Until we get the entire story, there will be questions about the Falcons’ interest in Deshaun Watson, and they came up in yesterday’s press conference following Arthur Smith’s firing.
Falcons Arthur Blank:
The decision to go after Deshaun Watson as collaborative and at some point it didn’t make sense for us to proceed.
Looking back with hind site, I don’t think we wouldn’t have done anything differently
— Zach Klein (@ZachKleinWSB) January 8, 2024
Though I can speculate and will later in this piece, here’s what we do know as fact.
In 2022, the Cleveland Browns sent three first-round picks, a third-round pick, and two fourth-round picks to the Houston Texans in exchange for Deshaun Watson, who then inked an unprecedented fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million contract shortly after the news of the trade broke.
We know how close the Falcons were to landing Watson, who corresponded with Leonard Fournette and Jarvis Landry over FaceTime about joining forces on the Falcons. A piece from The Athletic shined an even brighter light on the situation by stating, “Most within the Falcons’ building assumed Watson was theirs.”
Now, time for my tinfoil hat conspiracies. The Falcons, that includes Arthur Blank, Rich McKay, Terry Fontenot and Arthur Smith, believed Watson was going to be the next quarterback in Atlanta.
Not only that, but they were also excited about the pursuit because of who Watson was in Houston while conveniently overlooking his disturbing off-the-field situation and Matt Ryan’s current standing within the franchise.
It blew up in their face, and they deserve to be questioned until we get the full story. The Falcons have been a poorly run franchise with no semblance of a working corporate structure since Arthur Smith and Terry Fontenot took over in Atlanta.
Each man reported to Rich McKay, who said he had no day-to-day responsibilities back in 2021 when the new regime took over. That’s clearly not the case. He’s Arthur Blank’s right hand man, sitting in his ear telling him exactly what to do next.
The Watson fiasco is no different. There’s no rhyme or reason to what this Falcons organization does, and nobody should expect that to change just because they have fired their head coach.
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Photographer: Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire
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