What Role Could Matt Ryan, John Harbaugh Play In Falcons Future Plans?

ATLANTA – The Atlanta Falcons will speak with John Harbaugh, according to comments made by team owner Arthur Blank on Thursday.

"John has been one of the most successful coaches in the last 20 years in our league," Blank said during his end-of-season press conference. "He has won at every level. And so, he would certainly be a candidate who we'd want to spend some time with. Whether or not he would have any interest in Atlanta, I don't know."

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Harbaugh, who was fired by the Ravens on Tuesday evening after 18 years in Baltimore, instantly became a hot target for the teams searching for their next head coach. In his time with the Ravens, Harbaugh has won 193 games (which ranks 12th all-time) and led the franchise to 11 double-digit win seasons, with 12 playoff appearances and a Super Bowl in 2012-13.

For reference, the Falcons have had just 17 winning seasons in franchise history, while Harbaugh has had 13 winning records since 2008.

Whoever the next coach ends up being will be the eighth to have served under Blank, and the fifth since Harbaugh was hired in Baltimore. With that level of instability, the question becomes whether Atlanta would even be an appealing place for a coach like Harbaugh to come.

For reasons separate from Harbaugh, those issues were something that Falcons ownership made moves to aggressively address.

Blank, who has owned the majority rights to the franchise since 2002, brought in a third-party organization (Sportsology) to evaluate the franchise after it extended what has now become the NFL’s second-longest playoff drought earlier this season.

What he learned was that there was a “lack of clarity” within his power structure, something he admitted was rather surprising.

“In any business, in any industry, if you don’t have clarity around vision in what you’re trying to establish and trying to build, you end up with a lot of disparate thoughts about moving in different directions,” Blank explained. “That means you’re not only unsuccessful, but you can be very inefficient.”

With that in mind, it became clear Blank had settled on making changes several weeks ago, well before the four-game winning streak.

His plan is to now institute the new role of ‘president of football’ atop his organization, with final say in football matters and both the head coach and general manager reporting to this individual. Several individuals have been lined up to interview for this position, starting Thursday afternoon, but it is widely expected by NFL insiders that Matt Ryan will assume the role.

The former Falcons quarterback has no front office experience, but the owner is very fond of him, and Ryan played a central role in the best stretch in franchise history. Blank credited Ryan’s ability to lead a football team, his overall knowledge of the game, and his ability to work with staff and players as central reasons why he would fit the role.

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“[Ryan] is an outstanding individual, a great community leader and the kind of person we certainly would want to consider in that position,” Blank said.

The individual for this role will be hired first, before they then get involved in the process of hiring the general manager and head coach – a process that Blank hopes includes the former Ravens head coach.