Falcons owner Blank gets assist in rebuilding team

After finding little but disappointment in trying to rebuild his Falcons, Arthur Blank may finally be seeing his luck turn. David E. Klutho/SI

ATLANTA -- He'd seemingly become the billionaire owner who now couldn't even buy a break.

When Lawrence Tynes' redemptive field goal split the Lambeau Field uprights Sunday night, when the New York Football Giants upset Green Bay to advance to the unlikeliest of Super Bowls, one of the first people I thought of was ... Arthur Blank? Yes. In a year and a world in which anything that could go wrong for Blank and his Atlanta Falcons franchise did go wrong, Tynes' boot was yet another kick in the rump.

The Falcons dearly wanted to talk to Giants' defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo about their head coaching vacancy. But they were denied permission by the Giants to interview Spagnuolo three weeks ago. And with the Giants still in the playoffs, Atlanta, according to NFL rules, would have to wait until after the Super Bowl to do so.

No, it wasn't a size-XLII headache. Nothing like Michael Vick and dogfighting and doing time in Leavenworth. Nothing like Bobby Petrino's deceit and premature evacuation. Besides, it was still just January; and weren't the Redskins still searching for a coach, too? Yet it was another glitch, another notion gone temporarily awry for a well-intentioned, hands-on owner who initially could do no wrong. But on Wednesday, Blank's luck may have turned as the team hired Jaguars defensive coordinator Mike Smith as its new coach.

For months now, we Atlantans had turned on the TV or radio, gone on-line or picked up the paper to check for the latest Falcon calamity:

Vick's suspension, then guilty plea and finally prison sentence. The slapstick three-QB shuffle. The misadventures of MeAngelo, as Atlanta columnist Mark Bradley called the self-absorbed cornerback DeAngelo Hall. Petrino's pomposity and non-communication, which infuriated veteran players. His "You have a coach" lie to Blank shortly before another "Monday Night Football" embarrassment in the Georgia Dome, and just hours after Vick was sentenced to 23 months. Petrino's next-day bolt to Arkansas and his bye-bye letter to the players (safety Lawyer Milloy scribbled "COWARD!" on his copy before posting it on his locker).

And then? Let the simultaneous, meandering general manager (can you say "Tuna"?) and coaching searches begin. And me? I keep picturing all this in a Home Depot context, the retail giant which Blank helped found and where he made his fortune. I keep hearing the P.A. system in a Home Depot store: "Mister Blank, clean-up on aisle 4-12."

That's the Falcons' 2007 record. That's hardly the bottom line.

In '02, when Blank bought the hapless franchise -- it's never had back-to-back winning seasons -- he was viewed as a civic sporting savior: Smart, savvy, personable and wildly successful. Blank now owned an NFL team in the flagship city of the deep-fried football-frenzied South. How could he fail?

Blank was determined to bring Atlanta a winner, and for awhile, he did. In '03, he fired coach Dan Reeves, who'd miraculously led the Falcons to Super Bowl XXXIII. Yet Reeves left behind an uncut diamond: Vick, the raw Virginia Tech quarterback and nonpareil athlete whom Reeves took with the No. 1 pick in the '01 draft.

On the day Vick was drafted, I went on an Atlanta radio station and predicted, "Michael Vick could revolutionize the quarterback position." He revolutionized it, all right.

At first, Blank shrewdly cut ticket prices, particularly in the cheap seats. Fans responded, especially once Vick took over and took off on his breathtaking, improvisational scrambles that once prompted then-radio play-by-play man Jeff Hullinger to shriek, "The in-COMPARABLE Mike Vick!" He was incomparable, all right.

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