haven't reached that plateau as a team yet. The minute Matt wins a Super Bowl, things will be totally different."

Maybe the Falcons can reach such goals in the next few years under new coach Dan Quinn. A renewed emphasis on the run game should alleviate some of the pressure on Ryan, who has been sacked or hit countless times over the past two seasons.

"This offense, basically everything is played off the run game," White explained. "When Matt first came into the league his rookie year, Michael Turner kind of ran wild in the league. Matt was just out there handling the game and everything was coming easy to him. That's what we need to get back to: where we can run the ball. We want to get our running game going to make life easier on everybody else, especially Matt."

White was asked if he was ever concerned about Ryan's health.

"When we played Pittsburgh (last year), he got hit from behind and nobody blocked the guy and yeah, I was like, 'Man.' You don't want 275-pound people hitting your quarterback running 15 miles per hour," White said. "You don't ever want to see a guy take hits like that. After you watched that on film, you're like, 'Come on, man.' You don't want to see a guy go through that at all."

That being said, White never believed Ryan would miss a game.

"No, because I know how tough he is," White said. "When you go out there and play with a guy who goes out and fights just as hard as he does and won't quit and will do anything to be on the field and has taken a beating like he has taken, you just know that he's going to play. You know he's going to be out there. You know he's going to do everything in his power to be the best player he can be. And that man works very, very hard.

"To see him on the Mondays and the Tuesdays after games just up there until 8 p.m. game-planning -- people don't see the things that he does to get ready to play on Sunday and have a better understanding of what plays we want to run and what things we can be successful at. When you see a guy work that hard and see the effort that he puts into it, you just don't concern yourself with little things. You just concern yourself with how we're going to get to where we need to be."

When told of how White praised his toughness, Ryan expressed gratitude toward his teammate of eight seasons.

"That's what you need from a team," Ryan said. "That's the kind of bond that you need across the board, and (White and I) have that because we've been together forever. I mean, we've been through it. We've been through the offseason programs together. We've been through good seasons; we've been through bad seasons. And we've been able to count on each other for that amount of time.

"The more guys we get to have those kind of connections, that's how we're going to get better. And I think that's what Dan Quinn preaches, so we're trying to do that."

Ryan spoke up when asked if White, who turns 34 in November, has much more left in the tank.

"He's got a lot left," Ryan said. "If there's one thing that I know more so than anything else, Roddy White's probably one of the most ferocious competitors that I've been around. He loves playing. When you have guys like that, you can't discount them any time. He just shows up, knows how to compete, isn't scared to make plays, and isn't scared to go in there and mix it up. ... He's the best."