In the interim, Falcons president and CEO Rich McKay is back in the position he used to hold when owner Arthur Blank hired him in 2003.
With the Falcons firing general manager Thomas Dimitroff and coach Dan Quinn Sunday evening, McKay has assumed the position of handling day-to-day decisions for the football operations staff.
In essence, McKay is the interim general manager.
But as McKay said during a 30-minute news conference, conducted virtually and with a pool reporter asking questions typed into a chat, he needed some assistance since he also has to assist with a search for a permanent head coach and general manager to go along with handling the remainder of in-season transactions.
Therefore, Ruston Webster, a national scout who has been based in Nashville, will assist McKay when it comes to overseeing the scouting department. Although Webster was previously an out-of-office scout, he has experience in this sort of role as he was the general manager for the Tennessee Titans from 2012-15.
“I just want another set of eyes to help me because I have a lot of things going on on our plate in respect to the search,” McKay said.
For now, that’s the only shift within the personnel department.
McKay said that Steve Sabo (director of player personnel), Shepley Heard (director of pro personnel) and Anthony Robinson (director of college scouting) will continue to hold their positions on staff. Of course, once the season is over and the Falcons hire a new general manager, several changes to the personnel department could take place.
All three of these scouting directors have been with the Falcons for at least a decade. Sabo is in his 11th season with the franchise, having been hired in 2010. Robinson has been with the personnel department since 2008, which is when Dimitroff became the franchise’s general manager. The only scouting director to predate Dimitroff is Heard, who was hired on McKay’s personnel staff in 2005.
Webster’s familiarity with McKay played a role in his elevation for the interim. Before he joined Tennessee’s franchise in 2010 as the vice president of player personnel, Webster worked for McKay throughout his tenure as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' general manager, which was from 1994-2003. Webster became the Seattle Seahawks' vice president of player personnel in 2006 before taking that same job in Tennessee in 2010. By 2012, Webster was the Titans' general manager.
After Tennessee fired him following the 2015 season, Webster became a scout for the Falcons.
While he was with Tampa Bay, Webster worked with Falcons interim coach Raheem Morris from 2002-05.
“I just wanted Ruston because he has a very good comfort level with Raheem Morris,” McKay said. “They know each other from the Tampa days. I felt he was the right guy to come in and help me on a day to day basis.”
When it comes to the future of how the personnel department will look, McKay will continue to preside over the head coach and general manager. Blank made that move this past offseason, which moved McKay from the business side of the franchise to football operations.
The coach and general manager will report to McKay, who will report to Blank.
“In a traditional sense, you usually hire a general manager (and) the general manager picks the head coach,” Blank said. “But this is a little bit of a new situation. Since they both report to Rich, it doesn’t really make a difference. We’ll look at the timing of the best people and when they’re available because of the nuances of the pandemic this year and how we’re dealing with that and how it affects this league year and how it affects college and how it affects a variety of other things. We may be doing things a little bit out of the normal sequence. We’ll look for the most talented people as soon as they’re available.”
McKay said there is no plan to shake up the roster before the new coach and general manager are brought on board. Once the hirings are made, which can’t happen until after the 2020 season, the new staff will have the final say over the roster.
When Quinn was hired in 2015, with Dimitroff being retained, the deal reached was that Dimitroff had personnel control but that Quinn had the final say on the 53-man roster. On this topic, the only thing McKay committed to Monday was that the next general manager will determine the make-up of the team’s personnel.
“In the future, we’ll hire a general manager; that general manager will have personnel control,” McKay said. “We’ll figure out depending on who the individuals are -- the head coach and the GM -- exactly how that structure may work. But the GM will have final say on personnel and they’ll report to me. It was a structure we tried to put in place this last offseason with Dan and Thomas. My role is to support them and that’s what I’ll do in the new role.”
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