Cannon to lead Falcons, Blank Group into Army partnership

The Falcons and the Army will partner on several programs and initiatives, chief executive officer Steve Cannon, a West Point grad, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday.

The team held its “Military Appreciation Day” and had the practice ball parachuted into the field.

“It’s a very humbling experience to be a part of that,” Falcons coach Dan Quinn said. “We have a lot of gratitude for all of the men and women that have risked their lives for us.”

Quinn implemented Navy S.E.A.L.S. styled training over the offseason and has been supportive of the military.

Eric Wesley, the commanding General of Fort Benning, was a classmate of Cannon’s. The two are working on programs that they believe will benefit both organizations.

“We want to make reaching out to the military, honoring the military a core part of our brand,” Cannon said. “We live in the State of Georgia with Fort Stewart, Fort Benning and Fort Gordon. We’ve got a higher concentration of soldiers and families living in our state than really any other state in the union maybe with the exception of Texas.”

The Falcons believes the partnership is a natural fit to their core values.

“So, if there is an NFL franchise that needs to do this right, it’s going to be the Atlanta Falcons,” Cannon said. “I want to use, No. 1, my background and my passion and connection to great Americans like Eric to align really our organizations from really the top of the chain of command here to not just say thank you for your service, I love thank you for your service, but we want to do more meaningful things.”

Hiring seminars and trying to bridge the gap between the military and civilians are just two initiatives the Falcons would like to pursue.

“We are talking about meaningful things where we benefit as an organization and the Army benefits,” Cannon said. “We are just beginning. We had a day and half with Eric down at Fort Benning. He took us out on a run. It was pretty cool. It’s symbolic that this is the start of something that we are going to try to build together.”

The military believes it can benefit from aligning with the Falcons.

“General (Mark) Milley talks about the nature of combat and it’s the unforgivable principle of ground combat that we’ve got to train a soldier to embrace,” Wesley said. “The (soldiers) must be able to perform with no sleep. They’ve got to perform under high stress. It’s very physical and with a solider you want to optimize performance.

“Who else is out there right now optimizing performance in a physical environment and under high stress with some tactical application, clearly its football.”

The Army wants to gain knowledge about the strides the Falcons and the NFL have made in human performance.

“Leadership is another one,” Wesley said. “How do you lead a group of men toward an objective? Character development is another….we both have some things that we can learn from each other and that’s what we mean by authentic.”

The Army would also like to explore how soldiers can better transition to civilian life.

“Steve Cannon, Arthur Blank and Dan Quinn, they get this and they are working to help us out,” Wesley said.