ATLANTA — When Arthur Blank was pretty sure he wanted to hire Arthur Smith as his next head coach, the Atlanta Falcons owner invited the then-Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator to his home for a conversation.

It was a long conversation. More than two hours.

“I was listening to him and I said, I’ve interviewed unfortunately more coaches than I would like to admit, and he did all the coachspeak stuff, offense and defense and philosophies, all that, but I kept hearing things in the conversation that sounded more like how you would structure an opportunity or a challenge from a business standpoint,” Blank said.

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The phrases, thought processes and details of the planning all felt familiar to Blank, a co-founder of The Home Depot who owns the Falcons and Atlanta United of the MLS.

“I asked him,” Blank said, “‘I’m just curious, I don’t know your dad, but how much of an influence, from a business standpoint, has your dad had on you?’”

The answer is a lot, although it has taken some people who know Smith very well years to learn that. Smith is the son of FedEx founder Fred Smith, and while Arthur didn’t join his father in what he is quick to point out is not a “family business,” he has applied many of the business lessons absorbed from his father in an attempt to turn around a Falcons franchise that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2017.

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Smith will begin his third season as Falcons head coach Sept. 10 when they host the Carolina Panthers at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and this is the year, to borrow a phrase, that Falcons fans will be expecting a return on Blank’s investment in Smith.

“He’s learned a lot, I think, from his father in terms of how to scope a problem or an opportunity, what’s the best way to attack it,” Blank said. “How do you use your resources? How do you set priorities? How do you hold people accountable? Coach Smith is basically the CEO of the franchise.”

Smith’s language is littered with business jargon that offers a hint into how his background has influenced his approach to his job — from balance sheets to shareholder meetings to the importance of removing emotion from decisions.

“I don’t pretend I have a business background,” he said. “I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it again, I never felt my family’s success was my success. I try to educate myself on a lot of topics. I just want to learn. I wouldn’t sit here and claim that by genetics I am some great businessman. I’m a football coach.”

A football coach who talks like a CEO. As the Falcons struggled to win home games in Smith’s first season, the coach said: “We are in the sports and entertainment business. The fundamental essence of business is to create a customer. That was beaten in my head from a young age. It’s not lost on me that we have to do our part. Yeah, we need to give people a reason to come watch.”

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It makes sense that a football coach would pick up the language of business just like so many Americans have picked up the language of sports in their daily lives, said Joe Moglia, who has been both a businessman and a football coach.

“How many times do you hear, ‘We’re down on the goal line,’ or, ‘Boy, he struck out on that one’?” Moglia said. “It becomes part of the language we use. It’s not unusual for somebody that has a business understanding who is in the coaching world to use those words. If you have grown up hearing it, there are many, many, many corollaries.”

Moglia was the CEO of TD Ameritrade before stepping down in 2008 to pursue his dream job in football. He started as an executive assistant to Nebraska coach Bo Pelini and then held two positions in the United Football League before taking over the program at Coastal Carolina University, which he helped move into FBS football before retiring in 2018.

He is the author of two books, including “Coach Yourself to Success: Winning the Investment Game.”

“I approached things differently than most other coaches would,” Moglia said.

For instance, Moglia instituted a streamlined recruiting process that he estimates reduced the Chanticleers’ recruiting mistakes by 25 percent. Each player was given an A, B or C designation. An A meant “under no circumstance do I ever want to play against him.” A C meant “I would mortgage my home to be able to play against this guy every week.”

He told the coaches to cut down the time they looked at each prospect, too.

“I don’t want to look at a guy for 500 hours,” Moglia said. “You don’t need to do it 25 times over. You start to waste time. Now you’re making allocations with your time, another business term. We could do a thorough job, and I think an accurate job, in far less time.”

The same strategy could apply to evaluating draft picks, said Moglia, who once sent a resume to Fred Smith when he was applying for the head coaching job at Memphis. Fred Smith is a prominent Memphis booster.

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“I do remember he responded, and he praised me for getting back into football,” Moglia said.

Fred Smith, who is a regular at Falcons games, declined an interview request for this story through a representative at FedEx. The father and son talk regularly, and Arthur Smith opened his news conference after the Aug. 11 preseason game against the Miami Dolphins by wishing his father a happy 79th birthday.

“It really has nothing to do with the game, but it means something to me,” Arthur Smith said. “FaceTimed him before the game and he was sitting in his office on his birthday and I was like, ‘What the hell are you doing? You should be home.’ He said he was getting ready to watch our game, so just wanted to give him a little birthday shoutout.”

Smith rarely talks about his family’s background in public or in private. His first NFL job was in Washington, where current Falcons assistant head coach for defense Jerry Gray hired Smith as a defensive quality control coach.

They spent the 2007 and 2008 seasons together. Gray never knew Smith was the son of Fred Smith. He didn’t find out until the two were reunited on the Titans coaching staff in 2011.

“He never talks about it,” Gray said. “I found out when I got to Tennessee. His dad came down one time, and I didn’t know who his dad was. Looks like a normal guy, right? I said, ‘Who is that?’ He said, ‘That’s my dad.’ He never talks about those things. If you find out, you find out.”

Smith is “more like Joe Gibbs than any coach I’ve ever been around,” Gray said. After coaching in the NFL, Joe Gibbs founded Joe Gibbs Racing, which has accumulated five NASCAR Cup Series championships.

Arthur “has always been the same humble guy since day one,” Gray said.

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Smith’s assistants don’t bring up his family’s business success or wealth to him, either, even to land a wisecrack, offensive coordinator Dave Ragone said.

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“Here’s why,” Ragone said. “What I appreciate so much about him on the personal side is he has never used that to get out of anything. I was a (quality control coach). It’s one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had. I did it for a year. He’s done it multiple years. The humility to do that and how he was raised, I have so much appreciation for. He understands that is his father’s legacy and he’s trying to build his own. You saw a person who never took the easy way out, believed what he believed and never used it in a way that benefited him.”

Atlanta’s players have at times thought about teasing their coach, though. When Desmond Ridder was drafted in 2022, then-starting quarterback Marcus Mariota tried to convince the rookie to have snacks he purchased for the locker room shipped to the facility via UPS, Mariota said.

“If you ask a lot of guys, if you didn’t know (Smith’s) background, you would have no idea,” Mariota said. “That’s kind of how he carries himself. Obviously, he doesn’t need to be doing something like this, but I think his passion, his drive, his motivation is so great, I love being around it.”

After linebacker DeAngelo Malone attended a pre-draft top-30 visit with the Falcons in 2022, he FedExed a handwritten thank-you note to Smith. Atlanta executives noticed and considered it a nice touch.

“My agent’s idea,” Malone said with a grin.

Veteran defensive lineman Bud Dupree, who joined the Falcons in the offseason, learned about Smith’s background from the real estate agent who was showing him a home in Atlanta.

“You’re like, ‘Damn, he really loves the game of football,’” Dupree said. “He doesn’t have to be here.”

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New Falcons wide receiver Scotty Miller didn’t know until this offseason, either, he said.

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“It’s awesome to see him out here grinding, and I hear the stories about how he kind of grinded his way up,” Miller said. “The road he could have taken versus the road he did take, it’s kind of awesome to see his work mentality, and that’s kind of why he is the way he is.”

Arthur Smith is one of Fred Smith’s 10 children. His brother Richard is an executive at FedEx. His sister Molly is a film producer. His sister Windland Smith Rice, who died in 2005, was a photographer whose work was featured in National Geographic and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

“I am thankful I had two great parents. I’m just thankful,” Arthur said. “We all chased our passion. We were fortunate enough to be able to do that. Some people never have that opportunity. I think everybody’s life experiences affect them, who you have been informed by. That’s certainly part of the journey. You hope you can learn from it. That’s all I’ve ever tried to do.”

(Top photo: Jeff Robinson / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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