Falcons' Blank: Belichick never asked for player control - ESPN

The Atlanta Falcons hired Raheem Morris to be their head coach last month, but the franchise's owner, Arthur Blank, wanted to make a few things clear Friday about the team's search and one candidate in particular: Bill Belichick.

Blank, speaking for the first time since hiring Morris, said Belichick was never offered the Falcons job and that Belichick never asked for full control of player personnel or the goings-on in the team's Flowery Branch, Ga. headquarters.

Belichick, the six-time Super Bowl-winning former head coach of the New England Patriots, interviewed twice in person with the Falcons for the position — one of 14 candidates Atlanta spoke with before selecting Morris.

«I do want to make it 1,000% clear, wanna go to 2,000% or 100,000, whatever percent you want to use,» Blank said. «Bill Belichick never asked for, in our discussion, full control of the personnel or the building or anything of that nature.

»He was very inclusive, very collaborative. He met Terry Fontenot, checked out our people doing his own references, sent me a private text, which I eventually shared with Terry that he'd be happy working with him."

Blank said Belichick never had that level of control as a requirement and that the Falcons «had a very good series of interviews with him.» At the end of all of them, though, the Falcons chose to go with Morris — who had worked with the Falcons previously and had been the team's interim head coach in 2020 after the club fired Dan Quinn following an 0-5 start.

Morris, in his introductory press conference Monday, described Atlanta as home and a place both he and his family felt comfortable. Blank felt comfortable with Morris, too, and believes he learned a lot from his three years working under head