Head Coach Raheem Morris Training Camp Week 2 Press Conference

Head Coach Raheem Morris Training Camp Week 2 Press Conference | Atlanta Falcons

Just wanted to start off um just addressing the senseless violence that happened in New York. Um just sending our thoughts and our prayers um to everybody involved, including one of our own. And um just um you know, send our thoughts and prayers out um to those guys up in New York. And then also, you know, Dion Sanders, Coach Prime out in u Colorado and wishing them a speedy recovery and getting back to health. You know, another one that’s us of our own. And just sending our prayers and our thoughts to all those guys. And with that, um, we start our time in pads. You know, obviously still got some restrictions, things of that nature with time, but, um, it’s good to get the guys out there in pads and watch those guys to implement the physicality to camp that you want. Uh, and with that, I open up questions. Do you have an update on Darnell Mooney? Uh, same thing. No different for Darnell. Couple weeks, um, shoulder, and we’ll figure that thing out as we go. But you’re expecting him to be ready for week one. Is that fair to say? Um, I’m, you know, we going with a few weeks right now and then we’ll we’ll play it out after we get to that point. Uh, when we get to that point, we’ll figure out where we’re at and hopefully everything looking good for us to be ready to continue into our season to get them back. You have Walker and Robinson missing on Sunday or held back where we’re Yeah. All of all of those guys are that that management plan I kind of talk about. Um, and whether it’s something minor or something we’re managing from an age standpoint or whatever the situation is from our performance team, you know, all those things are manageable things that we talk about. The only one that’s kind of the newer one will be the the Mooney few week deal which happened in practice. And what’s your expectation for the pad at practice today and some of your goals for to to get get them acclimated to, you know, back closer to real football stuff? That is actually exactly what you want to do. Get them acclimated to our psads. Get them acclimated to our physicality. um get them acclimated to what it feels like to hit to thud. Um you know, obviously we don’t go to the ground, but you definitely get a certain amount of physicality up front. You get a certain amount of physicality in the back end. Obviously, you see one thud at the point of a contact at the point of attack. Um we don’t do side thuds. You know, we don’t want guys to side th a guy and him fall into one of his teammates and prevent to prevent some injury that way. But you’ll see frontal thuds and then after that you’ll see the tag off just if it was a a helmet practice. Um you get the ability to get out there and do some of those things with the physicality of front and how you want to move people. Um, we got a little physical the other day. Um, probably a little too physical for my liking, but I love the intent. I love what we at. And it’s probably perfect timing to put on patch right now for us. What was happening there? I couldn’t tell if he was getting under their skin or a little bit of both. Going after little bit of both. A little bit of u I hate the other color right now. And it is what it is. Um, little bit of that. But it was um it was actually really good intent, really good physicality. Um, but you like to avoid uh the little bit of skirmish that happened because you don’t want to waste time, you know, like the time is precious for these guys and it made us cancel our development period. Those are the things that that just as a coach that just drives you nuts. That’s why you don’t want it. But you do love the way they bounced back and was able to practice and there was nothing else. It was immediate. It was right on site. Just want to happen a little quicker um so we can move forward and get our practice done. Aside from those things that you’re talking about with James Grizz Jr., what have you seen that you liked? Because Rick was talking about the fact that after that happened, he came back in and had a couple amazing plays out there. That’s kind of I was referring to Maria. It’s like it’s it’s perfect. You know, it’s like stuff happens, you get upset, and you got to move on to the next play. So to watch him come back in kind of vet like and be able to just continuous practice to be able to rush and be able to go is exactly what you want from those type of guys, whether it’s a vet, whether it’s a rookie, or whether it’s just that learning curve of being able to do that. like not getting in your own head, some of the mental toughness that you got to create, you know, some of the, you know, just the the the overall holistic coaching that you want to be able to do with those type of guys and and really everyone. And I think that’s really it was a really cool um lesson for me to be able to teach that day and those things happen. When you get those things happening like that, it’s always a good time to talk about it. Ry, did you get a chance to talk to like the guys involved in in those little scuffles and James and Caleb? No, because none of those things are ever personal. They may feel like that to the outside eye looking in, but realistically that’s like every day and every down type of things. So they never get personal. You just talk about the reasoning on why you don’t want it. And the most important reason is losing work. Um the most important is is waste of time and the most important part about it is is having to stop it and even bring them up to just address it at those moments. So like you don’t want to waste time. You don’t want you want to eliminate and mitigate most foolishness as you possibly can. You know, it’s not allowed within the framework of our game. is not allowed within the frame of what we do on Sundays. So, you know, just treat practices and games the same way. In particular, you’re preparing yourself for joint practices, right? When those things happen in the joint practices, the people that you don’t know when it does become more personal as the things when it happens and you have to alleviate things and that is critical for us not to miss those type of work and that type of behavior. So, those type of behaviors won’t be as easily controlled when you don’t know the other team as well. Unfortunately, last year we practiced with Miami, very closely related with the head coach, very close to a lot of guys on their team. was easy. It was seamless, but you got to teach your new guys, you got to teach your older guys how you what you expect and what you learn from those practices moving forward. From our perspective on the sidelines, it looked it all all looked like to us was that James Pierce Jr. was playing extremely hard and and playing pretty well, you know, and and beating beating some guys. So, we didn’t really see like exactly what caused it. Did you get any insight into like what actually caused the the blow up? Yeah, I don’t really want to be that guy, but um you got a pretty good eye. You got a pretty good look at it. And there’s some frustrating moments when you when you’re going through it that way. And um you know, I’m not going to say James was completely innocent in this this year. You know, he has his he has his ways of getting other people’s skin as well. And um and our offensive line have their way of dealing with it. Um and you know, as you can see the big smile on the Bear’s face when he turned around and Caleb and J walking right back to the huddle and Birds is always going to be a little bit more dramatic than most. But um you get those guys right back in the huddle and they they go you bring them up and you’re able to lock them in. Some a little quicker than others. You know, we talked about this before. The drakes and the Burgger is always going to be a little slower to react to it and you just got to remain consistent and give them complete eye contact and you eventually get them. One thing Briggs said on Sunday was that in both of those little skirmishes, Leonard Floyd came over and and had Pierce’s back, you know, in both of those things. I just want to get your take on that, your thoughts on We’re not going to buy into the brick theory of of joining into your teammate, but it’s definitely something you always want to see when your teammates and your guys and the people, especially within your room and you’re that veteran leadership type of guy. Um, there’s no I’m not shocked that Floyd I’ve been around Floyd a long time. I’ve been fortunate enough to be around him for a couple different seasons and to be able to watch him have his guys back and that that didn’t shock me at all. I know Bric didn’t know him as well at that point and kind of fell in love with those moments, but you know, as the head coach, it’s really just about talking about the management of it all and how we want to be able to move forward and what has to happen when it really matters the most. Is there such thing as a ramp up period with pads on or once the pads on is expectations go? There are there exact period just based on um the time limit and the time screen that you have. Like obviously you can only have them out there certain amount of time. I don’t know the exact time right now. Don’t test me as on a script. But there’s definitely a time limit with that and there’s definitely a ramp up period of how you want to do things, right? You don’t want to go in the pads and then the NFL let you go. For us at least anyway, it’s like all out old school football. No, you want to ramp them up to what it looks like in a team period. How those things go down. You ramp them up to the following week, some one-on-one things, some one-on-one competitions where it gets a little bit more isolated. You’re able to come back maybe with some one-on-one defensive back drills. That way you’re able to ramp those things up as you go to decide if you need to get into some type of full practice or you decide what you’re going to do with your joint practices. You know, all those things are teachable, learnable lessons for me to be able to teach our guys how to practice when we practicing somebody else because those are things that are really important to me. You guys know going back to um what you were talking about with Darnell Mooney and being out for the next few weeks. I know you’ve talked previously and Zach has too about um a big process of finding depth is actually finding clones within certain archetypes and what you’re asked to do within the scheme. Um with that in mind, who are some guys that this is a really important opportunity for them over the next few weeks to to maybe establish themselves? You know, pretty easy answer, Tori. you know, unfor unfortunately or however you want to look at it. Last year we had to deal with it at the end of the season in our last Carolina game and we got a chance to see Ray Mloud step up and play some X, right? He’s able to move out to to Mooney’s position and you know whether you know or not those positions are really interchangeable and what those guys are do because of the separation skills and some of the same skill sets. Um, we got a chance to see a young guy like Casey Washington be able to accumulate more reps the other day and to be able to watch him go out there and grow and perform and be the best version of himself and what he’s able to do because he’s able to get more reps and be able to go prove himself in in those settings in those call it settings or those mamba settings or those move the ball settings and to be able to go watch him play and then you got the other guys behind him who do some of the cross training like a Chris Blair like a poke and then also we just signed DJ Chalk, right? So that gives opportunity for those guys to be able to go show some opportunities at the spot that Mooney plays. When you’re talking about the guy that’s the deep threat, you’re talking about a guy that can run the intermediate routes, you’re talking about the guy that can move inside, move around, do different things, and provides that speed element that Mooney definitely provides to us. So you’ll get a chance to see some of those guys get those opportunities. And it’s hard to replace, you know, your starting X, your your Mooney, but we got people in place that are clone like to be able to go in there and do some of those things for us that we going to need to get done. And it’s fun to watch those guys do it as well. Coach, I know you said today is is built for ramp up, you know, first day of pads, but is there a level of intensity that you look for for day one? I mean, I know it’s still so early, but do you kind of look for that on a day like this? You know, it’s great because I kind of look at it like the identity thing, right? It’s easy for me to get up here and talk tough and tell you what we’re going to do. Right. The reality happens out there, right? That that’s where the reality happens. So, like for me, like when you talk about identity, you should be able to come out and tell me what it looks like when we when we after the day and what it feels like and how intense it was. Like I know we all appreciated the not we I know you guys all appreciated the dustups, the fights, right? It’s like the Falcons are really going. I’m like, whatever. Like you really get it like when you’re going, right? like like the fight thing is like things you want to be able to avoid while getting that physicality ramped up to a different level and that’s what you want to see happen today. Is any part of your player evaluation process specifically on defense related to for lack of a better word edge or orderiness? I wonder if part of what you liked about James was maybe that that you’re very good you’re very good at what you do. Um you know it wasn’t just even a part of practice. It wasn’t just even a part of the people in the building. It was part of our draft. You know, we wanted to add a little edge to our football team. Want to add a little edge to our rush. You know, all the really great football players around that I’ve been around. They got edge. You know, they got a little bit of edge. When you talk about rushing the passing, you’re talking about some of these great passers that we talk about. Whether it’s Aaron Donald, whether you’re talking about Von Miller, whether you’re talking about Warren Sap, whether you’re talking about Simeon Rice, any of these guys that that rush the pass, they got a little bit of edge. And part of our whole draft, part of our whole philosophy, part of our practice, part of us, um, becoming a team that we want to be and going out and actually doing some of these things is acquiring players with some natural edge. So, that’s definitely a part of it. That’s definitely a part of what we want. It’s definitely part of who we are. Um, and it’s no different even with our offensive line. You got speed off the ball versus, you know, running through dark rooms. And there’s going to be some violence and there’s going to be a certain amount of physicality that’s required to be a part of this football team. How do you tell how do you evaluate the difference between edge and doesn’t fit our culture? Um, it’s it’s it’s pretty simple. You know, is when you are able to talk about what you’re trying to get done and why you’re trying to do those things and what’s important to us is how you evaluate that. You know, if we would have had something like that where lost control and had to cancel practice, those are things that we don’t want to do. You don’t want to waste time or race we reps for other people um in those moments. And you need those people to care for each other enough to realize that you know there is a certain part of edge there’s a certain part of that you want um but it comes to a point just like it would do in a game on Sunday. You mentioned or Monday or Thursday or Friday. You mentioned sap like you look at that 02 Bucks team like how would a a Derek Brooks a Ronda Barber a sitting Rice handle a rookie talking some smack? Would they is there just different now that that rookies are cool to do that as opposed to when you first get in the league? So, rookies have always been there and like you said, it’s usually handled by the Derek Brooks, the calm, cool demeanor. Whoa, young fella. That’s not how we do things. And whether it was a sauna visit, whether it was a locker room visit, whether it was a lunchroom meeting um or even on the field because that’s where it goes, right? People do whatever you want and you could talk to them however you want to once they know how much you care. And and a part of that is letting your players know how much you care, you know? So, like our O line investing into James Pierce Jr., our O line investing into Jaylen Walker, our O line investing into those guys, showing them what it’s going to look like when there’s a 330lb man trying to blow you off the ball. How you going to respond the next play? Like, that’s important. That’s what you want to find out now. That’s what makes our practices really valuable to us, you know, iron sharpening iron. Uh, Zack and and I really believe it gives your leaders a chance to step up. I was talking to Bean the other day. The offense didn’t have a great day. We talked about it, right? And he was like, “Can I call the offense?” It’s like, no, do it right now in live time in live bullets. Go see the people you need to see. Let your voice be heard. Open up. Like that’s a part of youth growing up and becoming those veteran leadership. Um is is a part of all those things. And I think that’s that’s a healthy part for us. There’s a phrase like practice makes perfect, practice how you play, all those different cliches like that. Is that why you emphasize though the right way to practice, following a certain regimen of the ramp up period and learning the basics before you go big and broad? I to me uh it’s Terren it’s more about like teaching these guys and not assuming right you you you waste a lot of time assuming that guys know how to practice in the NFL and the NFL environment right we come from all different walks we come from all different things you know in college you got 190 people on the field it feels like and the scout team are afterthoughts right there are no afterthoughts in our building and everybody has a certain amount of respect and is going to require a certain amount of respect so you got to teach everybody how to practice right you got to teach everybody how to go about their business how to give your maximum effort and what it looks like when you’re ramping things up and you’re moving forward and how much is too much and how you protect the team, right? You know, when I block Zack in practice, I’m probably going to finish him off. I’m going to go to the ground. I’m going to roll over and not think about him, right? When I’m in practice, he’s my teammate. He’s not going to feel the same. This guy is definitely fined. What was that? A atomic dog right there, player. Really? You can’t even like hide that it wasn’t you. You know, it’s going to be different when Zach’s my teammate, right? It’s going to be let him know I had him on that play, hold him up, Zach would know, and we can give a healthy slap in the helmet and keep it moving. Raheem, we sit here and go through psychology of watching practices, right? Yes. Can you tell as the head coach less than a weekend, a characteristic of this team that’s different from last year’s team? Probably a little bit of the edge that we just talked about. You got a great radio voice, by the way. um probably a little bit of edge we just talked about, but it is like you can already see it. You can already feel it within the weight room. You can feel it um in the meeting rooms, the excitement, the enthusiasm. You can feel it from the coaching staff. Um particularly um the new coaching staff that’s been involved with everything. And then like it it goes to the field, you know, like I I think the office talked about a little bit. It’s kind of like a little bit of a corny rahrrah, but it becomes authentic. It becomes um who they are. It becomes what they become. it becomes like contagious throughout the building and you got to love it and like I can already feel that edge. I can already feel that, you know, that want to I can already feel that hunger, that desire, that obsession um to go out there and be the best version of themselves. Defense, do you see similarities between what you’re trying to do with this defense this year versus what you did with in your last year in LA in 2023 with using all those young players and any kind of best practices? Are are you thinking toward from that experience and how you could kind of use it? I do. I try to use all those experiences. Um nothing’s going to be the same. You know, it’s never going to be the same type of deal as that way, but definitely um the youth movement in LA was one of those things that happened surrounded a perennial Allp Pro, Hall of Famer, soon to be first ballot, whatever the case may be in Aarono. And it’s is some of those things that’s happened here with some of the youth that’s around some of the guys that we do have, whether you’re talking about Jesse Bates, you’re talking about Ellis, or you’re talking about Ayamada. and you you’re surrounding it with the youth movement. You’re surrounded by a little bit of veteran savvy. Uh when you’re talking about Mike Hugh, you’re talking about AJ Terrell, and then you get some of the youth movement that you got going on up front, someone in the back end, and it it’s fun to watch and it’s it’s it’s fun for these guys to get out there and learn and play fast and and and it’s pretty cool to watch those guys go out there and compete at a very high level and to watch our young guys mature faster. And I think that’s a big part that we want to do with these guys. Jesse Bates said that um DeMarco Helms has been itching to get back out there in full pads and hit people. Have you seen that desire and aggression already? Yeah, DeMarco’s desire and aggression comes out right away um immediately, sometimes um unprompted and sometimes unwanted. Um but he’s definitely done a nice job of figuring out how to practice. He’s one of those guys that had to figure out how to practice, what it looks like, you know, how does it feel to to to be a really good teammate, but also to be able to practice as hard as I can to get ready for those moments. Um, you never worried about him being physical at the point of attack. You always got to worry about him in practice, but he’s gotten so much better. Um, you guys remember the hit last year in training camp on Ray Ray Mloud in the stadium when he lost absolutely lost his mind and ran through him. You you’ve seen growth and improvement at that stage already and that’s something that you love about Demarco and it’s so much fun to watch him get out there and run around again because when those guys get hurt, man, they easily they forget about until you get them back and you get so excited when you have them. You a big golf guy? I wouldn’t say big golf guy. I am a big terrible golf guy that that wants to be a golf guy at some point. It’s just this profession just gets in the way. One more. I was going a minute. I was going somewhere with that. He was going I wasn’t just a throwaway question. Pennix and Kyle Pittz have become golf buddies and Pennix is just starting his his golf, you know, process. I just want I mean as a leader that’s a good thing, right, for for the quarterback to come and the thing that the tight end, you know, it’s funny. Funny, I was riding to work this morning uh with one of my young coaches uh and we were talking about him. He said the reason Pennix probably is attached to golf so much because he’s probably so bad and he’s not used to being bad anything and he has an obsession to to be good at some point and it’s just something that gets that competitive edge out of him. So when he’s away from actually going out there and competing within the framework of a team, that gives him another competitive moment for himself. And like that is something that I look forward to doing and and just so happened to form a nice relationship with him and Kyle and a nice bond with those guys. Like I didn’t even realize till he got up and was talking about he threw the ball to him the other day to you guys and like that’s important to him and like um those are things that are really important. I don’t know what Dlet’s doing up here. Go ahead D. Um the end of the week here we got a big big day. Ken, any thoughts on the class going in? Eric Allen, Sterling Sharp, Antonio Gates, and Jared Allen. You know, um, all of those guys, you know, you’ve been I’ve been fortunate enough and been coaching the league long enough to see them all on the field and got so much respect for anybody going to the hall. um anybody that’s even thought about as a potentially going to the hall that I just uh got so much respect for that game um those guys um that room um that building um that’s just an an awesome thing for people to have and what everybody strives for in this game. All right, thanks. All right, all right. Thank you guys.

Atlanta Falcons Head Coach Raheem Morris speaks with the media before kicking off Week 2 of Falcons’ 2025 AT&T Training Camp in Flowery Branch, GA.