Could the Falcons keep Raheem Morris and fire Terry Fontenot?

We’re getting down to the wire now. With the 2025 season nearly over, big decisions are looming across the organization. The team has being working with the consulting firm Sportology this fall and winter in an effort to audit football operations and figure out what needs to change to pull out of what now stands at an eight year streak of losing season. Among the decisions to come? The fate of general manager Terry Fontenot, head coach Raheem Morris, and the possible addition of Matt Ryan to the franchise’s power structure, with all the roster changes you’d expect in the wake of those decisions.

With those possible changes looming, reporting around the team’s process and decisions to come have been heating up. In the past few days, in particular, insiders ranging from Albert Breer to Dianna Russini have reported something genuinely surprising: Fontenot may be out, but Morris may stay.

Here are the relevant passages from those reports, starting with Russini:

(Sportology’s work) is expected to be weighed alongside the organization’s internal evaluations: two seasons (and a 15-18 record) under coach Raheem Morris, five seasons under Fontenot, how this year has unfolded, the perceived state of the roster and the franchise’s overall team-building approach. Many around the league expect the Falcons to move on from Fontenot and stick with Morris as coach. One potential added voice to the mix? Former quarterback Matt Ryan, who is in talks to return to the organization in a front-office role.

And Breer:

• The Falcons’ recent surge—they’ve won three straight, and four of six after a five-game losing streak dropped them to 3–7—has cast some doubt on the long-held assumption in league circles that owner Arthur Blank was preparing to clean house.

In recent weeks, the consulting firm Sportology, which has helped Blank with his soccer teams, has been brought in to run a top-to-bottom health check on the team’s football operation. My understanding is that it’s actually better than some on the outside might think. And the prospect of Matt Ryan coming aboard in a Chris Spielman–type role could be in play.

All that isn’t to say everyone’s safe. But the winning streak will likely help coach Raheem Morris, in his second year, more than GM Terry Fontenot, who’s in his fifth year (Atlanta last made the playoffs in 2018). If there’s a GM change, Bears assistant GM Ian Cunningham would be a name to watch, given the close relationship between Ryan and Chicago GM Ryan Poles, who was a lineman for the quarterback at Boston College 20 years ago. —A.B.

What do we make of this? Here’s what I think:

1. Matt Ryan’s hire is expected, and if he comes on, he’d be overseeing a general manager hire and comfortable with keeping Morris. His multiple years with Morris on the team—he was the interim head coach in 2020 and on the team’s staff from 2015-2020—give him first-hand knowledge of how the coach operates, and that experience likely has convinced Ryan that the team can win with Morris at the helm if he has the right personnel. I wouldn’t rule out coordinator and position coach changes, however, and would in fact expect them. Morris may well be obligated to add a new coach to the staff who is focused on game management, which has still been a bit of a struggle for him in 2025, but the fact that he’s been around only two years and the team is zeroing in personnel would keep him around.
2. Sportology and the team’s internal decision makers have hit on Fontenot being a bigger problem than Morris, with Fontenot’s five years running the team and overseeing five losing seasons, habit of trading up in the draft, and consistent problems with roster depth and positional weaknesses likely contributing to that perception. From a process standpoint, Sportology and the Falcons would have to believe that Fontenot and company have been guilty of missteps that have led to the current state of the roster, while also putting the bulk of the team’s failings over the past five seasons at his feet. Fontenot’s longevity would be working against him in this scenario, as he has worked with two head coaches with eerily consistent results over that span.
3. The Falcons, if they were to go this route, would have to believe that they could pull in a quality general manager with Ryan in his new position and a head coach already installed. Breer’s suggestion of Cunningham makes sense for multiple reasons, as he’s been thought of as a future GM candidate for multiple years, would be familiar to Ryan thanks to his connection to Bears GM Ryan Poles, and has more of a college scouting background than Fontenot’s pro personnel background. That may well be a priority for the team going forward, given their many high profile free agency swings not adding up to winning seasons.
4. Atlanta does not believe they are that far away, something their consultants would presumably confirm. I’ve talked many, many times about how dangerous I think that line of thinking can be for this team, given that it has led them to take shortcuts in the past that have led to their current situation. But keeping your current head coach suggests you think better personnel decisions in the offseason can get you from 8-9 to where you want to go. The only other read is that they don’t believe they can hire a better coach than Morris this offseason and that he’s essentially on a one-year, prove-it deal heading into the 2026 season, so take your pick there.

The Falcons will once again be zigging where other teams zag if they go this route, given that it’s not all that common for teams to swap out a general manager while keeping a head coach. If these reports prove accurate, the hope would be that better decisions with the roster will lead to better outcomes for Morris, with Ryan and a new general manager providing a direction that finally pulls the Falcons out of their mediocrity while Morris and a tweaked coaching staff get better out of Atlanta’s roster than they’ve been able to over the past two years. It would be a bet, ironically enough, on the talent Fontenot has been able to assemble to this point while simultaneously charting a new course into the future.

We’ll find out soon enough if this is indeed the avenue Atlanta intends to travel, at which point we can react appropriately. I do think change to the front office is probably appropriate, given that Fontenot’s group has added impact talent to the top of the roster but has only managed to assemble quality depth at a small handful of positions and spent a lot of money and draft capital on quarterback over the past five years with not enough to show for it. But keeping Morris and betting on a short-term lift with the team’s draft capital and resources set to be limited in 2026 and lots of new faces in the team’s power structure feels like a big bet, to put it mildly, one I’m not sure will pay off. We may well be looking at a complete overhaul in two parts, with 2027 arriving for the coaching staff, unless Morris can turn a strong finish to 2025 into something better than expected in 2026. All we can reasonably ask of the Falcons is that they land on something that builds toward long-term success at last.

What do you think of these reports?