In 18 years, The New Orleans Saints’ Terry Fontenot went from a marketing intern to a Front Office Executive
Not long after losing their season to the NFC South-rival Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the New Orleans Saints are losing their assistant general manager to another division foe.
As expected, the Atlanta Falcons are hiring Saints assistant GM/VP of pro personnel Terry Fontenot to be their next general manager, the team announced Tuesday.
NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported last Thursday that a deal wouldn’t be put together until New Orleans was out of the playoffs and that came to be on Sunday with a Divisional Round loss to the Bucs.
Along with Fontenot, the Falcons interviewed in-house with their director of college scouting Anthony Robinson and outside with Colts director of college scouting Morocco Brown, new Lions GM Brad Holmes and former Texans GM Rick Smith. The Broncos and Lions also had Fontenot in for interviews.
Fontenot has been a mainstay within the Saints organization, having been with the club for the last 16 seasons. The latest season was his sixth as the director of pro scouting.
Moving on from a Saints organization that has won four consecutive NFC South titles, Fontenot will look to move forward a Falcons franchise that has absent from the playoffs since 2017.
With his arrival, Fontenot will replace Thomas Dimitroff, who was fired this past season as the team’s GM, as was Dan Quinn as head coach.
Fontenot will join forces with first-year head coach Arthur Smith, who the Falcons brought on board Friday, to begin an eventful and impactful stretch for the franchise.
This offseason the New Orleans Saints elevated Fontenot, a longtime member of the pro scouting department, to the Vice President/Assistant General Manager of Pro Personnel. That is a long way away from where Fontenot first started with the Saints organization, as an intern in the marketing department.
Fontenot joined the New Orleans Saints Podcast Tuesday to speak, among other things, about his rise in the Saints’ executive ranks. And the first thing he pointed to when discussing his new position was a place that provided him the opportunity to flourish.
“People will definitely have the opportunity to grow here regardless of where they start,” Fontenot said.
Fontenot is a Lake Charles native. He was a four-year letterman in football at Tulane before he got his foot in the door with the Saints as a marketing intern. Prior to that job, he had zero football scouting experience, and he had no intention of following the path he ultimately wound up taking.
Through the course of his marketing internship Fontenot got to know a few of the scouts and take an interest in their work, learning about the craft.
He got his break during one of the Saints marketing caravans. As part of the marketing team, Fontenot was helping set up the area when general manager Mickey Loomis pulled him aside to ask if he wanted to join the scouting staff as an intern.
Terry Fontenot: Falcons plan to draft best player available
New Falcons General Manager Terry Fontenot will have myriad important decisions to make in his time with the franchise. But one coming up sooner than later will be who the Falcons choose to draft at No. 4 overall.
Atlanta hasn’t made a selection in he top five since drafting Matt Ryan with the third pick in 2008. Ideally, they won’t pick that high again for another decade, so it’s important that they get this pick right.
To that end, Fontenot made it clear all positions are on the table and Atlanta won’t be drafting for need.
“You definitely want to take the best player available,” Fontenot said, via William McFadden of the team’s website. “There’s not going to be a position where you say, ‘Oh, we’re good there, we’re not going to draft there.’”
That leaves open a lot of possibilities for the Falcons, not just at the fourth pick, but also throughout the draft. And with a team that’s gone 18-30 over the past three seasons, there are plenty of areas for improvement.
