Falcons’ Blank: Belichick never asked for player control

The Atlanta Falcons hired Raheem Morris as head coach last month, but owner Arthur Blank wanted to clarify some things Friday regarding the team's search and one candidate in particular: Bill Belichick.

Blank, speaking for the first time since Morris' hiring, said Belichick was never offered the Falcons job and that Belichick never asked for full control of player personnel or events at the team headquarters in Flowery Branch, Georgia.

Belichick, the six-time Super Bowl-winning former New England Patriots coach, interviewed twice in person with the Falcons for the job — one of 14 candidates Atlanta spoke with before selecting Morris.

“I want to make it 1,000 percent clear, I want to go 2,000 percent or 100,000, whatever percentage you want to use,” Blank said. “Bill Belichick never asked in our discussion for complete control over the personnel or the building or anything of that nature.

“He was very inclusive, very collaborative. He met Terry Fontenot, checked our people by doing his own references, sent me a private text, which I ultimately shared with Terry to tell him he would be happy to work with him.”

Blank said Belichick never demanded that level of scrutiny and that the Falcons “had a really good round of interviews with him.” At the end of each of them, however, the Falcons chose to go with Morris – who had previously worked with the Falcons and had served as the team's interim head coach in 2020 after the club fired Dan Quinn after an 0-5 start.

Morris, during his introductory news conference Monday, described Atlanta as his home and a place where he and his family felt comfortable. Blank also felt comfortable with Morris and said he learned a lot from his three years working under head coach Sean McVay with the Los Angeles Rams – including seeing how McVay and the general manager Les Snead interacted, something Morris brought up during his press conference. as the type of relationship he hoped to build with Fontenot.

“The three years he spent in Los Angeles where he worked with a different coaching environment, a different type of setup that Sean McVay operates in differently than a lot of other coaches,” Blank said. “And their program and their coaching setup and the way they promote from within and just move coaches in a much more lateral way has been a learning experience for him.”

Blank highlighted Morris' energy, his leadership, the recommendations of McVay and Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, and the team's own understanding of Morris during his six years in Atlanta. All of them helped the Falcons decide he was their choice.

Blank said he was also happy with the staff Morris brought in and that he knew how to grow and potentially develop a staff from his time with the Rams – including having plans if a coach was promoted or hired elsewhere in reason for the hoped-for success of Atlanta. Morris brought with him several coaches from Los Angeles, including offensive coordinator Zac Robinson and defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake, both of whom are expected to call plays for the Falcons.

One thing all the candidates agreed on, however, was the state of Atlanta's quarterback room — which boasted Desmond Ridder, Taylor Heinicke and Logan Woodside. During Morris' press conference, he said they would explore all avenues to help improve the quarterback situation.

Blank echoed that through his conversations with potential coaches on Friday — a coaching process that Blank said was a group process without Fontenot or CEO Rich McKay to lead it. He said that “this is a group that really motivated all of this.”

And what that group heard was that the quarterback needed help. Blank said there's no set plan yet, but it will be talked about “quite intensely over the next few weeks.”

“I don't think anyone we've talked to would define our quarterback situation as anything other than something that needs work,” Blank said. “And I'm being nice. It's not a criticism of the players.

“I said this in the press conference, sometimes what makes a quarterback really good or not so good is not just the way he plays, but the scheme he's in, the plays that are called, just a variety of things that it takes to make a good quarterback play.

Blank said they knew they needed to improve at the position — both in 2024 and beyond — and no one disagreed on that, which will likely be Morris' most important goal and Fontenot in their first offseason together.