Falcons hiring Morris as new head coach
Raheem Morris’ long-awaited second chance has apparently arrived.
The Atlanta Falcons are hiring the longtime NFL coach, most recently the defensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams, the team announced last week. The opportunity comes to Morris 13 years after his three-year run leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who hired him at the age of 32 in 2009. He went 17-31 with Tampa Bay and did not reach the playoffs.
Morris, who’s admitted in retrospect he wasn’t quite ready for the Bucs job, has spent the last decade-plus preparing for another shot. He’s continued forging his long-held reputation as a leader whom players will go to the mat for. There’s also a familiarity factor as he served as Atlanta’s interim coach in 2020 after Dan Quinn was fired following a 0-5 start. The team went 4-7 with Morris after that.
After his ouster at Tampa Bay, Morris spent three years coaching the secondary in Washington. He then spent six years on Quinn’s staff in Atlanta, mostly working with receivers and coordinating the Matt Ryan-led passing game. In 2021, Morris reunited with Rams coach Sean McVay, whom he’d worked with in Washington, to run LA’s defense.
The moves comes as a bit of a surprise given how widely linked Falcons owner Arthur Blank, 81, was to coaching legend Bill Belichick, winner of six Super Bowls. Atlanta has never won a Lombardi Trophy in its 58 seasons.
But in a win on the league’s diversity front, Morris, who is Black, was hired on the same day that the division rival Carolina Panthers hired Mexican American Dave Canales as their new head man. The NFL has long been criticized for the lack of minorities who occupy key leadership positions throughout the league, but this offseason has marked a possible turning point given the Patriots also promoted Jerod Mayo to succeed Belichick while the Las Vegas Raiders removed Antonio Pierce’s interim tag.
“With 26 years of experience in the NFL, including the last three in an outstanding organization that has won our league’s championship in that time, Raheem emerged from a field of excellent candidates and is the right leader to take our team into the future,” Blank said in a statement. “His time in LA has given him an enhanced perspective on everything from personnel, team operations, game planning, working with an outstanding offensive staff and many other things that has helped him develop into an even more prepared coach in all aspects of the game.”
Morris will assume a post vacated following the firing of Arthur Smith, who finished 7-10 in all three of his seasons. General manager Terry Fontenot, who has assembled what appears to be a formidable roster that underachieved last season under Smith, remains in his role.