Three weeks after throwing a grenade of a news release and having all principals affected by an organizational restructuring take cover in a bunker, Falcons owner Arthur Blank addressed the changes at the top of his team’s directory Friday. And he revealed … almost nothing.
Blank, making his annual visit to Super Bowl week, said he put assistant general manager Scott Pioli in charge of the draft and free agency to take advantage of “a tremendous untapped resource in the building,” but he denied that should be taken as a strip-down of general manager Thomas Dimitroff’s power or responsibility.
“We don’t use the word power because we don’t run our organization based on power,” Blank said. “(Dimitroff’s) responsibility is general manager and that hasn’t changed. The structure beneath him has changed. … Scott will be running the draft process … and free agency. Thomas will be very heavily involved, too. We feel we have two very talented guys and we’ll be getting the benefits of both of them.”
But Blank was intentionally non-specific on who ultimately will have final say in picking the players in the draft and free agency and who will be given final approval of the 53-man roster (although there are indications it will be new coach Dan Quinn). Answers may come when the Falcons hold a news conference to announce Quinn. They are expected to officially hire the Seattle defensive coordinator Monday, the day after the Super Bowl, and hold an introductory news conference Tuesday.
In one exchange between Blank and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the owner said, “The final say (on player decisions) is really a misnomer because in the most successful franchises in the NFL the process has final say. If it comes down to a situation where there’s a debate in the building and debating who you’re going to pick, that’s not a good situation, and the process is violated somewhere.”
True. But ultimately somebody has to make a choice, correct?
“The process should make the choice.”
I’ve gone through several NFL directories. Can’t find anybody named, “process.”
Blank referenced Super Bowl teams New England and Seattle as process-driven organizations. But in fact, it’s clear that coaches Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll have final say.
“They would both tell you they have final say, but only in the context of a process,” Blank said.
And the final say in your organization is? “We’ll be clear on that when a coach signs.”
He would not say whether Quinn will have final say over the 53-man roster, but he acknowledged “10 to 12” NFL coaches have that, and, “The trend is for coaches to ask for that.”
The new franchise structure also suggests Quinn will have that autonomy because, unlike former Falcons coach Mike Smith, Quinn will report directly to Blank, not to Dimitroff.
The new setup also has fueled speculation that Blank intends to be more involved in football operations than in the past, but he denied that. “Absolutely not. That hasn’t changed since 2001. My responsibility in all our businesses, but certainly the Atlanta Falcons, is to make sure we hire the very best people, give them the resources they need and basically get out of the way.”
We can’t know how successful the Falcons will be. But there’s little question this has been a poorly handled situation from a public-relations perspective. A clumsily written press release was emailed to the media Jan. 7 after business hours (5:47 p.m.), and nobody was willing to comment. Dimitroff was made available for one radio interview to an NFL corporate partner, and to his team’s website. Dimitroff and Pioli, believed to be abiding by Blank’s mandate, both declined comment again Friday.
Dimitroff and Pioli are friends, mostly stemming from their time together in New England. Stories about how Pioli treated some people in the Kansas City front office and his negative image among some led to media speculation that he effectively stepped on Dimitroff to attain more power from Blank. That didn’t seem to be the case Friday, when Dimitroff and Pioli sat together at commissioner Roger Goodell’s news conference and later left for lunch.
Why not just allow them to speak three weeks ago and clarify the situation?
“I thought the press release explained it well,” Blank said. “When we have the opportunity to hopefully name a new head coach, we would hope most would be focused on the new head coach, but we’ll entertain any questions that anybody may have about any part of our organization.”
Blank is correct that an introductory news conference should focus on a coach. It’s not fair to Dan Quinn. But if Blank didn’t want the focus to be on other areas, wouldn’t it have been smarter to address those in the last 24 days?
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