ATLANTA — Vision.

This one word has been said roughly 30 times in Atlanta Falcons press conferences since owner Arthur Blank's end-of-season one back in early January. When Blank retained Sportsology to do a wellness check of the organization at the tail end of the 2025 season, vision came up then. In fact, when Blank received the report from the group, it was noted there was a "lack of clarity about the vision for the team."

"In any business, in any industry, when you don't have clarity around vision about what you're trying to establish and trying to build, you can end up with a lot of disparate parts, everybody moving in different directions, and that means you're not only unsuccessful or partially unsuccessful, but you can be very inefficient," Blank said. "As laser focused as you can be in terms of exactly what you want to do, you're going to make better selections of players, coaches and coaching staff, hold that kind of consistency in place and you modify it over time depending on what's happening in the game."

This was the main catalyst in the introduction of the president of football position Matt Ryan now holds. The position — Blank wrote in a letter to fans — would "set the vision and identity" of the Falcons moving forward.

As the Falcons officially welcomed new head coach Kevin Stefanski into the fold Tuesday afternoon at his introductory press conference, Ryan set the vision firmly in place for the Falcons franchise.

"When we set out on this search process, the committee talked a lot about what is the vision for our organization moving forward, and what is the football going to look like?" Ryan explained. "One of the things we said, well, not one of the things, but the main thing was we wanted a detailed, tough, physical football team."

Ryan broke it down by unit.

Offense: "We want an offense that has the ability to run the football, that is going to be explosive with the pass game off of the run."

Defense: "We're going to stop the run. We're going to be physical against the run. In the pass game, we're going to affect the quarterback physically and we're going to affect him mentally as well with disguises and with the way that we play coverage."

Special teams: "We're looking for a unit that is incredibly detailed, that plays with great effort and strength."

With that vision in place, the committee — which was lead by Ryan — set forth to find a coach whose own philosophy matched. Throughout the interview process, Ryan said, Stefanski separated himself.

"He separated himself, No. 1, in the alignment of vision for the football team," Ryan said. "He wants smart, tough, highly competitive players and coaches that are open to being held accountable and holding each other accountable."

For Stefanski, he's isn't one to simply talk about the vision. And that's why the Falcons liked him.

"The easy thing is to talk about it," Stefanski said. "It's very, very easy to sit up here and talk about it. We will be about that work. We will put in the work, and it's going to be hard work. We'll put in the work to being a smart football team, to playing a smart brand of football. We will earn that toughness. I believe that physicality and playing this style of football is earned, and we will earn that."

So, how do the Falcons ultimately arrive at a vision fulfilled? Well, there's still much work to be done.

"We're in the beginning," Ryan said, referring to the fact the Falcons still have an ongoing search for a general manager taking place.

"... But you get started with one step, and it's solid step, after solid step, after solid step. We have an idea of where we want to go, the path to get there. One of the things Kevin has talked about is when you have the map and the terrain, and the terrain differs from the map, you go with the terrain. So, we've got a vision of where we're going to go, but we know there are going to be bumps along the way, and you've got to be able to adjust and adapt to those things."

That process begins with the evaluation of the current roster. Once the general manager is hired — whomever that may be — that's when he, Ryan and Stefanski will sit down and go through it from top to bottom.

For the time being, the vision — the map — is set. Soon, a new trio at the leadership level will navigate the NFL terrain.