Will the Atlanta Falcons be an attractive landing spot for a new coach and general manager, should they choose to make sweeping changes to the organization in the offseason?
That’s a hot topic that will only earn more scrutiny as we get closer to the end of the season. Bill Barnwell at ESPN took a look at openings and potential openings across the NFL and ranked the Falcons 6th out of eight openings, ahead of only the Dolphins and Raiders. Here’s part what he said, but be sure to read the full writeup:
In a different world, Atlanta might be in the thick of the playoff race right now. The Falcons have been close to a much better season this year. Their kickers have missed a field goal that would have pushed the first game against the Buccaneers into overtime and an extra point that would have tied the one-point loss to the Patriots. They lost overtime games in consecutive weeks to the Colts and Panthers. If the Falcons win two of those games, they’re 7-7 and tied for first place in the NFC South.
Atlanta approached this offseason like it was a pass rush away from being playoff contenders, and it was wrong — but not because of the defense. James Pearce Jr. is making a late surge for Defensive Player of the Year, and the Falcons have a 9.4% sack rate, the third-best mark in the NFL. They’re blitzing at the second-highest rate in the league, which obviously helps create more pressure, but for the first time since the John Abraham era, Atlanta might feel like it has a pass rush to build around moving forward.
The problem, of course, is everything else. GM Terry Fontenot traded his 2026 first-round pick to the Rams to acquire Pearce, and at the moment, that’s going to land in the top 10. Fontenot signed Kirk Cousins in free agency and then selected Michael Penix Jr. in the first round of the 2025 draft. Cousins, of course, was benched before the end of 2024 and has become the most expensive backup quarterback in NFL history in his second and what will presumably be his final season in Atlanta.
Barnwell also notes that the Falcons don’t necessarily know what they have in Penix, who hasn’t yet made a full season of starts, and that they lack a first round pick and have a dearth of cap space at the moment. Aside from that, though, all good!
This is a clear-eyed, third-party observer rather than a fan or Falcons beat writer/blogger/radio host, and he believes the Falcons are one of the least desirable openings in the league for the reasons outlined above. We can quibble here and there—I think the strength of the young defensive front, Bijan Robinson, Drake London, and a relatively stable offensive line all help—but it’s difficult to argue with the larger conceit here. The uncertainty around Penix alone is enough to give a coaching candidate pause, after all.
That raises the question of whether Blank and this team’s brass will come to the same conclusion, which might impact the fate of both Raheem Morris and Terry Fontenot.
While I don’t doubt that Arthur Blank likes Morris and can easily talk himself into Morris succeeding in 2026 with better luck and another offseason of building, I suspect that’s not the whole story if the head coach is staying. The way Morris has talked about next year suggests he’s expecting to be here—that’s hardly definitive, I know—and Blank’s unwillingness to make a move during the season and reported interest in evaluating the whole football operation make me think he’s seriously considering retaining Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot. The perceived strength of the opening is not what it would have been even two years ago, when candidates like Mike Vrabel, Ben Johnson, and Jim Harbaugh passed it up, and this is not expected to be a year where a bumper crop of promising, high-end coordinators and ex-head coaches are available.
Given that context, I increasingly believe that there’s a real chance Morris will be retained at the end of the year, regardless of how the final three games go. We’re only going on subtle hints and indicators rather than anything concrete, but the perception that the Falcons might not be able to attract a top-flight replacement for a coach who still obviously has a level of belief and buy-in from the power structure in Atlanta makes that seem like a reasonable assumption. We’re getting quite close to finding out.
