 What's up everybody? I am Scott Bayer, Atlanta Falcons.com digital managing editor and across from me head coach Arthur Smith Who's sitting down for the very first time ever in our brand-new ticket master studios and Arthur? It's been a while since you and I have have had a chance to catch up You have hired a defensive coordinator in Ryan Nielsen since then What really sold you on him during the interview process and why was he the right fit for this team? Yeah, we had a very long and thorough process. It was great We got to talk to a lot of different candidates a lot of really good candidates and You know for us, it's all about fit right? There's a great coaches in this league and guys go with other teams But Ryan fit us fit our culture and really it was his vision and how you wanted to implement that going forward And you know you can get a lot into schemes There's a lot of talks and a lot of people and they get in these interviews They give you these grand plan grand plans, and they really don't have a great implementation you know to follow that up and a Very impressive Ryan, you know talked to him, you know few times as we're going through this and And he's at the ground running and you know there's some things we want to do And it's not necessarily gonna be copy and print from what they did in New Orleans. I think that's the key I would hope you know if you've seen what we've done here certainly go back to offensively We don't look the same Offensively that we did in 19 and 20 in Tennessee and we don't we didn't look the same last year as we did in 1921 you know playing our strengths and whatnot. So very excited about Ryan Love his background. He's another big-picture thinker guy that was a former defensive lineman Love his vision that you know to develop players and really schematically about where this is going How we want to defend certain things first second down kind of the trends going around the league He has a long track record of being an excellent defensive line coach Would you anticipate him working with the defensive front here as well? Absolutely? You'll see strategically how we set up the staff and you know every year is gonna be a little bit different based on what your needs are There's a natural evolution that goes on. There are a lot of things behind the scenes that People you know, it's kind of boring if you really want to talk about yeah, you know the game plan and responsibilities I think you know as a As you get these hiring processes, you know where titles get thrown around and you know whether that's agent or Media manipulation you want to put it doesn't really give context of what's really going on behind the scenes And so Ryan will oversee the front, you know linear will be working with them So will Dave Huxville and we're really fired up to have had that group here and where we're going with the front And you and Ryan wasn't the only big name defensive coach that you added You also added somebody that you have a long history with Jerry Gray who's been in DC at a couple different spots I think he's been coaching about as long as you've been alive. Maybe why was it important to add him to this staff? Well, it's about fit and chemistry and mix and you want to have it You know a diverse group of opinions to guys with different backgrounds and you don't want to want to be stale You know you have your non-negotiables and things that you really value You know your culture and the way you style you want to play but you have to be willing to adapt to see the trends certainly with Jerry You know since I was last with Jerry from Tennessee He's certainly changed and adapted and been in Minnesota been in Green Bay You know had to face a lot of really good quarterbacks and being in the NFC north Different variations of coverages things. He's learned along the way Really fits into our culture. We're really excited to have Jerry here too. He'll be overseeing the back end And and you also have Steven Jackson moving from the offensive side to the to the defensive backfielder as well Yeah, when you can add quality coaches, that's another thing too, you know as you're putting staff together It was a great for it Steve's professional development He came over here and spent a year on the offense was very beneficial to Dave and I and a lot of things We did behind the scenes Steve's been played a long time in this league and he's coached the back end Him and Jerry and I all worked together in Washington as well the same defensive staff really liked the chemistry Jerry you have and really their development plan as well Where we need to go with the secondary and some of our young players and what we'll continue to add as I'm looking over this Over this entire staff. You see a lot of new faces. You don't see any new Quarterbacks coach now that Charles London is in Tennessee. What is the plan for the quarterback spot? Yeah, so Dave we're going obviously being our coordinator. He'll also Overseeing me working with the quarterbacks. There's a lot of things that Charles did behind the scenes And you know I'll go back to my experiences whether I was the tight end coach or whatever my title was It can change year to year. Those are what I'm talking about context and kind of the mundane of really what goes on in coaching Well, there's a lot of mythology out there You know as you see these snapshots and you know sometimes guys get too much credit or they don't get enough credit depending on You know how you shape your staff and and the work that goes on behind the scenes And so there's a lot of things that Charles did that we believe in developing our own guys here, too We're you know Mike Petrie and TJ. They'll take all more responsibility along with coaching the wide outs and the running backs We have some great young coaches that have been in our program that deserve a shot. You know Steve King will move over to offense Patrick Kramer and those guys deserve shots. So we'll distribute different responsibilities You know how we came plan and you know our logistics that go into practice planning that we're really excited Those guys as they continue to work the way up also Move Nick Perry over to offense which would be good for his development and vice versa We did with Mario Gabriel. So he'll be working with defense and I think that's important as you're leaning and developing your own guys we bought guys in from the outside, but we also have a talent, you know talented group of young coaches that are that are working their craft that can really help us and We're really fired up about this group. You've been really busy obviously hiring a lot of these new coaches But there's but there's no break. You're getting ready to head off to the NFL scouting combine You have free agency coming up. Is this a really exciting time of the off-season for you as you look to upgrade this roster? Absolutely, you know, it's certainly it's got a different field than we've had the first two years You get here. You're doing the job. There's a lot of things going on, you know, some of the obstacles that You're trying to work through in terms of roster building Yeah, when we do it's Obviously, it's not breaking news anybody. We do have a lot of cap space and we're excited You know what about our plan going into free agency and certainly with this class? We need another good draft class as well This is a good Important part of the process as you get to Indianapolis, you know, you got everybody in there these interviews really looking forward to those and Listen to our scouts these guys have been working on this class for several years and it's important It's and you've said several times that it's not just about finding the best 53 It's about finding the right guys How important is culture fit when you're looking at signing new free agents or adding new pieces to your next draft class? Yeah, it's really important to us, you know, the easiest thing is to evaluate. Well, this guy can run You can see all that stuff on tape The guy's big you can run, you know the minimum job requirements at certain positions. Yeah, but it's about You know the mental makeup What they're about their habits all these things you're digging into and And getting those guys and again you There gonna be a lot of guys here that we we want to coach that will never get the opportunity Some of it the way it falls in the draft some of it's luck and then you know the order where you select it But I think our staff has done a really good job. You know our first two years Getting the character right You know and that that gets on out It's a big term, but it's really about the mental makeup their habits things we're looking for with these guys and you know growth potential and development You were talking Right after the this last season about trying to get better With with with the defensive pass rush and becoming more explosive on the offensive side of that ball Do you look at free agency as a chance to upgrade those two areas? Yeah, I think you use every Broster mechanism available. You know the thing is that happen You're going through you know not skipping any steps as you're saying hey look if we can add this player You know we may have you know may take touches from this guy You know we may have to you know move them over here So there's a lot of strategy involved in that and again what we can control guys will target And then some of it will be out of our control if somebody resigns with their you know their own team before they hit the market, but We've got a pretty good feel and this will be a big week for that as well As you as you kind of move forward here the Atlanta Falcons were a very good running team last year Do you how important is it to maintain that efficiency? Running and could we see some new faces may be involved with the run game? well certainly, I mean I think the one thing that You can go back and look that we're willing to do here You know it's easy to use buzzwords and coach speak about it. You know being adapt and we'll you know change You know year to year a week to week whatever we got to do to win it, but you know we've proven that you know You go back to 21 We certainly picked the ball up more and leaning that certainly Matt strengths were and what we felt the strengths of the team Or as we're you know building Culture out and then you know going in the last year, you know Without having Matt we obviously signed Marcus and end up drafting Dez There's some things that we knew we needed to get better out on the flip side from 21 Well sure rushing attack and as we leaned into that we were a lot different than we were in 21 Go back and look at our 22 season You know it wasn't just your traditional running game that you saw we were in the pistol more We used a lot of his own read which we felt played to the strengths and doing everything we could to win Win those games as we built it. We made the transition to Dez And you'll see it hopefully be more balanced because you do want want to get more explosive Whether that comes from the run, you know in the passing game There will be more of a balance that that is certainly Be our intent going into the 23 season. Yeah, and here comes some quarterback questions Desmond Ritter How do you think he did over his Four starts to wrap up 2022. Well, I think Dez in the four game sample size Improved a lot. I think the other things that I thought he did well He didn't repeat a lot of the same mistakes, you know, there's a lot of things that go on, you know Playing late in the season like that going on the road I thought he did a nice job handling those critical downs third down fourth down Getting a situational football two-minute certainly week after week improved a lot There's a lot of improvement he made from the time he got here why we're excited to work with him So I do think Dez's future is bright. Is he your starting quarterback in 2023? We're not damning any right now. Yeah, there's a lot of things that that can happen You know very very excited about Dez no different than we're excited about Tyler out jeer and Drake London And the improvements they've made and guys that are currently on our roster, you know As always all options on the table anything we can do to improve this team to help us win and ultimately the one championships That's what that's what we're looking for you were saying that that that that 2022 seven and ten record was different than 2021 can you expand upon that like why do you think that that is? well Different reasons, you know, you go back and look at those one possession games, you know, they don't necessarily tell the story They're not all the same. It's like when you're sitting here You're looking at some of these titles that get thrown around the staff and nobody really knows what they do unless you're behind the scenes to get contacts Then I look, you know on the surface. So yeah, the record was the same record one possession games were different Different situations came up at a different team where I thought We were a little, you know, we obviously veteran Heavy on the offense and that was led by Matt right and some of the receivers we count on early and Kyle You know, obviously he got going the passing game That's a different team and those games got You know the way they played out were different and I think it certainly helped Think Matt was pretty damn good in two-minute football, you know, we got the ball There was a couple games we had had the lead where we lost lead then we were able to come back Yeah, it finished a win This was a much younger team The way we played was a little bit different those one possession games There's a few of them that you know, we we got down early and we clawed back Just the way we played what happened in those games You know how we won some of those games that we lost them every year is a different story, but this team was younger I think that those experiences certainly will pay off. Yeah, we were in a lot of pressure situations For a lot of young players and you're coming from college football and you're asking me big programs You're not in a lot of tight games, right? They're not and that's the beauty of the NFL You know, you get down with the critical every snap matters, you know, that's cliche, but it's true And in every phase too, you know, we were able I thought we improved in In the special teams area Certainly made some game-changing plays for us as the roster got younger some of these young guys the D. Angelo owns of Troy Anderson's Lorenzo Carter Cadero Hodge Richie Grant Avery Williams, they made some enormous plays in the kicking game Obviously Cordell Patterson was able to break the record and there were some great blocks on that play You know going back top my head Troy Essentially blocked two guys, you know that that's exciting. You know the way I thought defensively we improved certainly we want to get into some You know more long yard of situation to be able to pin our ears back go get the quarterback That's certainly a point of emphasis, you know the fast rush and becoming more explosive and often when When you look back at this last draft class, you got some big-time contributions from Drake from Troy all the way down the line Stacking draft classes is always key when it comes to having good roster depth What what do you think that you got from this most recent group? And are you really excited to see guys like Drake guys like Troy continue to to Progress throughout their yeah, absolutely, you know that's the hardest thing about this This league is a consistency. It's about any industry life is to improve and year after year We've seen a lot of guys they come out strong as a rookie and you never hear from right here for guys that People may consider a bus for the first two years and then it clicks for them And so there's a fine line in there as you're developing and guys as you're trying to push them guys that were even part of that 21 class or guys that maybe are on the roster here before guys. We've gotten Through college free agency at post draft or guys. We put on one-year deals that You know that was the only way we could sign them and you know, we hope to get them get them back and improve everybody But certainly you were excited about the way You know last year's draft class was rookies as they finished, you know I thought certainly thought Drake and Tyler play their best football down the stretch I thought Troy did as well AK all these guys, but the hardest thing for them will be they'll be in the whole new class coming in When you're adding free agents as well as that competition is real players and coaches And that's that's a beauty of this league when you step in there You've got to prove it every year and so that'll be our challenge One more football games and we want to be playing, you know late January and early February and one more thing here And you talk a lot about short-term plan long-term vision and often that is in reference to a You know like one player, but overall for this organization You have short-term plan long-term vision Where are you in terms of executing that long-term vision? And this must be a really exciting time as you kind of continue to execute that long-term plan Absolutely, I mean you've got to be willing to adapt to and there's things that with the roster things have come up that We've had to to move on from things are out of our control and that certainly you got to be able to pivot any good organization You better go to pivot, you know, it's not going to go exactly the plan. And so our what's your contingency? I think we've proven that we've been aggressive in some of the deals we made and then certainly when we've options will come up to be able to adapt and they're different than changing quarterbacks late in a year You know, we're in a tight playoff race and certainly weren't out of it But we thought the best thing going forward for short-term was to play Des and certainly for the long term See where we are right now Going forward of that at that spot so a lot of things but here three the way it where we're at now Certainly our caps clear allows to do some more things to become more aggressive and player acquisitions and Like as always we put high expectations on us. We've never shot away from that 21 we certainly didn't shy away from the 22, but we feel really good about what we're going right now in 23 Arthur Smith, thank you so much for stopping by Ticketmaster Studios and we will talk to you again really soon. I appreciate it Scott. Thank you