Arthur Blank does NOT belong in the Atlanta Falcons Ring of Honor

Yes, you heard me correctly. By now, you’ve surely heard the news that Owner and Chairman Arthur Blank, along with franchise quarterback Matt Ryan, will both be inducted into the Atlanta Falcons Ring of Honor in Weeks 3 & 5 of the 2024 season. I’ll get to Matt Ryan in a minute, but right now I need to explain why I believe that Arthur Blank doesn’t belong amongst all-time Falcons greats in the Ring of Honor.

Ring of Honor built for players

The Atlanta Falcons franchise’s Ring of Honor description on the team’s official website reads as follows, “the Atlanta Falcons organization doesn’t officially retire jersey numbers, but considers certain player’s jerseys worthy of being honored… The Falcons Ring of Honor honors individual players and not [only their] jerseys.”

Matt Ryan, a Hall of Fame-caliber player and the greatest quarterback in franchise history, deserves to enter into the team’s Ring of Honor based on the criteria above. Arthur Blank, the team’s owner for over two decades who has done little in terms of contributing to the team’s on-field success (or lack thereof) does not deserve to get in.

Rewarding mediocrity

Arthur Blank has overseen the greatest era of Falcons football in the team’s (not so storied) history, and yet the team has a record of just 178-176-1 under his ownership. The team press release calls it an era of “unprecedented success,” but I beg to differ. After all, this is the same franchise that hasn’t been to the playoffs in over six years.

Franchise cornerstones such as Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Roddy White, Matt Bryant, and Grady Jarrett have all suited up for the Falcons since Arthur Blank took over as the owner of the franchise back in 2002, and yet the team has been constantly inept.

Homefield advantage is something that the team has never had under Arthur Blank, as his plan to create “Fan First Pricing” at Mercedes-Benz Stadium has led to much cheaper concession stand prices but less butts in the seats as the middle class fan has been priced out of being able to afford a game ticket, much less season tickets.

Have you ever been to watch a game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium? Because I have, and let me tell you, there is no homefield advantage on that field, one which has played host to Super Bowl LVIII, the 2018 College Football National Championship, the NCAA Men’s Final Four, but still has yet to play host to a Falcons playoff game.

Is he a good (much less great) owner?

We’re not talking about an owner who will one day make it into the NFL Hall of Fame here, we’re talking about an owner who has meddled in the Falcons’ affairs. Think about it for a second, the Falcons are always in the spotlight of the national media for all of the wrong reasons, & the team’s owner is always at the center of it.

As the team was engaged in contract negotiations with WR Julio Jones back in 2019, Arthur Blank publicly stated that Jones would remain a “Falcon for life” to the AJC. Julio Jones became the league’s highest-paid wide receiver on a per-game basis as a result of the outburst, & the contract was an albatross for the team in future years.

Fast forward to 2022 when the Falcons were pursuing QB Deshaun Watson via trade. Blank said that he met with Watson for an hour and a half, yet he later described the team’s interest in the available star player as simply “exploratory” and “preliminary.” Matt Ryan was rightfully pissed off as a result of these trade discussions though, to the point that he requested (and was later granted) a trade from the franchise.

The above statement serves as a reminder of why Arthur Blank, an NFL team owner who will join a players-only Ring of Honor, is just not deserving of such recognition.