ATLANTA — The Falcons will interview former franchise quarterback Matt Ryan, among others, for a new role entitled the “president of football,” owner Arthur Blank said Thursday at a news conference.
The president of football position will be hired first, and Blank has interviews with several candidates in the next few days. Whoever gets hired as president of football will lead the interviews for the head coach and general manager candidates, Blank said. The Falcons fired head coach Raheem Morris and GM Terry Fontenot on Sunday night.
One of those coaching candidates could be John Harbaugh, who was fired earlier this week by the Baltimore Ravens.
“John has been one of the most successful coaches in the last 20 years in our league,” Blank said. “He has won at every level. And so, he would certainly be a candidate who we’d want to spend some time with. Whether or not [he has] an interest in Atlanta, I don’t know.”
The firm Sportsology is assisting in the general manager search, and the firm ZRG Partners will assist in the coaching search. But the president of football will ultimately be leading those searches, Blank said, and will oversee both the coach and general manager once both are hired.
Blank said the president of football will hold the coach and general manager accountable and report directly to Blank himself. As for who will get the final say on decision-making once the roles are filled, Blank acknowledged that coach and general manager candidates would not be keen on ceding authority to the president of football, so those positions will remain the primary decision-makers in their respective roles.
“Obviously, you’ve still got to hire a great coach, a great general manager, and the president of football will not be doing their jobs for them at all, but will be holding them accountable and giving input with guidance, when necessary,” Blank said.
Ryan, 40, has no front office experience. But he was the best player in franchise history, the quarterback who led the Falcons to Super Bowl LI. Blank said he will be considered for the role — and many believe the role was created for him — because of Ryan’s experience leading a football team, as well as his knowledge of the game and how to work with players and staff.
“His EQ and IQ when it comes to football is extraordinarily high,” Blank said of Ryan. “I’ve known Matt personally since 2008, and his family, and he’s an outstanding individual, great community leader and kind of person we certainly would want to consider in that position.”
Blank made it a point to say there will be other candidates interviewed. The Falcons will announce who they have interviewed once those discussions are completed.
Blank said Thursday that his firings of Morris and Fontenot were based solely on their performances. He said he felt that the Falcons should have achieved more this season, and a four-game winning streak to finish the season did not sway him. Blank said that the decisions to sign quarterback Kirk Cousins in 2024, followed by the drafting of Michael Penix Jr. six weeks later with the No. 8 overall pick did not play a part in his decision.
“There were a lot of peaks and valleys — too many peaks and valleys — [and] too many levels that were not consistent throughout our play,” Blank said. “So, it’s a combination of things over a period of time, but nothing to do with the decisions that we collaboratively made.”
During the news conference, Blank was asked whether or not he felt that Penix was still the team’s franchise quarterback. Penix tore his left ACL in Week 11, missing the rest of the season, and he’ll be out for at least nine months. It was Penix’s third ACL surgery in eight seasons; he tore the ACL in his right knee twice in college. Penix had been inconsistent in 12 career starts before the injury. But Blank affirmed that he remains steadfast in Penix as Atlanta’s franchise QB.
“The injury he sustained was on his other knee,” Blank said. “The surgeon felt 1,000 percent secure in the medical procedure that he went through, and they felt his knee was going to be better than it was before. … He’s committed mentally, physically, and he feels good.”
Sportsology was hired months ago by the Falcons to do an internal evaluation of their football infrastructure. Blank said the thing that most surprised about the firm’s findings was a lack of clarity when it came to the vision of how the team was supposed to play. That is one of the reasons why the president of football role was added. That person will be the one who sets and leads the vision of the product on the field, Blank said.
“In any industry, if you don’t have clarity around vision, but you’re trying to establish and trying to build, you would end up with a lot of disparate parts that are moving in different directions,” Blank said. “And that means you’re not only unsuccessful or partially unsuccessful, but you can be very inefficient. [You must be] as laser focused as you can be in terms of exactly what you want to do. You can make better selections of players, coaches, coaching staff and hold that kind of consistency in place. And then you modify it all the time depending on what’s happening in the game.”
