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The Atlanta Falcons coaching staff under Arthur Smith is beginning to come together, with a crucial hire on the offensive side being reported today.
NFL’s Tom Pelissero shared Wednesday that the Falcons are expected to hire Chicago Bears running backs coach Charles London as their new quarterbacks coach.
The #Falcons are expected to hire Charles London as their quarterbacks coach, source said. A notable title for London, who has coached running backs the past nine years with Penn State, the #Texans and the #Bears.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) January 21, 2021
The hire is a good sign for Bears passing game coordinator Dave Ragone to be Atlanta’s next offensive coordinator, as has been hinted over the last week or so, but we’ll see if that comes to fruition in the days ahead.
London is a longtime running backs coach with stops, as Pelissero mentioned, with the Bears, Texans and Penn State under his belt. He and Smith were together with the Tennessee Titans in 2011 when London was an offensive assistant/quality control coach and Smith was a defensive quality control coach.
London will be making a homecoming to Georgia, as he is originally from Dunwoody, Ga. He played college football at Duke in the 90s after graduating from Dunwoody High School.
In Chicago (where he’s been since 2018), London has had some nice success helping the Bears ground game, with guys like David Montgomery, Tarik Cohen and Jordan Howard carve out their careers in the NFL. London also did work with Arian Foster, Alfred Blue, and Lamar Miller during his time in Houston. He’s never worked at the quarterback spot before, so it’ll be new territory for him, but it was reported when he left Houston that he was seeking a quarterbacks coach job. Smith and company must feel like he’s ready to make that change, and clearly London has been ready to get the opportunity.
If you want to play “connect the dots” for free agents, London was in Houston when the Texans drafted D’Onta Foreman, who was with Smith in Tennessee last season for a stretch. While Foreman hasn’t quite lived up to his draft status since joining the league, perhaps his old position coach and former offensive coordinator would take a flier on him as a depth option? It seems very possible.
With former Detroit Lions assistant Marquice Williams now hired as the special teams coordinator, we should hear news soon on coaching hires. We’ll see if Ragone really will be the next offensive coordinator and if he’ll bring any more Bears assistants with him. We’re bound to hear more on the defensive side of the ball, too, where veteran defensive coordinator Dean Pees has been called the “favorite” for the role.
For now, we welcome London back to Georgia and will look forward to see the work he can do with Matt Ryan (and/or an unnamed first-round QB that might join us in April).