Atlanta Falcons hire Emery, Webster to front office

The Atlanta Falcons have hired two former NFL general managers to their front office in Phil Emery (Chicago Bears) and Ruston Webster (Tennessee Titans).

According to D. Orlando Ledbetter, the Atlanta Falcons are going to bring former Chicago Bears general manager Phil Emery into their scouting department, to help bolster the front office’s inefficiencies in that area the last few years.

It also appears that former Tennessee Titans general manager Ruston Webster will join Emery in the Atlanta Falcons’ scouting department, per Pro Football Talk.

When Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank stated that he was going to help overhaul the personnel department for general manager Thomas Dimitroff and assistant general manager Scott Pioli, Blank wasn’t kidding. Emery and Webster bring a combined 50 years of NFL experience to a scouting department that saw former director of player personnel Lionel Vital fall to the wayside in recent weeks.

While neither Phil Emery or Ruston Webster were widely successful as general managers in their previous jobs, their presence in the Atlanta front office should help the Falcons make wise decisions in free agency and in the 2016 NFL Draft, where the Falcons only have five picks to work with.

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With now three former NFL general managers on Thomas Dimitroff’s staff (Emery, Webster, and former Kansas City Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli), the Falcons have to make the necessary front offices moves to get their club back into the NFC Playoffs in 2016 after missing out by two games in 2015 with an 8-8 regular season record. A fourth straight year of missing the playoffs may very well end up costing Dimitroff his job with the Atlanta Falcons.

Fortunately, he does gain two great front office minds in Phil Emery and Ruston Webster to hopefully ramp up the lackluster scouting department.

While the Atlanta Falcons have hit on most of Dimitroff’s first round picks and with undrafted free agents, the Falcons in recent years have overpaid for players in free agency clearly on the decline and have had too many mid-round picks fail in the NFL. The 2012 Draft Class of the Atlanta Falcons doesn’t have a single player still in the National Football League.

It seems that Arthur Blank is all in on trying to get right the front office, particularly in the scouting department, entering the 2016 NFL season. The NFL Scouting Combine is less than a month away at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Free Agency and the 2016 NFL Draft are only a few months away.

Next: Atlanta Falcons: Who is going to the Pro Bowl?

Hopefully hiring former general managers Phil Emery and Ruston Webster stand as enough brain power in the Atlanta Falcons front office to get this team back into the NFC Playoffs in 2016. Rise Up!