The Falcons have cleaned house, firing head coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot hours after winning their regular-season finale over the Saints, the team announced on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Falcons owner Arthur Blank believed it was time for \u201cnew leadership\u201d in both roles and the organization will begin its search immediately.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Morris\u2019 tenure as head coach lasted two seasons with the Falcons, while leading the team to a 16-18 overall record during that span, while Fontenot had served as general manager for five seasons, which did not produce a playoff appearance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Atlanta Falcons head coach Raheem Morris on the sideline during the game against the New Orleans Saints during the second half at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
\u201cI have great personal affinity for both Raheem and Terry and appreciate their hard work and dedication to the Falcons, but I believe we need new leadership in these roles moving forward,\u201d Blank said in a statement. \u201cThe decision to move away from people who represent the organization so well and have a shared commitment to the values that are important to the organization is not an easy one, but the results on the field have not met our expectations or those of our fans and leadership. I wish Raheem and Terry the absolute best in their future pursuits.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Falcons did not announce a timeline as to when they\u2019d like to make hires for either role, but the team did say that ZRG Partners is being brought in to help with the head coach search and Sportsology Group is coming in to assist with the GM selection process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Morris, a New Jersey native who had gotten his coaching start as a graduate assistant with the now-defunct Hofstra University football program, had taken over as head coach in 2024 to much fanfare and expectations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The hiring of Morris became notable that year because the Falcons had been, and still stand as, the only NFL team to interview ex-Patriots coach Bill Belichick following his departure from New England.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Atlanta Falcons general manager Terry Fontenot watches a game against the New Orleans Saints during the second half at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Dale Zanine-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Atlanta finished this season 8-9 and was eliminated from postseason contention with a month remaining in the season, but the Falcons did win their final four games of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Morris did receive support from players inside the Falcons locker room, including from stars Drake London and Bijan Robinson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to support Raheem no matter what,\u201d Robinson told reporters following the game. \u201cI love him as a big brother, father figure, coach, everything and just go from there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
London had told reporters that \u201cI want Rah back with all my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fontenot had joined the Falcons organization from the Saints when he was hired in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Falcons have cleaned house, firing head coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot hours after winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2670,9,11,10,22,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-89266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-atlanta-falcons","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}