News Falcons Team Notes

[Atlanta Falcons]

Atlanta Falcons hire Matt Ryan as president of football

There was never much suspense about the outcome here. The Atlanta Falcons have ushered in a new era with the hire of franchise legend Matt Ryan as the new president of football, a position created this offseason to oversee the front office and coaching staff.

Atlanta announced the hire on Saturday morning after finishing their interview with Ryan the previous evening, and he’ll immediately step into the role. Ryan is expected to be a key part of the hiring process for the team’s new general manager and head coach, and the franchise has been requesting interviews for both those positions in the week leading up to the hire. It was clear even before the season ended that the Falcons were pushing hard to get Ryan back in a significant role, and Arthur Blank got his man.

“Throughout his remarkable 14-year career in Atlanta, Matt’s leadership, attention to detail, knowledge of the game and unrelenting drive to win made him the most successful player in our franchise’s history,” said Blank. “I am confident those same qualities will be a tremendous benefit to our organization as he steps into this new role. From his playing days to his time as an analyst at CBS, Matt has always been a student of the game, and he brings an astute understanding of today’s NFL, as well as unique knowledge of our organization and this market. I have full confidence and trust in Matt as we strive to deliver a championship caliber team for Atlanta and Falcons fans everywhere.”

Ryan, who was drafted third overall in the 2008 NFL Draft by the Falcons, went on to become one of the greatest players in team history and one of the best quarterbacks of his era. He finished his career in Atlanta after the 2021 season when the team traded him to the Colts, and by that time Ryan had the franchise’s lone MVP award, every major franchise record, and top ten all-time in passing yards and touchdowns NFL-wide. The 2008 Rookie of the Year and four-time Pro Bowler guided the Falcons to an unprecedented five straight winning seasons from 2008-2012—they had never had back-to-back winning seasons before he arrived—and some of the most consequential games in franchise history, including the 2012 NFC Conference Championship Game and 2016 Super Bowl. After finishing up his playing career post-2022, Ryan jumped into NFL analyst work with CBS, where he proved to be astute at breaking down games, team-building strategies, and our beloved but bumbling Falcons.

Now he’ll enter the third chapter of his career and second stint in Atlanta with the hopes of the franchise pinned on him once again. Owner Arthur Blank has praised Ryan’s people skills and football intelligence, and it’s obvious that he has the relationships in the building and familiarity with the Falcons to understand what needs to be done. We won’t know whether he’s the right man to lead this team out of a stretch of eight losing seasons and into a better tomorrow for a while yet, but we hope he is. It’s a massive credit to Ryan and a sign of his abiding love for the team that drafted him that he’s kept his relationships in the building and has been around the Falcons despite the team trading him in 2022 after chasing Deshaun Watson.

It comes at a time where the need for change and fresh perspective was obvious. The Falcons last had a winning season and playoff berth back in 2017, with Dan Quinn as head coach and Thomas Dimitroff at general manager. The Falcons have since spun through three head coaches—Quinn, interim Raheem Morris, Arthur Smith, and Morris again as full-time head coach—and two general managers. They’ve won seven or eight games in seven of the past eight seasons, bottoming out at 4-12 in 2020, and despite major expenditures of draft capital (top ten picks in Kyle Pitts, Drake London, Bijan Robinson, and Michael Penix Jr., not to mention a 2026 first traded for James Pearce Jr.) and money (Jessie Bates, Kaden Elliss, David Onyemata, Darnell Mooney, Mike Hughes, etc.), have not been able to drag themselves out of mediocrity. Blank finally grew tired of the tire spinning, firing Terry Fontenot and Morris and shuffling Rich McKay formally out of the team’s organization chart, and is now counting on Ryan to identify what has gone wrong and what needs to be fixed. Further changes to the team’s executives and front office structure will likely follow.

Ryan’s experience will also be critical in other, more subtle ways. As the Falcons try to see if Michael Penix Jr. can indeed be their franchise quarterback or if they need to pivot to another option, Ryan’s success at the highest level can allow him to guide not only how the team acquires and develops quarterbacks, but also Penix’s immediate future. Ryan has already spoken with Penix and should continue to be a resource now that he’s in the building full-time; given how important quarterback has been for Atlanta and how badly they’ve bungled the position in recent years, that can only be a positive.

Ryan seems excited about what is certain to be a real challenge, as he takes on a role like this for the first time in his career and tries to bring better days to a franchise mired in a streak of eight straight losing seasons. Despite the lack of experience overseeing football operations, Blank’s faith that he’ll be a quick study is evident, and nobody can say that Ryan isn’t intimately familiar with Atlanta’s organization, strengths, and struggles. From the team’s story:

“Arthur gave me the chance of a lifetime almost twenty years ago, and he’s done it again today,” said Ryan. “While I appreciate the time I had with the Colts and with CBS, I’ve always been a Falcon. It feels great to be home. I could not be more excited, grateful, or humbled by this new opportunity. I began my career with a singular goal: to do right by the Blank family, the Falcons organization, the City of Atlanta, and especially our fans. My commitment to the success of this franchise has not changed. I’m beyond ready to help write a new chapter of excellence.”

It goes without saying that there’s the risk this won’t work out, with the chief risk coming from Ryan’s lack of experience. NFL teams have done this successfully only a small handful of times, with John Lynch as 49ers general manager and John Elway overseeing football for the Denver Broncos as the two most recent and obvious success stories. To do this right, the organization needs to empower Ryan in the same way Lynch and Elway were empowered, but also surround him with the right people to make his vision a reality and help him navigate the early months and years of a new and unfamiliar role.

The president of football role has been outlined as a position that oversees all things football, working in tandem with new CEO Greg Beadles, who will handle everything on the business side of the franchise. Ryan will be the guy the new general manager and head coach report directly to, ending years of a power structure where either Rich McKay or Arthur Blank sat right over the coaching staff and front office. That clarity is important and gives Ryan the position and power to define a clear vision for Falcons football, something consulting firm Sportology identified as a weakness in their audit of the organization.

Congratulations to Matt Ryan, and may he once again lift a franchise that needs him in a dark hour. It feels good to be rooting for him again.

Source: https://www.thefalcoholic.com/atlan...tt-ryan-as-president-of-football-arthur-blank

 

[Atlanta Falcons]

Arthur Blank discussed firings, future of Falcons in Thursday press conference

Arthur Blank met with media on Thursday for the first time since the team fired Raheem Morris and Terry Fontenot, and predictably he was asked a lot of questions about those firings, what’s next for Atlanta, and what consulting firm Sportology found wrong with the organization.

Calling himself “a custodian of the franchise for the fans” and referencing the “pain, anguish, and frustration” both he and fans felt during another lost season, Blank made it clear change was needed. He also elaborated somewhat on why.

Why did the Falcons fire Raheem Morris and Terry Fontenot?​

Asked about reporting that indicated the Falcons might be leaning toward keeping Raheem Morris and possibly Terry Fontenot with the end of season winning streak, Blank indicated that based on the full season (and dating back to last year, too), the Falcons weren’t performing well enough to keep their coaching staff and front office intact.

“You evaluate a team throughout the entire season…it was my conclusion, as the season went on, that we could not achieve or were not achieving at the level this roster was capable of performing at,” Blank said. “The expression that I often use is that good is the enemy of great, and I think we’re capable of getting to another level.”

When asked by 92.9’s Joe Patrick about why they were let go, Blank referenced the caliber of leadership and the team’s performance versus expectations, given what he clearly thinks is a talented roster. The team is hoping to hire the president of football first, Blank said, in order to help hire a general manager and head coach. The owner said he’ll be available during the process to offer any wisdom he can, make sure the team’s culture is built the right way, saying he intends to be a “support system” for the Falcons as is the case with the rest of his businesses. Ultimately the decision will still land with him—my words, not Blank’s—but the president of football should hopefully have final say on the hire.

Sportology found a lack of clear vision in the Falcons organization​

You know by now that I have been beating this drum throughout a frustrating 2025 season. The Falcons have been guilty of incoherent, impulsive, and at times arrogant decision-making, and that has repeatedly led to poor outcomes and a cycle of hirings and firings that fail to dig them out of mediocrity.

Sportology delivered a more expensive and detailed version of my central thesis to Blank, apparently. While he didn’t dive into specifics too deeply, a muddied vision, muddled communication, and iffy accountability were mentioned.

From Tori McElhaney’s writeup, which saved me some time on transcription:

“It was a little bit surprising the lack of clarity about the vision for the team,” Blank said about the report’s findings. “In any business, any industry, when you don’t have clarity around vision and about what you are trying to establish and trying to build you’re going to end up with a lot of disparaged parts with everybody moving in different directions and that means you are not only unsuccessful — or even partially unsuccessful — but you will be very inefficient. As laser-focused as you can be about exactly what you want to do, you can make better selection of players, coaches, coaching staff, to hold that kind of consistency in place, and then you modify over time to depending on what’s happening within the game because the game is changing.”

Blank confirmed Matt Ryan is a candidate for president of football role​

We knew this, because of the wealth of reporting out there, but Ryan is interviewing for the new role. Blank had a lot of praise for him, as you’d expect.

“His EQ and IQ when it comes to football are extraordinarily high,” Blank said. “He’s an outstanding individual, great community leader, and the kind of person you’d certainly want to consider in that position.”

Blank added that the team would be interviewing other candidates—they announced two completed interviews on Thursday night—but the reporting out there continues to be consistent that Ryan is the expected hire.

It’s widely believed around the NFL that Matt Ryan will indeed become the Falcons’ new president of football.
Ryan & Chicago Bears GM Ryan Poles are very close friends, dating back to their playing days at BC. I’m told Poles has been helping Ryan on the entire hiring process.

— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) January 9, 2026

Michael Penix Jr. is the franchise quarterback​

Look, the owner’s words in January when the team doesn’t have a general manager or head coach should be taken with a grain of salt. But Blank indicated that Penix is indeed still viewed as a franchise quarterback by the owner, and based on the team’s ongoing flirtations with Matt Ryan, likely by the former franchise quarterback too. I’d like to stress that’s my view.

“I do think Michael is our franchise quarterback,” Blank said.

Blank expressed confidence that Penix’s third ACL surgery, this one to a knee he previously had not had ACL surgery on, went well and that he would come back stronger for 2026.

“The surgeon felt one thousand percent secure in the medical procedure they went through, and they really felt his knee was going to be even better than it was before,” he said.

My expectation is that Penix will get a shot as this team’s starter again when he’s healthy, and the Falcons will sign a bridge quarterback/alternative option with experience this offseason. Penix may not get more than the 2026 season, however, especially if injury becomes a factor again.

Is recently fired Ravens head coach John Harbaugh a candidate in Atlanta?​

Blank said yes, assuming that Harbaugh wants to interview. He’s widely connected to the Dolphins and Giants jobs, so we’ll see.

Source: https://www.thefalcoholic.com/atlan...sday-press-conference-matt-ryan-michael-penix