Arthur Smith is busy putting together his coaching staff together and on Thursday, the Atlanta Falcons’ new coach made a number of critical hires, including his three coordinators.
Smith announced that Dean Pees, Dave Ragone and Marquice Williams will be joining him in Atlanta as coordinators. He also said the wide receivers coach Dave Brock has been retained from the Falcons’ previous coaching staff.
Both Pees and Ragone were previously linked to Smith in earlier reports as possible coordinators. Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports first reported that Pees, a longtime defensive coach who has been a part of two Super Bowl-winning defenses in his career, “will be joining Smith’s new staff in Atlanta in some capacity.”
Last Friday, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler tweeted minutes after the Falcons made the announcement about Smith that a name “strongly connected to Arthur Smith’s staff as he takes the Atlanta Falcons job: Bears passing game coordinator Dave Ragone. I’m told there’s a good chance he becomes Smith’s OC after five years in Chicago.”
And as it turns out, both reports were accurate.
Pees will take over as the Falcons defensive coordinator and Ragone has been named the offensive coordinator. During his introductory press conference, though, Smith said that he would be the play-caller on offense.
“We’ll take our time,” Smith said. “We’ve interviewed multiple people for coordinator spots and staff, and like I said, we will take our time. We want to be adaptable. That will be a big thing here. We will play to the strengths of our team but we want to be flexible and adaptable, and that’s one thing we are looking for schematically as we go through this process of hiring coaches.”