Falcons fire special teams coach Kotwica

Falcons’ Ben Kotwica on the onside kick blunder

Falcons’ Ben Kotwica on the onside kick blunder

In a restructure of the coaching staff, special teams coach Ben Kotwica was fired on Monday by the Falcons.

Jeff Ulbrich has been named defensive coordinator, Bernie Parmalee the new special teams coordinator and Will Harriger, the new running backs coach.

Ulbrich takes over for Raheem Morris, who was promoted to interim head coach after the firing of head coach Dan Quinn on Sunday.

Ulbrich was calling the defense on first and second downs and Morris was calling the third down defenses.

Kotwica served as the Falcons' special teams coordinator for the past two seasons. He joined the staff in 2019 after five seasons with Washington. His unit appeared not to know what to do in a key onside kick situation that led to the 40-39 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.

Ulbrich served as the Falcons linebackers coach from 2015-2019 before taking on the role of assistant head coach/linebackers at the start of the 2020 season.

Parmalee is in his third season with the Falcons. He was hired in 2018 as running backs coach and spent the 2019 season as assistant special teams coach/offensive assistant before moving back to running backs coach in 2020.

Harriger is in his second season with the Falcons, his first as the game management coordinator after spending the 2019 season as an offensive assistant. He spent the five previous years with the Seattle Seahawks, where he worked with the quarterbacks.

Falcons' next four games

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Falcons at Vikings at 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18

Lions at Falcons at 1 p.m. Sunday Oct. 25

Falcons at Panthers at 8:20 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29

Broncos at Falcons at 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8

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