FLOWERY BRANCH -- Falcons owner Arthur Blank rarely makes an appearance on the practice fields during the regular season.

He respects the domain of the people he hired to run the football operation.

Over the offseason and during training camp is when you're likely to see the Falcons' owner walking the fields and talking to the fans. But with the playoffs at hand, Blank was at the indoor facility Wednesday.

He mostly just watched and received an informal briefing from general manager Thomas Dimitroff. He also chatted with coach Mike Smith.

It was the latest update since this football triumvirate was formed in 2008 and left the franchise's most tumultuous season in its wake.

All were at ease with the freshly minted NFC South champions, who are the NFC's No. 1 seed and are about to face the storied Green Bay Packers in the divisional round of the playoffs at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Georgia Dome.

"Our whole football operation, the whole personnel side of the business, has done a great job seeing what this team needed to look like," said Blank, smoothly dressed in a white turtleneck sweater and black jacket. "Seeing the shared vision that we all were apart of and building to that over a three-year period, primarily through the draft, but selectively and very successfully in free agency as well."

The Falcons have been quietly re-tooled in the mode of a shrewd and efficient AFC team. Adding players without any major character issues was part of the plan in the post-Michael Vick era.

"I think it translates into a group of players that understand that this is about the team and not about themselves," Blank said.

Dimitroff came over from New England, where he was the director of college scouting. Smith spent his NFL coaching days with Baltimore and Jacksonville in the AFC, which is currently considered the stronger of the two conferences.

The Falcons' quick climb to the top of the NFC, at least seed-wise, was less difficult because they didn't have to leap over established powers led by quarterbacks Tom Brady (New England), Peyton Manning (Indianapolis) or Ben Roethlisberger (Pittsburgh). Or squads coached by Bill Belichick (New England) or Mike Tomlin (Pittsburgh).

The NFC was wide open and ripe for a new power to step in.

The group was able to work together by blending their experiences from different places and sharing in their areas of expertise.

Smith has helped Dimitroff with an understanding of what he and his coaches are looking for in players. Dimitroff has shared how he scouts and analyzes talent with Smith and his staff.

"In terms of my growing as a head coach, I think you have a little bit more of a futuristic approach, especially when you’re involved in the personnel," Smith said. "I think that Thomas [Dimitroff] has done a very good job of helping me understand that."

When there was a need for a big-time running back such as Michael Turner, a cornerback such as Dunta Robinson or a heart-rate monitoring program, Blank has been the financial facilitator.

"We have been incredibly fortunate that from the beginning of 2008 when we all came together as a new regime that it's been as smooth and as in sync as we could have imagined," Dimitroff said. "To have an owner like Arthur Blank, who is incredibly competitive, and very generous in allowing Smitty and I to build this team the way we see fit, has been great."

Part of the shared vision was not just to win occasionally, which had been the Falcons' old tradition. Blank, Dimitroff and Smith wanted to create a winning team that could be sustainable.

This is the third consecutive winning season for the first time since the team was founded in 1966. With a quarterback in Matt Ryan, who turns 26 in May, and a roster full of first-, second- and third-year players, the Falcons have a chance to rule the NFC for years to come.

"I'm excited about the way Smitty has put this organization together, the way Thomas has put this organization together," Blank said. "What is exciting to me is not just the 13-3 record and No. 1 seed for this year, but I think when I look at the talent on this team it's going to be a sustaining winning team for a long period of time."

Building a consistently winning team has been Blank's goal since acquiring the team in 2002. He had his missteps and ran through a couple of coaches, but after flirting with some big-name hires in Pete Carroll and Bill Parcells, he decided to go with strong football people.

"I was on the phone last night with our commissioner for a different purpose, and I was talking to Roger [Goodell] about it," Blank said. "I said to Roger that one of my goals was to create a sustainable winning organization; one that would be really important and relevant in the NFL for a long period of time. His comment was, ‘I think you've done that.' That's a credit to everybody involved in this franchise.'"

Despite the Falcons' rise from Vick's federal dogfighting trial and former coach Bobby Petrino leaving for Arkansas, they are garnering very little respect outside metro Atlanta.

"I don't think we're underappreciated," Blank said. "People look at our record, and we've won a lot of games in the last quarter or overtime. ... A lot of close games. We're not No. 1 in anything. We are fifth in offensive scoring and fifth in defense [scoring], which is outstanding.

"Special teams have played very well this year, and we don't make a lot of mistakes. ... We are the least penalized team in the NFL, which is huge. We are one of the leading teams on the positive side of takeaways. In the NFL, there are a lot of piece parts that come together to produce a winning team."

Blank sees the Packers, who have been around since 1919 and have won 12 titles, as formidable opponents.

"They are well-prepared," Blank said. "They travel well, and their fans travel well. Hopefully we are not going to have many of them in our building. Hopefully, 98.9 percent of them will be our fans in the building on Saturday night."