Everyone has a sack of what-ifs they carry around with them for life. Terry Fontenot can think of a couple of pretty big ones that shaped his path to the Falcons’ general manager job.
For instance, what if Janella Newsome didn’t call back?
In 2002 Newsome was trying to round up an intern for the New Orleans Saints marketing department. It was flunky work – “crap work” as Fontenot thought at the time – and she didn’t sugarcoat it when she called this 22-year-old who had just finished a modest, injury-interrupted four seasons as a Tulane safety. When the phone rang, Fontenot was about to leave for his part-time job at Smoothie King, but he picked up.
Ah, I don’t know, Fontenot thought as he respectfully listened. He knew he wanted to so something with football, maybe coach. But football wasn’t driving players to community appearances or setting up tables at fan caravans or doing inventory on office supplies. It sounded so unappealing to him, and this was a guy who was working at Smoothie King. Politely, he said no thanks.
But moments later, Newsome did call back, a bit incredulous. Do you realize, she told him, how many people would do anything just to get their foot in the door with the Saints or any NFL team? The words stuck. He interviewed. He got the internship. A non-fruit-based career was launched.
And what if he had gone about his mundane chores mundanely? What if he had just killed time until quitting time and not shown such initiative and an innate curiosity about everything going on in the Saints building?
As Saints long-time GM Mickey Loomis recalled earlier this year on a podcast, “I remember Terry on those (fan) caravans. What caught my attention was here was a guy who attacked his job, had a super positive attitude, was clearly smart, had a football background, kind of lit up the room with his attitude and effort every day. That’s what you want in any building.”
So, when Loomis had an internship available in the scouting department, he looked to Fontenot. The young man leapt at that offer – “I don’t think Mickey would have called me back,” he laughs now. Now, this was football.
“When I learned how the scouting department worked, that’s when I knew that’s what I wanted to do. It wasn’t even close,” Fontenot said.
Some 16 years later, there was Fontenot on Tuesday, just 40 years old, being introduced along with new Falcons coach Arthur Smith. He is the first Black GM in team history, and one of only five now working in the NFL. Along with the weight of management comes the weight of history and legacy.
“It’s really a blessing. I don’t look at it like an accomplishment, I look at it like an opportunity,” he said. “I take it as a challenge because I need to be successful. I need to do things the right way or that’s not fair to the people who are going to come after me.
“My son (he has four kids) is 9 years old and he’s going to be a GM; that’s what he told me already. I need to make sure I operate in a certain way and do things the right way so he’s going to have a great opportunity when it’s his time.”
Not a man prone to sentimentality – he’s too busy functioning in the moment, he said – Fontenot let his emotions bleed through once during his first news conference. When talking about Loomis and his circle of good influences, the words momentarily stuck in Fontenot’s throat. He needed a minute.
“I don’t sit and appreciate anything,” he said later. “I probably hadn’t appreciated everything he had done for me and the growth over 18 years. ... The whole moment hit me all at once.”
It’s no surprise that someone who rose through the ranks, from intern to scouting assistant, to director of pro scouting, to assistant GM to one of 32 NFL GMs would be said to possess a number of admirable traits.
That he sees no substitute for hard work when evaluating other talent – “Everybody’s not made to be OK sitting in a room for 10, 12 hours watching film over and over, watching players and going into the details, digging into every source and finding out everything you possibly can about a player,” he said. – He’ll credit his father.
Roy Fontenot worked at the Firestone Plant in Lake Charles, La., and providing for seven kids, he couldn’t get enough hours. Growing up in Lake Charles wasn’t the easiest life then, and it isn’t now. Fontenot’s parents are among the many flooded out last year by two big storms and are displaced to Dallas while waiting to rebuild.
That he is personable, he takes from his mother, Jacquetta.
There are no half measures to her personality, he said. That seemed to come through when she was asked by a Nola.com reporter what it was like for a lifelong Saints fan to have a son now leading the bitter-rival Falcons. “I’m a Saints fan that now wants to see the Dirty Birds fly like eagles,” she answered.
There wasn’t a lot of room in the family budget to start a college fund for seven children. So, Fontenot determined early that he needed to get there on a scholarship. And he wasn’t going to wish his way to a free ride.
When the pro scout was asked for his report on a certain one-time Tulane safety, it was a mixed review:
“I was never the best on any of my teams. Look, I was an all-state defensive back, I’m not saying I was a scrub. Still, I wasn’t the best player on my high school team. When I got to Tulane, I wasn’t the best player on my team, never was,” he said.
“I knew what I was. I was a decent player. I knew I had to do everything just right to get the best out of myself. I knew I had to be a hard worker to even have the opportunity to go to college. As a player, checked all the boxes as far as make up, but not good enough a player.
“Terry Fontenot would not be on our draft board.”
Said his former coach at Tulane, and one-time Falcons tight ends coach Chris Scelfo: “Terry came to work every day with a smile on his face. He never had bad days. He might have had bad moments, but we never saw them. I think he’ll be the same way as GM with the Atlanta Falcons.”
The revelation that Fontenot isn’t inclined to draft or sign average players, no matter how close they may be to him, is encouraging. Otherwise, his challenges with the Falcons are substantial.
Those include building a symbiotic relationship with the new coach – whom he hadn’t met until now – wading through a tangled salary-cap situation, devising a long-term plan for whenever aging stars such as Matt Ryan and Julio Jones fade beyond recognition, bringing in some new blood that can win in the short-term.
With the Saints, he was credited with importing some high-impact talent. Loomis said: “Looking on the field you’re going to see (linebacker and team leader) Demario Davis and (defensive tackle) Malcom Brown and (wide receiver) Emmanuel Sanders and (tight end) Jared Cook and (tackle) James Hurst and (fullback) Michael Burton, a number of guys who are here because of Terry and his staff. A huge part of our success.”
Talking about he has learned in both hitting on players, and missing, Fontenot puts a great deal on him. It’s all about the work, the hours spent on dissecting a player even if you don’t get him.
“We’re going to look at the skill set, but No. 1 is the make-up. It’s not just blanket good character. You have to really dig down and understand what that player is. You can’t just say the player had an issue at some point we’re going to stay away from him. You need to understand what it is, what happened, was it a mistake? You have to know what you’re bringing into the building because every player you bring in, every coach you bring in, you’re adding to your culture.
“Dig in beyond ‘he’s a good kid’ or ‘he’s not a good kid.’”
Do all that right often enough, and maybe you eliminate some of those other what-ifs that tend to haunt a GM.
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