Rich McKay has been a prominent part of the Atlanta Falcons organization for over two decades now. Hired as general manager under new owner Arthur Blank back in 2003, McKay oversaw one playoff team and drafted franchise stalwarts like Roddy White and Jonathan Babineaux before a disastrous Bobby Petrino hire led to Blank replacing him heading into 2008. Instead of getting fired, though, McKay took on an even more prominent role as the President/CEO and then CEO, with a level of involvement in football
operations and decision-making that has never been entirely clear.
Along the way, McKay has been a prominent piece of the NFL’s competition committee and one of Blank’s most trusted lieutenants, overseeing efforts to secure funding for and build Mercedes-Benz Stadium and at least intermittently serving as a layer between Blank and the team’s general manager and head coach. That role, opaque to most everyone outside the organization yet clearly significant and vital for Blank, made McKay a lightning rod for many fans who believed his presence with the Falcons had gone on too long at best and was actively impeding the team’s efforts to win at worst.
After that long run, though, we’re reminded that nothing lasts forever. On Monday morning, less than 24 hours after the team fired head coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot, the team announced that they’re moving McKay to a new role that seems like it will take him out of the Falcons orbit almost entirely. In corresponding moves, they’re promoting Greg Beadles to CEO for the franchise and hiring a new president of football, a position we all expect to be filled by Matt Ryan.
From Arthur Blank’s letter to fans:
As part of our ongoing succession planning, Greg Beadles has been elevated from president to president and CEO of the Atlanta Falcons, effective today, succeeding Rich McKay. Greg will continue oversight of all business affairs of the Falcons and collaborate closely with the new president of football to ensure all resources and operational support are working toward the goal of a winning product on the field, and that we continue to deliver for our fans in every way.
Beadles, who has been with the Falcons for 29 years (!) and was promoted to team president in 2023, will oversee everything but the day-to-day work of running getting a football team on the field for Atlanta in his new role. Beadles has operated as the team’s Chief Financial Officer in the past, predates Arthur Blank with the Falcons, and handles team and facility operations, finance, marketing, communications, and community relations, among a bevy of other roles. Some of those responsibilities may be backfilled by a new hire, but chances are good that the new president of football position will take on the day-to-day operational responsibility for…well, football. Beadles will oversee everything else that makes an NFL franchise hum on a day-to-day basis, which by all accounts he’s quite good at, and work with that new football hire in that capacity.
McKay, meanwhile, will focus on the broader Arthur M. Blank Sports + Entertainment portfolio, including the upcoming World Cup, Atlanta’s 2028 hosting of the Super Bowl, and so forth. McKay will remain one of Blank’s trusted confidants and a prominent part of the broader AMBSE organization, but his involvement in the operation of the actual Falcons franchise seems like it’s finally drawing to a close; I’m certain many Falcons fans have been waiting a long time to read that. Beadles will be responsible for working with the next head coach and general manager, plus that president of football position, to reorganize the front office according to recommendations from the consulting firm Sportology.
This is an indicator of an already apparent seismic shift in the organization, and arguably the largest shift in over two decades. It’s one thing to swap out a coach and a general manager at the same time, something Arthur Blank has only done once before yesterday—remember, Bobby Petrino was already gone in 2007, while Thomas Dimitroff survived 2014 and Terry Fontenot made it through 2023—and another entirely to replace McKay in the Falcons power structure with someone else. Blank indicated in his letter that this has been in the works for some time, something that is backed up by Beadles’ elevation in recent years, but is still noteworthy as it arrives on the heels of two major firings.
It signals that the Falcons are going to look drastically different from a process standpoint starting in 2026, something that is beyond welcome after the team has put together eight straight losing seasons and 11 losing seasons in their past 13 years. However malign or benign his influence may have ultimately been, it’s difficult to argue that McKay continuing to sit in a position of power for the Falcons was wise, given the lack of recent success during his tenure and the unwanted negative attention he drew from the fanbase and local media who believed he was a key player in a bevy of bad decisions for the Falcons.
We now wait to see who the new president of football is—again, it’s probably Matt Ryan—and congratulate Beadles on his new position, from which we hope he’ll be able to help streamline and improve an organization that has been mired in mediocrity for eight years now. Hopefully the Falcons are on a new, better path starting today, while McKay helps ensure some of the biggest events in Atlanta in the coming years go off without a hitch.
