You tell kindergartners things like that." "It got to the point where I never went down to team dinners to eat because I was not going to sit there in silence," Dunn said. But Bobby wasn't like that."ĭunn said Petrino's rules ranged from a ban on televisions in the locker room at the team's suburban training complex to frowning on any loud talking at team dinners when the Falcons were on the road. "We're not college kids," said Dunn, a 32-year-old, 11-year veteran. Plenty of others expressed their frustration in private. I think he realized he didn't belong here."Ī couple of Pro Bowlers, DeAngelo Hall and Alge Crumpler, had openly criticized Petrino's domineering tactics. "This league is not for everybody," safety Lawyer Milloy said. There were plenty of warning signs he wasn't coping well with players who weren't afraid to speak their minds or question the coaching staff. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the league didn't have enough information to comment.ĭuring his final days with the Falcons, Petrino expressed to both Blank and McKay his concerns about dealing with pro athletes. McKay said he would get to work Wednesday night going over the list of potential candidates for the permanent job, a task he never expected to be doing just 11 months after hiring the last coach.īlank said he has no reason to believe that Jones was involved in Petrino's sudden resignation, and McKay said NFL tampering rules don't apply to college jobs anyway. The Falcons hastily chose secondary coach Emmitt Thomas to run the team on an interim basis for the final three games he becomes the first black head coach in team history. "The best way to describe the way we feel," Blank said, "is betrayed." Twenty-four hours later, Petrino submitted his resignation, hopped on a plane to Arkansas and signed a deal as Razorbacks coach. "He stood up, we shook hands and he said, 'You have a head coach,' " Blank said. In fact, Blank said he met again with the coach on Monday, just hours before Atlanta's 34-14 loss to the New Orleans Saints, to make sure he wasn't planning to leave. That was followed by a series of meetings over the weekend in which Petrino laid out some areas of concern, and the Falcons thought they had addressed them all. He got a call late last week from Dallas owner Jerry Jones, an Arkansas alumnus, to say the school was interested in talking to Petrino about its coaching vacancy.īlank said he told Jones the Falcons had no intention of letting the Razorbacks speak with their coach, and general manager Rich McKay confirmed that position in follow-up calls with Jones. "But the way he decided to leave, to me, was just not right."įalcons owner Arthur Blank sounded as though he had just been stabbed in the back. "It got to the point where guys really didn't care if he left or not," running back Warrick Dunn said. While the aloof Petrino had few friends in the locker room, and there was actually a sense of relief he was gone, the Falcons (3-10) felt totally abandoned in a season where so much already has gone wrong. I appreciate your hard work and wish you the best. While my desire would have been to finish out what has been a difficult season for us all, circumstances did not allow me to do so. This decision was not easy but was made in the best interest of me and my family. "Out of my respect for you, I am letting you know that, with a heavy heart, I resigned today as the Head Coach of the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons watched him on television the previous night at a late-night news conference in Arkansas, then showed up at their lockers to find a 78-word letter from their ex-coach, whose tenure in the NFL lasted all of 13 games. Bobby Petrino left behind a bitter team and a boss who felt betrayed Wednesday, leaving to return to the college ranks.
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