JANUARY 3: As part of his evaluation process, Blank has brought in the consulting firm Sportsology (which has worked with NFL teams in the past). Dianna Russini of The Athletic notes (subscription required) Rick Smith has played a role in Sportsology’s ongoing Falcons audit. The former Texans GM was among those who interviewed for Atlanta’s most recent vacancy before Fontenot was ultimately hired.
DECEMBER 13: After another disappointing year from the Falcons, major changes could be coming in Atlanta this offseason.
Owner and chairman Arthur Blank will spend the rest of the season evaluating the team’s football operations, including head coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.
The Falcons were already eliminated from the playoffs before their Kyle Pitts-driven win over the Buccaneers on Thursday night. However, their Week 14 loss to the Seahawks locked in their eighth losing season in a row. Atlanta finished with an 8-9 record in 2024, their first year under Morris, but the team’s lack of improvements this year have raised doubt about his future. The same is true of Fontenot, who is in his fifth year as GM without much year-to-year progress.
Of the two, Fontenot feels more likely to leave Atlanta this offseason. He has struggled to find starters in the draft and does not have a strong record outside of the first round, though he has built a strong offensive line over the years. Fontenot also drove the Falcons’ controversial quarterback moves in the 2024 offseason. He signed Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $160MM deal with $90MM fully guaranteed and drafted Michael Penix with the eighth overall pick less than two months later.
Individually, both decisions were questionable, but together, they set up a difficult dynamic in Atlanta. Cousins was surprised by the Penix pick, which immediately put a clock on his time with the Falcons. The veteran quarterback played well to start the 2024 season, but a rough stretch of five games in the second half inspired an earlier-than-expected transition to the rookie. Penix showed some flashes in his three starts and entered 2025 as the clear starter while Cousins attempted to force an offseason move out of Atlanta.
Fontenot then made another controversial decision in the 2025 draft by trading up from the second round to select edge rusher James Pearce Jr. with the 26th overall pick despite already adding Jalon Walker at No. 15 overall. He gave up a bevy of picks in the deal, including second- and third-rounders in 2025 and a first in 2026, which could be a top-10 pick.
Morris has not led the Falcons to the immediate success for which Blank was likely hoping, but his team has been decimated by injuries this season, especially on offense. Right tackle Kaleb McGary suffered a leg injury in training camp that knocked out the left-handed Penix’s blind side blocker for the entire season. Penix then went down with a season-ending injury after nine starts, and Drake London has missed multiple games, too.
The Falcons had a decent start to the year with a 3-2 record on the back of a defense that didn’t allow more than 300 yards of total offense in that five-game span. Atlanta then lost five straight, a stretch that included some rough defensive showings and ended with Penix’s injury. The result was a season that fell well short of Blank’s expectations and will spur plenty of conversations in Atlanta about the futures of Morris and Fontenot. Giving Morris another year to see what he can do with a healthier roster makes sense, but Blank may be running out of patience with Fontenot’s inability to build a competitive roster.
Maybe he should have been paying attention the whole season.
Blank is a really good owner, I
never understood all the hate….He does, however, make some pretty bad hires. He simply wants and needs someone to run the organization successfully which he tries over and over. McKay is always the common denominator IMO.
That’s all your opinion, braveshomer.
If you “can’t understand the hate”, you’re too ignorant to see why.
in the immortal words of Hawk Harrelson, ” He Gone”. Which in this case should be ” They Gone” as far as Fontenot and Morris. The key words being 5 years with no noticeable progress. That sums it up nicely. That’s the usual time frame somebody gets in the win now NFL.
I wouldn’t say I’m ignorant. A lot of the hate is typically from non-Falcons fans….Blank rarely meddles if ever. You never hear of any toxic ownership/front office issues, he’s willing to spend money to win. He’s very active in the community, built an immediate championship team in Atl United, etc etc. Like i said a good owner…McKay is the problem that never seems to change. And yes that’s on Blank to finally change that.
How many delay of game penalties out of time outs do we need to see to realize Morris isn’t it. We had 19 penalties last week. Plus end of half/game mismanagement. Raheem is a GREAT guy. But not a good head coach, at least not with the losing culture we have.
Liam in Jax will go for the most penalties in a season record.
Another lackluster season for a mediocre franchise and we have arguably the best running back in football at least top 5. Smh
Robinson is one of the best. But Morris doesn’t deserve the blame for the reach of guaranteeing an aging qb that was showing signs of decline all that money just to make a stretch pick for Penix that same offseason. I don’t think cousins was the answer but if you’re going to pay him like he is over a few years get him help in round one not a stretch pick for possible replacement. Pick a path and go for it. I’m not convinced penix is any better than Cousins and Cousins looks like the aging qb he is. My big questions on coaching is after seeing Pitts look like the guy they spent enormous draft capital on is how he can be so dominant at times and a non factor others. But to me it’s more on the gm for either signing cousins to a ton but trusting him so little instead of building around him with the 7th pick you bring in competition and not on some kind of can’t miss qb. One things for sure Arthur Blank himself shouldn’t be evaluating things. Wouldn’t shock me if his meddling steered some of these decisions. I’m curious what owner known for meddling has a successful organization. Maybe Jerry Jones? But he’s also a guy who fires coaches who win superbowls but keeps mediocre coaches until their contracts are up. Running an NFL team is hard and to win is not just business and these owners are businessmen
Fair point
You make fair points, but I will at least note that Cousins was lights out on Thursday night. It actually works to your point-Cousins used Pitts in a way that the Falcons haven’t. A lot of that is Robinson’s game plan-he moved Pitts around the offense, making some some great matchup problems for the Bucs. I just cannot fathom why the Falcons didn’t do that more, but I suppose that Penix’s experience/strengths must have something to do with it. Cousins definitely knew how to use Pitts, and it showed.
The thing that’s hard to fathom is just how Atlanta can’t use all of the talent on the offense that they do have. Cousins just distributed all night, which is what Atlanta should be doing every game. He got the ball to the open guy, and when the open guy is Robinson, Pitts, or Allgeier then it’s usually a plus. London is out, but he’s definitely on that list, and Mooney made some good catches on Thursday, too. So the question is this: is Penix not skilled enough to distribute to these guys, or do they not trust him to do it? Because right now, the Falcons have the playmakers, and they need to have a QB who can get them the ball.
If that’s a player issue, then it’s on Fontenot. If it’s a coaching issue, it’s on Morris (of course, they both overlap a bit in both areas). If sticking with Penix necessitates not using Pitts, then they probably should have traded Pitts before and picked someone that Penix will use. Otherwise, maybe Penix wasn’t ready yet and Cousins should have been supported more. It’s just messy because there are two very different paths that the Falcons could have taken, and somehow they tried to take them both. There’s a ton of talent, but it’s hard to say that either Morris or Fontenot can figure out how to make them a long term foundation to build on.
Spells it out pretty well. GM drafts players that they don’t use. Coach and QB don’t use said players right. The formula is Bad Coaching + Bad GM = Clean house. Yep that sounds right. GM pays QB over 100 million and then drafts a rookie who he plays over him. Who does that? That’s a firing offense in itself. Plus he drafts a QB that nobody would have taken there and was usually injured in college. If he was going to do that he should have traded back, Got more assets and then taken him. It’s mystifying.
You ever notice that Pitts doesn’t produce with Penix and London doesn’t produce with Cousins? It’s weird and I don’t pretend to know the reasons.
Penix gambles more downfield than Cousins, but doesn’t know how to use the matchups in the middle consistently. Cousins has the experience to see them, especially presnap, and he likes the mismatches better. Penix is young and still has a lot of that college “out-athlete the defense” in him, even as a pro-he’s got the arm talent to make it happen, but Cousins can set up plays better and stay on schedule better due to his experience and just the overall way that he’s played as a pocket passer.
TRADE IDEA— Falcons get Zac Taylor. Bengals get 2-gallon sized packs of Gatorade and one of those fold up stadium seats.
Atlanta hasn’t recovered from 28-3
And Tampa Bay has yet to recover from 28-14.
Todd Bowles’ potty mouth said it all.
Blank most likely won’t get a top GM if the job does not come with the ability to hire their own head coach.. Miami is in the same boat……
Morris, Fontenot, Robinson and McKay all need to go
Has it ever occurred to Arthur Blank to ask the folks running the Georgia Bulldogs how they achieve success?
He’d likely get the answer that Atlanta has not been good at: “Throw lots of money at the right people.”
You’d think a good active owner continually evaluates his organization on an ongoing basis throughout the calendar year. What’s he going to do at seasons end? Study hundreds of hours of game film? No. He’s going to evaluate the win- loss record and determine it’s not good enough. No point in leaving Coach in place if you’re bringing in a new guy to run the front office. Plenty of good coaching candidates out there(NO…not you Bill) to bring in and start fresh.
How can you even begin to think that Morris should be there next year? He has failed miserably in every head coaching job he has had. The Bucs, the first half season with the Falcons and the last two years. That is a significant ‘body of work’ to ascertain if he can do the job. Clearly his results show he cannot!!
When Arthur was asked about his thoughts on his team’s performance this year,
He responded with only a BLANK stare.
All of a sudden, the Atlanta Falcons are going to decide the NFC South and NFC #4 seed in Week 18 thanks to Tampa Bay beating Carolina.
Falcons win = Atlanta, Carolina, Tampa Bay all at 8-9. Panthers win a 3-way head-to-head tie-breaker.
Saints win (or a tie) = Carolina and Tampa Bay at 8-9. Buccaneers prevail with better record vs. common opponents.
And that Falcons-Saints fixture is not going to be friendly. Two years ago, Atlanta accused New Orleans of running it up in Week 18 by scoring a TD from victory formation. Arthur Smith was fired as Falcons head coach but the bad blood lingers.
That TD seemed un-sportsman like but it finally came out a couple of weeks after it was 100% on Jameis Winston trying to help Jamal Williams get a TD that may have been bonus related. Dennis Allen definitely didn’t call it, and Arthur Smith was clearly getting fired so it was the last thing he could blame on his way out in frustration.
Still unsportsmanlike, but it’s on Jameis and not on Allen, as you pointed out. Williams’ bonus is a nice motivator, but one player doesn’t supersede the game.
I would wonder how many of Atlanta’s defenders had performance boni that were affected by a touchdown or yardage here or there…
Sportsology: “We’ve completed our evaluation Arthur and our recommendation is that you fire yourself” 🙂