Morris ‘different’ coach for every type of player

IRVINE >> As Rams practice began Wednesday afternoon, a coach worked intensely with three defensive backs in a corner of a field, teaching the art of establishing leverage against a wide receiver from the line of scrimmage. The coach talked nonstop about foot and hand position, often stepping up to position the players manually. At one point he brushed aside second-year pro Dayan Lake and took a stance opposite fringe veteran Dont’e Deayon to demonstrate technique.

The coach doing this detailed instruction was not one of the Rams’ half-dozen defensive position coaches, but defensive coordinator Raheem Morris.

It was all in a day’s work for a man who describes his job, as he attacks it, as “an active coordinator.”

“I like to let those guys use me how they can. At that point, I’m Jonathan Cooley’s assistant,” Morris said with a verbal shrug after practice, referring to the Rams assistant secondary coach.

Morris, 44, the former Buccaneers head coach and Falcons interim head coach, was hired in January to take over the Rams defense from now-Chargers coach Brandon Staley.

Players and coaches from 2020’s top-ranked NFL defense were bound to be quick to form impressions of Morris, and they have:

He’s hands-on, as with those defensive backs Wednesday.

“Raheem Morris is like that every single day,” said Rams coach Sean McVay, who first worked with Morris in Tampa Bay and Washington. “He never has bad days. He’s consistently pouring into these guys.”

He’s high-energy, a coiled spring throughout practice.

“Wild, crazy energy. Completely different from our last coordinator, which is, I think, kind of cool,” cornerback Darious Williams said. He’s funny.

“He keeps the room laughing and he’s just a great coach,” outside linebacker Leonard Floyd said, declining to retell any of Morris’ jokes because “it might be censored.”

Add it up, and he’s a motivator.

“Certain players respond to different types of coaching differently,” safety Taylor

Rapp said, “and I think he’s really doing a good job in figuring how to get to each player, how to coach each player.”

On Wednesday, with the defense off to a sluggish start on a hot day at UC Irvine, it was Rapp whom Morris decided to egg on.

“You know whose buttons you can push to get things going, and today it was Taylor Rapp, and he ignited us with a big pro thud,” Morris said.

The jokes have a serious purpose, and don’t spare the team’s stars.

“I like to do it with comedy sometimes. Sometimes you give the brutal, honest truth and you do it with a smile on your face; people take it in a completely different way,” Morris said.

“Jalen Ramsey, you tell him the absolute truth. He’s with you when you’re right, as he says,” Morris said of the All-Pro cornerback. “He’s definitely one of my favorites to pick on.”

Whether the Rams defense stays No. 1 depends in part on decisions Morris will help to make on who replaces safety John Johnson, cornerback Troy Hill and linebacker Samson Ebukam.

Some of those decisions, he said Wednesday, will “come down to the end” of training camp.

Setting the right tone is coming at the start.

“I like where we’re at with the energy; I like where we’re at on the learning curve; I like where we’re at from the mentality standpoint, the guys buying into what we’re trying to sell,” Morris said as training camp entered its second week.

“We’ve got to go out there and make those flash plays and those plays that make a difference in a game. We like to call them ‘mad plays.’

“If you go out and establish that mentality, you’ll be the best defense.”