 A couple of seasons of 7-9 and 14-12 doesn't represent any aspect of our goals. It's not where we have committed the franchise, it's not where we've set our standards and our bar and the results are not acceptable and as the results are even in business, it is very disappointing. You know, disappointing for our friends, disappointing for everybody, certainly myself. On a couple of occasions when asked the question where did they fall short and he just simply said wins because it's all about wins. I think anytime you're going to be faced with a decision involving a coach change and a GM change it's just, it's not comfortable, it's not easy, you want to make sure you're doing it for all the right reasons and I think in Arthur's case, what in the expectation of our football team, our players, our coaches, certainly our fan base and that just drove the decision to be now. We've begun this journey now with hiring a new general manager, a new head coach. I expect every one of these people coming in to have a plan, to have a plan that will end up leading to a championship. Good morning coach, how are you? I'm great. I appreciate you having me on. Oh, absolutely. Well, thank you for being with us. Coaches really come by resume to me, you know, they've got to prove to you that they've been able to do it, they've been able to show that they can be successful with the formula that they've used, whether that's as a coordinator, as a position coach, whatever it may be, you want to look back to that history, you want to look to the people that they coached, you want to talk to those people. One of the things I like to do when you're researching coaches, I like to talk to three players that played for that coach and I like to understand from those players' perspective, you know, how did that coach get you better and why? And I think you can learn a lot from that. Give me four or five things that you think make a successful head coach, Arthur. Yeah, I mean, here's kind of my vision as coach. We want the most professional, unselfish, well-conditioned, toughest and physical team. So, OK, so what does that mean? We got to go get and preach an unselfish culture. Is the accountability of holding your best players accountable? And talking about it's about the team and get over yourself. And I think when you sit there and you want to preach it, you want to be a physical team, you can't say that and then you not go acquire physical players and certainly you can't say that in front of these guys and not go implement that on Sunday because I've seen too many coaches go there and they don't do what they tell you they're going to do. That's the biggest thing. We're going to treat you how you treat the team and you're going to hold your best players accountable. That's how you get guys to buy in and pros, pro football. Put the ball away, put the ball away. We're all going to eat today. We've got to keep the tempo going. Keep the tempo up, keep pounding and work them over and over. On the personnel side, I think, you know, you're looking for, in my mind today, a strategic analytic mind that's really looking to make a difference in the personnel side. Can you find a way to take the data you have, the information you have and get an edge? It's not easy, but it is something that we will look to do. You know, how you do anything is how you do everything. I've been there 18 years and so there's a different passion with my job. You know, I believe in growing and developing. You're people in the building, growing and developing, drafting and developing obviously your players. But when you have people that you can get an organization and when you have a philosophy of growth and development, there's a bigger purpose to it. So me being the example of somebody that can be somewhere for such a long time, that's what you strive for in an organization. Major change like this, where you're going to change the general manager of the head coach, you're going to give them great control over the roster. They need to. You'll want them to come in. You'll want them to examine the roster, to understand those players, to understand the individuals, understand the players, whether they may be in their careers and then make recommendations and take action based on that. Falcons announce its new general manager. Here he is right here. 40-year-old Terry Fontenot comes to Atlanta after spending 16 seasons with division rival New Orleans. So welcome Terry Fontenot to the team. The Falcons have also found their head coach. That's right, MJ. The Falcons announcing this afternoon that they have agreed to terms with the former Titans offensive coordinator, Arthur Smith, as their new head coach. Interviewed or requested to interview for all seven head coaching vacancies, he's creative on offense, which as you know, those are always attractive qualities to head coaching revitalize this offense after a year in which they left far too many points on the field. They need to get back in the mix in the NFC South soon. Arthur Smith is their choice to lead them there. A lot of work ahead for those two guys. Probably going to have very little sleep the next few weeks. Probably going to have a whole lot of phone calls and text messages, whether it's congratulatory or calling people to build out their staffs. Those two will work side by side to build this organization back up to what the owner, Arthur Blank, wants and feels like the fans of Atlanta deserve. Today is the start of a new era for us. We have obviously a new coach, a new general manager, and our search was extensive. And we're thrilled that we were the number one choice we made was Coach Smith from Tennessee. And he's got a great background, great credentials, had a ton of experience at Tennessee. Everything just kind of hits you and you go through this inner process. Get the job. I mean, your mind just starts moving a million. It's like a new adrenaline, new energy. And it's just, like I said, it's like a shot of espresso every morning when I wake up right now. I just want to thank Arthur Blank, Rich McKay and the whole Falcons organization for providing me this opportunity to be the head coach of Atlanta Falcons. It's an unbelievable opportunity and a dream come true. Now, there were a lot of teams who had interest in you, Coach. But what was it about the Falcons for you? Well, it was everything from the organization from Top Town, from Arthur Blank to Rich McKay. Obviously being in the city of Atlanta, it was all attractive and we just felt like it was a great fit for us. For those who don't know your father, Fred Smith, he is the founder and CEO of FedEx. Now Falcons fans probably hope that they will deliver, that you will help them deliver another winning season to Atlanta. On that note, I will see myself out, Coach. But thank you for joining me. Thank you, Brad. I called my dad. You know, he's a guy I call late night on the way home from work over the years as they're doing this. And so that was the first person I called. His father is the founder of FedEx. He's also a war hero. This is a guy that spent time in Vietnam, led men into battle. He's talking about leaning on a dude who built a multi-million dollar, billion dollar operation at FedEx. How about the fact that he's led guys into battle? That's a pretty good one to be able to lean on as well. One of the lessons he's taught me and my brothers and sisters is about chasing your dream, working hard, being humble, understanding the whole process that things don't happen overnight. It takes time, anything good to sustain. It's gonna take a long time. Things don't happen just overnight. I'm so excited to have the opportunity to be the coach here. I'm excited to work with Terry Fontenot and to have a collaborative effort to build this franchise and his football team going forward from 2021 and beyond. We're very fortunate that Terry was one of the leading candidates. You know, we think he's really one of the bright young, you know, minds in the NFL today. But philosophically, their culture and core values are really the same. And I think these two gentlemen really shared all that together. And they did it behind the scenes before we even were able to discuss who it was. Terry was the first one they interviewed. And Terry Fontenot talked about, hey, I went out and I interviewed these guys myself before even Arthur and them said anything to me about it. That tells me he has the initiative to go out and see what he likes about these coaches. So I thought that was impressive as well. It's kind of been a whirlwind and a little overwhelming in a good way. And now I'm getting excited because I got to, I just saw my office. So I know where my office is now and that's what I'm excited about too. I wanna be able to come into building and really get to work. 18 years ago, Mickey Loomis pulled in a 20-year-old kid. You got pretty choked up today. So you could see how important Mickey Loomis was in developing him, taking a chance on him as a marketing intern way back when when he was at Tulane in college and growing him up through the ranks, teaching him basically everything that he knows. My goal isn't to be a general manager. That's not my goal. Like I'm not just trying to be a general manager anywhere I can be a general manager. My goal is to be a part of an organization that I feel good about. And then I know we can win championships. So that made, got me excited about this job. And every step of the way, I really felt really good about it and really good about the opportunity. It's football and family. That's what I do. That's it. My faith and my principles, it has to be interlaced in everything I do. And so you wanna do things the right way on a daily basis within your job. Whatever you're doing, whatever God has called you to do, do it with passion, do it with intensity, focus on the details and how you do anything. It's how you do everything. How you do anything is how you do everything. That stuck in my eyes. I said, wow, that's powerful. If you watched that press conference, you saw him bring his kids on there. You saw, he talked about how excited they were. He talked about now. There's gonna be a bunch of Louisiana Falcons fans now. That kind of stuff tells you what kind of person a guy is. Like they've bled black and gold since they were born. But now they bleed black and red and they're ready to come and support dad and be a part of the city. Kate, who's your favorite player? Hello, James. Good answer. We wanna win in 2021. I believe you can win in this league and win very quickly. And I believe with the roster, we can do that. With respect to expectations and to go for it, we expect to be a really good team right away. I go back and I look at 2007 and 2008, right? And you look at those years and you say, okay, Michael Vick was the quarterback. Bobby Petrino was the coach. Michael got indicted and left. Bobby left. We had an interim coach. We had problems. And in 2008, we brought Matt Ryan on and we went to the playoffs. Today at the Georgia Dome, the Atlanta Falcons start their 44th season in the NFL, fresh and new. A new rookie quarterback in Matt Ryan and a new head coach in Mike Smith. Turner gets it again. Going right, cuts left, open field. At the 45, 50, Lions territory. Headed for the right sideline, they're not gonna catch him. Mike Brown here. Was our expectations as high as they were this year or maybe next year? No, for 2008 they weren't, but we exceeded them. And because in this league, you can win. And with our talent and our base of talent, we know we can win. First impression for me are everything and both those guys kicked it straight through the uprights and maybe the first touchdown in a year for me for sure. I spoke to Terry, but we share the same vision. We have the same values. It won't be groupthink, but Terry and I, it'll be an ultimate partnership as we look to build this team in the short term and the long term. I would say that the first steps are obviously me and Arthur communicating a lot, again on our vision, making sure we're aligned and really discussing the roster here and how we're gonna move forward. It's self-analysis and then we can have our plan moving forward. How do they win? How do they win big? How do they consistently win? How do you maintain that and sustain it? For Falcon fans, we've been saying this. It's a time of hope which gives us a little bit more of a better feeling as we move forward. You want to be the most professional, unselfish, well-conditioned, toughest physical football team in the league. And in order to do that, you're gonna have to find tough players and unselfish players. I think we're gonna play to the strengths of the team and we're gonna be flexible, but we're gonna do it in all three phases and we're gonna have guys that are great teammates and understand how to adapt. The accountability that they talked about, accountable, being accountable for their actions, making their players accountable, their best players accountable. Holding players accountable. It's something within a locker room environment that's not talked about. What I do know is he is about ball and I like that. We're gonna be the smartest, most detailed, hardest working staff because that's what we want in players. We want our team to be smart, tough, competitive. We're gonna make sure we're detailed in the process and we're doing everything we can in turning over every stone to make this team as competitive as we can. That's what we're gonna do and we're gonna do it the right way. We're gonna do it the right way. We're gonna build for long-term success. We're gonna do everything we can do to really build this team the right way.