Atlanta, Georgia, may be the best Marcus Freeman NFL destination. Even though the Notre Dame coach has hinted via social media that he wants to run it back with the Fighting Irish, at the end of the day, it would be impossible to pass up a great opportunity. Atlanta currently has an opening at head coach, after firing Raheem Morris on Monday. There are some who feel that Morris didn’t get a fair shake with a young Falcons team, especially after finishing 2025 by winning their last four games.
The truth of the matter is, Morris wasn’t their first choice when they hired them. All indications were that Bill Belichick was primed to take the helm, but his unwillingness to give up power to Arthur Blank’s bestie, Rich McKay. The team had to look elsewhere, and Morris got the job. Back-to-back 8-9 seasons isn’t bad for a young team, but the Falcons wanted to see bigger results two years after going 7-10. Either that or they have a successor in mind.
Freeman has a good thing going in South Bend. He has a base salary of $10 million per year (with perks and bonuses), and he gets to make all the personnel decisions with essentially an unlimited budget. It would be like having $200 million in cap space every year in the NFL, and not having a GM or President to answer to. If he were to jump to the pros, with no pro experience, he would have limited power and would be unlikely to get 2.5 times what the team paid Morris.
That would be if Atlanta tried to lure him by matching his current salary. In reality, they’d have to give him something similar to what Ben Johnson got from the Bears (and Johnson had NFL experience as a coordinator). Another challenge is that Freeman likes coaching college football. Who wouldn’t? College coaches at big programs are treated like gods. In the NFL, and especially with the Falcons, he’d be just a guy they could part ways with after two seasons if he doesn’t make the playoffs with a team that hasn’t been there since 2017.
Leaving a power team in college football to go pro should only be done if the roster makes sense. The Cleveland Browns and New York Jets couldn’t land Freeman if they offered him $30 million per year. Those teams are just destined to fail year after year. The Falcons have a quarterback (Michael Penix), running back (Bijan Robinson), tight end (Kyle Pitts), Wide Receiver (Drake London), two safeties (Jessie Bates and Xavier Watts), two corners (AJ Terrell and CJ Henderson), and a defensive line (James Pearce, Jalon Walker, and Brandon Dorlus) that are 28 or younger with immense potential.
The key point there is age. When Brad Stevens chose to leave college basketball for the NBA, he was almost guaranteed success because he went to a team whose roster was pretty much the same age as the one he was coaching at Butler. While coaching the Ravens may seem more intriguing because they have a perennial MVP candidate at quarterback, it’s harder for a young college coach to keep grown men in line than it is for them to keep young boys in line. The Falcons roster would be receptive and welcoming to his college style.
He’d be coaching in the NFC South, too. In terms he’d understand, it’s like coaching in the MAC. You don’t have to be that good to win the division. Despite their 8-9 record, Atlanta had as many wins as the division champ this year. If Freeman does just a halfway decent job with this squad of young talent (not even a full way decent job), he can win the division in his first year.
Finally, the benefit of leaving college football for the pros is that Freeman wouldn’t have to coach in college football anymore. The NFL playoffs aren’t determined by favoritism or conference bias. The teams with the best records make the playoffs every year, bar none. No more politics and TV people snubbing his team when they clearly deserve to be in.
It’s not going to work out for every college coach who has success. We’ve seen it happen with Urban Meyer (maybe the worst NFL coach of all time) and Nick Saban. Success at the amateur level (or more appropriately, the semi-pro level now) does not translate to success at the pro level. Freeman has the opportunity to join a franchise full of young future Pro Bowlers who aren’t even close to their prime yet, in a division of trash cans. If he waits another year, two, or three, he won’t get another opportunity with a team like this.
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