Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank told reporters he is "extraordinarily disappointed" in how the season has turned out following his team's sixth straight loss and he plans to take the "next couple of weeks" to evaluate head coach Dan Quinn's status.
"I think it's a fair question. Much like the coach just said, I'm extraordinarily disappointed in the season," Blank said after Sunday's 27-20 loss to the Seahawks. "Nobody would have anticipated 1-7 and the lack of consistency. Today was a prime example of that, down 24-0. If we could just play the second half, we would have won the game; but it doesn't work that way. We'll take the next couple of weeks during this bye period of time and evaluate where we are.
"Whatever decision we have to make will be made for the right reasons for the long term. We certainly have a lot of intelligence on this coaching staff here. We have three other head coaches, we've got three general managers in this building beyond Thomas [Dimitroff], actually four, including Rich McKay. The knowledge base is there, but the performance is not. And this is a performance-driven business, I understand that and they understand that as well. So, we'll continue to look at everything we can and make the right decisions that we're going to have to make. I'm not bashful about making those decisions."
Quinn's job status has been a weekly topic in Atlanta over the past month as the Falcons have tumbled in the standings and struggled to field a competitive operation on a game-by-game basis. The Falcons came out listless in the first half Sunday and trailed the Seahawks by 24 after two quarters, which also marked a period in which they were outscored 61-10 in six straight quarters at home.
The Falcons now head into their bye firmly in the bottom of the NFC South, setting up a long week of intrigue about potential changes that could be coming in Atlanta.
"Well, we are going to do something," Blank said. "We're going to continue to think really hard and evaluate everything that we can do as an owner and as a senior management team, and figure out if there's anything that we can do to make some decisions, any earlier, any later, that would help the process, but we have no plans on making any changes right now."
