The Atlanta Falcons recently hired former Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris on Thursday evening to become the franchise’s newest head coach. Morris’ hiring comes on the heels of an expansive interviewing process that saw the team hold interviews for fifteen candidates across a nearly three-week time period.
Coaching legends such as Bill Belichick and Jim Harbaugh, along with up-and-coming talent such as Ben Johnson and Bobby Slowik, all interviewed with the team and some of those dudes even got the opportunity to interview with the team twice. A surprising under-the-radar candidate in Raheem Morris outlasted all of the other candidates though in order to become the next head coach of the Atlanta Falcons.
What does this key signing mean for the Atlanta Falcons franchise going forward? How will the Raheem Morris signing change the culture of the franchise in Atlanta? These are both great questions that will be answered in due time, but for now we’ll discuss the current impact of the signing & what Raheem Morris bring to the table.
Rich McKay stays in the building
Make no mistake that keeping Falcons CEO Rich McKay in the building (for some reason) played a key role in the hiring process of the franchise’s next head coach. Arthur Blank wanted to hire Bill Belichick, but doing so presented a challenge in that he would’ve had to fire McKay, his right hand man since 2003, in order to do so. I’m not saying that was a smart decision for Arthur Blank to make, but it is what it is.
Lost in the footnotes of the team’s press release on Raheem Morris’ hiring though was a compromise of sorts between Blank, McKay, GM Terry Fontenot, and Morris. McKay will no longer be involved in football operations for the Falcons, as Fontenot and Morris will instead report directly to Blank on these matters moving forward. This arrangement ensures that McKay maintains his role within the organization.
Blank’s familiarity with Morris in working with him when he was an assistant on Dan Quinn’s staff from 2015-2020 allowed him to dictate these terms in a direct way. McKay once recommended Morris to Rams GM Les Snead when he was looking for a new defensive coordinator in 2021, so he was probably fine with the arrangement. Morris should already have an understanding of how the organization’s twisted system works, given his role as interim coach after Dan Quinn’s 2020 dismissal.
Accountability of defensive players
Now that we’ve discussed the prevailing negative in regards to the Raheem Morris hire, let’s get to some of the positives regarding the hire, of which there are plenty. For starters, the Rams won Super Bowl LVI with Morris at the helm of a dominant defense that held the Bengals to 20 points and just over 300 yards in the big game. That was such a remarkable defensive performance on the game’s brightest stage, but what he managed to do with his team’s defense this year was just as impressive.
Aaron Donald was still on the roster, but many of the defensive players involved in the team’s recent Super Bowl run were traded away, released, or lost in free agency. Gone were mainstays Jalen Ramsey, Leonard Floyd, Taylor Rapp, and many others. This meant that younger players would be called upon to step up in order for the team to have any chance of success in 2023, and boy did they ever answer the call.
Rookies Byron Young and Kobie Turner, along with young defenders Ernest Jones, Cobie Durant, and Derion Kendrick spearheaded a Morris-led defense this season. The results speak for themselves as the Rams defense stiffened down the stretch, resulting in much-improved defensive play during the team’s unlikely playoff run.
A true leader of men with deep connections
This is the bottom line for Falcons fans as we rid ourselves of the previous regime. This guy, unlike Arthur Smith, has over two decades worth of work experience at both the college and pro levels in a variety of different roles including head coach, interim head coach, defensive coordinator, and even passing game coordinator. Raheem Morris is simply a player’s coach, in that his players love to play for him.
Similar things were said about Arthur Smith and Dan Quinn during their tenures, but eventually their lack of accountability & mixed signals ran its course over time. Could history repeat itself here with this Falcons head coaching hire? Absolutely. But I have much more faith in Morris’ ability to assemble a stronger coaching staff than Arthur Smith or Dan Quinn ever did for the team during their tenures here. Don’t believe me? Listen to Rams GM Les Snead’s review on the former Rams DC.
One of Morris’ first coaching staff hires in Atlanta could be a big one in Rams passing-game coordinator & quarterbacks coach Zac Robinson, who is currently interviewing for several vacant offensive coordinator positions around the league. Robinson has worked well with QBs Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford over the years, leading the pair of them to two Super Bowl berths, including one clutch win in 2021.
Now, there’s no guarantee that the pairing happens, but it’s a strong starting point. Hiring coaches like Robinson would go a long way towards success for the Falcons. Raheem Morris has had the allure of having his coaches and players follow him wherever he goes over the years, and his latest stop has brought him into Atlanta. I’m excited about that proposition, and I believe that other fans should be as well.
The Sports Beacon 