The Falcons are coming off back-to-back losing seasons and fired their coach this offseason, which would seem to indicate they’re a rebuilding team. But that’s not how owner Arthur Blank sees it.
Blank told new coach Dan Quinn and General Manager Thomas Dimitroff that he expects to see a winning team on the field this year, and he isn’t interested in baby steps toward winning some day in the future.
“I’ve said this to Dan. I’ve said this to Thomas as late as tonight. We’re not about tomorrow. We’re not about rebuilding and building. We’re about winning and we’re about winning now,” Blank told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The Atlanta fans and the fans across the NFL are entitled to know that this ownership and this leadership team will do whatever it takes to put a winning team on the field. We will not wait any period of time to do it. We’ll leave no stone unturned. We’ll look at everything that we can that’s possible to give us the best opportunity to win. We owe that to our fans. We owe that to the NFL.”
Blank said the Falcons have to win now so they maximize their ability to win during the prime of quarterback Matt Ryan’s career.
“It’s extraordinarily important,” he said. “I made that point, that exact point to Dan and Thomas both. Matt has been here eight years. He probably won’t play another [eight] years. Peyton [Manning] is 39 and still playing, but he’s unusual. Matt is 30 now. We want to make sure that we have a great franchise quarterback. We want to make sure that we support him in every possible way that we can. That’s from every perspective. You see teams around the league that have a lot of other pieces, but don’t have a quarterback. They struggle and they bring in a quarterback and the quarterback can’t make it. Fifty percent of the quarterbacks drafted in the first round are busts. They don’t make it in the league.”
Ryan has made it in the NFL, but he hasn’t made it to the Super Bowl. Blank thinks the Falcons should be aiming to get there this year.
