After missing the playoffs for the third consecutive season, Falcons owner Arthur Blank noted that while general manager Thomas Dimitroff would be retained that the team’s scouting department would be revamped.
While Dimitroff was set to attend the national championship game in Glendale, Arizona, the team’s scouts have been out on the road for the college bowl season and are set to hit the college all-star games before returning for pre-draft meetings in February.
Most teams don’t make major changes in their scouting departments until after the draft. This year’s draft is set for April 28-30 in Chicago. Teams do not want scouts, who’ve been out on the road for a year to be free to take that proprietary information on prospective players to another team.
In 2012 when the Green Bay Packers revamped their scouting department, the project started in May, post-draft and took about a month.
“We are going to make a number of changes to our pro personnel and college scouting departments and that process began this week,” Falcons owner Arthur Blank said in a statement on Friday. “It will take some time, but we will be adding talent on the pro personnel side and re-organizing both of these groups to best align with the shared vision of coach (Dan) Quinn and (general manager) Thomas Dimitroff.”
Some of this work started last February and March after Quinn was named the coach and filled out his coaching staff. The new coaches met with the scouts to give them the parameters on the type of players that would fit the new schemes.
“He was very, very clear with the type of players, the nuances of the players that he was looking for,” Dimitroff said. “We sat down not only with Dan, but with his coaching staff at different times and ran some seminars that I found very, very helpful for us.”
The revamped department is the next step in retooling how the Falcons assess the prospective college players and the pro player personnel.
“The great thing about Dan’s scheme, in my mind, and we’ve seen it in Seattle, they were able to play with a lot of players,” Dimitroff said. “You didn’t just have to go after guys in the first and second rounds. They were great about making sure that they looked at all of the talent and took all of the positives of the players that they had acquired and made sure that they accentuated the positives and played them where they needed to play.”
Last season, Quinn substituted up to six players on defense depending on the base formation or the dime or nickel packages. One downside, was that the Falcons had four 12-men on the field penalties with the rampant substitutions.
Here are some of the key players in the Falcons’ scouting department:
Lionel Vital is currently the director of player personnel. He just completed his third season in this role. He was a candidate for the Tampa Bay general manager’s job in 2014. He is a 25-year veteran in scouting and player personnel.
DeJuan Polk, is the pro personnel coordinator. He’s been with the Falcons for 10 seasons.
Bob Kronenberg, is a pro scout. He just finished his fifth season as a pro scout.
Steve Sabo is the director of college scouting. He just completed his third season as the director of college scouting.
About the Author
