Blank says deal with Freeman could be reached ‘fairly soon’

Blank Falconsis confident owner that Arthurthe team will reach a contract extension with Pro Bowl running back Devonta Freeman “fairly soon.” “As far as No. 24 is concerned, I think Freeman, actually he just sent me a text the other day about something,” Blank said. “He’s the kind of person that you want to have on your team for all the right reasons. He’s a great player. He’s a great individual. He cares about community. He cares about his teammates. He’s very responsive to good coaching. There’s nothing about Freeman that I don’t love.” Blank com m ented on Freeman’s contract negotiations on the “Dukes & Bell” show on 92.9 The Game, the team’s flagship radio station, on Monday.

General manager Thomas Dimitroff has been in discussions with Freeman’s Miami-based agent, Kristin Campbell.

“I know that Thomas is working hard with him and his agent,” Blank said. “I feel very confident that we’ll be able to work out something with him for a long-term solution fairly soon, I think.”

The Falcons top offseason priority was working a deal to retain cornerback Desmond Trufant. The team reached a six-year, $68.75 million deal with Trufant in April.

“It’s just a matter of time and you can’t do all of these big deals all at once,” Blank said. “Not even for financial reasons, but they take time. Each one takes a fair amount of work from a research standpoint. There is a lot of (negotiating).”

Blank didn’t seem to hold any ill will toward either

Freeman or Campbell for bringing up extension talks during the Super Bowl week. “I think the relationship

we have with the player is critical,” Blank said. “It was with Desmond and it will definitely be that way with Devonta and it will be that way in the future with any of our other players as they come up.”

Freeman, who has outperformed his rookie con- tract and fourth-round draft status, has a market value of $10.1 million per year, as determined by the salary-cap website spotrac.com.

Freeman will make $1.8 million next season, the last year covered by his rookie contract. The Falcons are $8,588,895 million under the salary cap, according to the NFLPA public sala- ry-cap documents.