Morris uses communication skills to spark Falcons to victory
ATLANTA — Heading into his first game as interim head coach, Raheem Morris sought to make the underachieving Atlanta Falcons uncomfortable last week.
The ploy, seeking to convince players that nobody’s job is safe, had its intended effect. The Falcons won 40-23 at Minnesota as the team excelled in all three phases.
“It helped me to realize that now they know what being uncomfortable is like,” Morris said. “It’s time to be comfortable being uncomfortable. It’s time to turn it up every single week.”
Deion Jones intercepted Kirk Cousins’ pass over the middle on the first play from scrimmage. It was the first of three picks in the first half, and the offense seized the momentum on Matt Ryan’s 20-yard touchdown pass to Julio Jones.
The Falcons turned the takeaways into 17 points, and the defense chipped in a goal-line stand that followed the team’s only big mistake, a fumble that Brian Hill lost near the end of the first quarter.
Atlanta (1-5) got off to a good start in Morris’ debut because it played complementary football but also because Morris used his communication skills to press home some urgency last week. Morris gathered his defensive leaders together: Deion Jones, Keanu Neal, Grady Jarrett and Ricardo Allen — to tell them the unit had to start running to the ball more actively and hitting with more authority.
“That’s major,” Deion Jones said. “We’ve been there before and to finally capitalize on it is awesome. It goes to show how tough we are that we were able to do it.”
Morris told Ryan, Julio Jones and the leaders on offense that they must keep each other in check.
“I think he challenged us to hold everyone accountable as best we can and then made it real clear for us what our responsibility as an offense is was to go score and get it in the end zone,” Ryan said.
“We were better with that today. We need to be better with that as we move forward.”
One week into Morris’ tenure and the Falcons are 1-0. It wasn’t easy after the team facility was shut down last Thursday because of the coronavirus. The Falcons returned to work the next day, and Ryan said it was the best Friday practice they’d had this season.