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Dan Quinn wants to see Thomas Dimitroff return

Football: NFC Playoffs: Closeup of Atlanta Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff during game vs San Francisco 49ers at Georgia Dome. Atlanta, GA 1/20/2013 CREDIT: Simon Bruty (Photo by Simon Bruty /Sports Illustrated/Getty Images) (Set Number: X156071 TK1 R20 F129 )

Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

Last year, after a second straight losing season in Atlanta (which followed five straight above-.500 campaigns), it seemed for a while that Falcons G.M. Thomas Dimitroff was in danger of being replaced. Ultimately, owner Arthur Blank opted to change coaches and to restructure the front office, giving more personnel duties to assistant G.M. Scott Pioli, giving final say over the roster to new coach Dan Quinn, and still keeping Dimitroff in charge of the front office.

This year, with a 5-0 start yielding to 1-7 and the Falcons fading from what once seemed to be a sure-thing playoff berth, some believe Dimitroff faces the end of the road, again. Quinn hopes that’s not the case.

Thomas is a really big part of why I wanted to be here,” Quinn said, via the Associated Press. “The respect I have for him, and the partnership that I wanted to help create from the head coach to a General Manager. We were in sync in every facet from the time we got here to going through every process together.”

That kind of partnership should exist in every organization, with shared accountability between the head coach and the G.M. Either both succeed, or both fail. Any other approach creates an environment in which dysfunction can blossom, with the head coach trying to blame the G.M. and/or the G.M. trying to blame the head coach.

Most teams won’t fire both at the same time, opting instead to get rid of one and hope that the holdover and the new hire can work together. Usually, that approach has a better chance of working when a new coach is hired, since most General Managers want to hire their own head coaches.

Owner Arthur Blank recently has expressed “complete confidence” in Quinn, in response to a direct question about whether the first-year coach risks termination. Eventually, Blank likely will be asked the same question about Dimitroff. Anything other than the same answer will invite more speculation that Blank is thinking about making a change -- regardless of whether the head coach wants a change to be made.