Head Coach Raheem Morris Week 9 Media Availability | Monday, October 27th | Press Conference

Head Coach Raheem Morris Week 9 Media Availability | Monday, October 27th | Press Conference

Yes. I just want to um we start before we get into what’s wrong with the offense, let’s uh want to go down your injury list to make sure we’re good going into the injury report we uh bait. Yeah, obviously I got no more information I had yesterday other than know it’s not a serious injury, so it’ll be one of those day-to-day things. So, we kind of be in a wait and see mode. Um and realistically, that’s just about everybody else as well. Michael Pennix, Drake London, Zack Harris, all of those guys kind of be the wait and see mode, day-to-day mentality. Um, but you know, nobody cares about injuries. We don’t really talk about it. You just got to get ready to go. Uh, Jay, a couple more people on the list. Jaylen Walker potentially, uh, getting back this week along with Billy. Um, like I said, all of those guys, I mean, they’re just dayto-day other than the guys that’s actually on the IR status like a Divine, but the other guys will be kind of monitored throughout the week. Get to Wednesday, see what you look like in practice. Thursday, you know, Friday, giving them all up to game day like we did this week. And, uh, Storm Norton is, how close is he in his 21day window? Yeah, he’s really close. Um, he’ll be another guy you can add to that kind of day today. You know, obviously having the ability to potentially activate him to see what he can give us, if he can give us anything some competitive nature out there and uh, get a chance to go see him play a little bit this week as well. All right, on to really, like I said, it’s the same thing with almost everybody. Okay, I just Yep. before moving to the week. Um uh offensively you scored one touchdown in the last eight quarters or or two or one in a meaningful sit set up one late um so two touchdowns the last eight quarters. Have y’all um met on what’s wrong or or how do you get the offense going again? Yeah, you meet on everything every single week and obviously um the last two weeks are you know different situations, different different set of situations I should say. Um, we got to get our run game going. And if we can get those things going, that usually is our lifeline of everything that we do. Whether they be running the ball, passing the ball, whatever the case may be, that’s only our lifeline. And we get that going, we’re really good offense. And we don’t get that going, uh, we look like we did yesterday. We don’t have a chance to maintain possession. You don’t have a chance to keep it. Um, that’s part of our game. That’s part of what we do, how we want to manage our games. Um, that helps our defense get better. Everything get better. So, really, we got to get our lifeline going. Really, that’s the the honest truth. We got to play better up front and we got to give those guys more opportunities and then when we do get the opportunities, we got to hold on to the football. Were they jumping the the the zones or overloading the outside zone runs or were you just losing those matchups? They just played better than us, you know, up front. You know, they played physical. Um they played better than us. Um they did nothing different. Um all the things you expect and all the looks you want to see on some of them. And u you know, obviously those guys make plays. You got to be ready to do that better and we got to do a better job. Rob, where are you with your confidence level in the offense and Zack and are you considering making a change? No, you know, um, you know, obviously I got so much confidence in Zack. You know, these guys are I don’t know what they’re ranked in the National Football League as far as points. I mean, moving the ball and all that type of stuff. You know, I know we can move the football. I know we got the ability to do those things. You know, we’ve been ranked as high as five, as low as whatever, but um, these guys can move the football. They got a great plan. They do a really good job. Um, and we got a lot of confidence that we’ll get it going. And we got to get going this week. you know, every time you ride the up and down roller coaster of have a good game, have a bad game, have a good game, have a bad game, those questions always going to be there. Those are always fair um in the business that we’re in. So, those are things that always going to look at. Do you feel like with the lack of production, your offense has become predictable? Have you become easy to figure out? It’s hard to say that you’re predictable, but I can’t talk about the situation yesterday when you do get predictable. You know, when you go down three points or three three possession game and you got to go out there and throw it every single snap, that’s going to make anybody predictable. That’s a problem and we’ve been in that situation probably twice this year and those situation we got to stop from getting into. You know, obviously those situations make you really easy, make it really predictable. Uh make it easy to figure it out when you know you got to pass and the guys can pin back their ears and go rush. Um so we got to get better from a whole standpoint when it comes to those things and maintaining and staying on schedule so we can get our offense going. From an accountability standpoint, I mean look, no one’s going to doubt the talent particularly offensive side of the ball on this roster. Um, but h how are you handling the accountability when things look as bad as they did not only once but the second game this year? Yep. You know, is it you say it’s on everybody? Is it one thing you pinpoint? How do how do you handle the accountability issue? You know, obviously everything’s going to be a we type of mentality when you taking when you’re attacking that approach, but you know, I lean on my leaders and my leaders are up front. When you talk about Chris Lynchston, you talk about Jake Matthews and those guys that are leaning up front to get us going to get us going in the right direction. Those are the guys that are most capable of doing that for us. Matt Bers run, you know, Nzul, you know, all of those guys up front that’s got significant minutes in the bag. Um, those are the guys we’ll lean on and they’ll get us going from an accountability standpoint across the board. Um, I’ve seen those guys respond before and I’m expecting to respond again. How do you evaluate the performance of the offensive line just against Miami? Yeah, we didn’t play well. You know, we talked about it at Nauseium today. Um, obviously we didn’t play well up front. We got to get some of the things going to run in the pass. We didn’t we didn’t pass pro well. We didn’t run block well. We got to do all those things better. So, we gota we got to go back and and give those guys another week of practice and go out there and get better because that’s all you can do. What do you attribute that to? Uh, we didn’t play well yesterday, you know, like the guys got to go out there and play well and execute and we didn’t do it. You know, yesterday was a simple execution thing and we were not able to do it yesterday. Is clarity as far as the run game goes. When you say up front, you’re including everybody that’s blocking in the run game. Tight ends, that means wide receivers, everything, right? All hands on deck. When you talking about the run game, you’re talking about it takes all 11 to run the football and those guys be a part. You know, Charlie’s a big part of what we do in the run game. You know, obviously our wide outs when we got it rolling are a big part of it. You know, obviously when we get up there and we do well in the run game, um those are the guys that really stand out for us guys we’re able to talk about. When you talk about adjustments, like the first half, people will say, you know, Jean only got five carries, but you only had what 13 18 plays, maybe maybe 12 snaps in the first half. I mean, I get the natural inclination to, you know, harp on that. That said, there was a slight adjustment in the second half because you made that one drive on the one that Bjon fumbled that you went down the field. You were able to actually start moving the ball. What was the adjustment that was made kind of, you know, why were you seeing success off of it? So, the run game wasn’t going. So, we had to find different ways to get behind the ball. So, we got the ball to him on the screen and had to open up a couple things and got to get to a handoff on them or whatever the case may be. We’re able to open up with a play action pass and get the ball down the field of pits a little bit. You know, all those things got to happen. Those all happen within the timing of the play. But when you go out and you get stuffed on the runs, you know, that kind of puts you in a bad spot because now you end up in a bad spot. You’re in those passing situations that you don’t want to be in. Nobody wants to live in those third and long situations and and that’s what we did last night and that’s not good for anybody. After the Carolina loss, you guys obviously fired Ike and the team responded, you know, you guys want, you know, two and after that injury two. When is the right time to shake things up, would you say? I mean, what has to happen for that to be a thing? There is no right time. You know, this is football. You got to go out there, you got to play. There’s a lot expected of us. There’s a lot expected of us us that we put on ourselves. There’s a lot expected of us from everybody else. There’s a lot expected of us from this building. Um, we’ll get those things right. And I got a lot of comps that we can. Did you speak with uh Mr. Blank at all since the game? We speak on a normal cadence, you know. So, we always speak weekly. We always talk about everything from afteraction report. We always talk about a pregame report. So, we always speak, you know, the normal cadence that we always speak on. We always speak on. What was the conversation like since uh game? It’s usually just what I’m what I’m doing with you guys right now. Kind of telling what happened, being honest, open up in front. That’s all it is. Coach, you had a challenge early in the game. Kind of what went into that process? Too close. You I thought the spot was short. Um thought we had an opportunity to get the ball there. Big time stop. Fourth and one. Uh really would have taken points off the board. Gave us a chance to get the ball back right there. Uh it was too close to not challenge it, you know, and um I felt it was like a good challenge. Had the opportunity to get the ball back right there. How do you deal with the, you know, the loss side? How do you deal with the growings from the fan base? Obviously, they’re disappointed. There’s a lot of people calling for change and things of that nature. Some of that’s out of your control, but you know, I mean, what do you say to fans at this point who feel like this is a continuing, not just from your tenure here, but just generally continuing cycle within the organization? Yeah, I understand. You know, everybody has those kind of those growing pains. You know, you got to go through that and like when you go through it, you got to find ways to get better and you got to bring them back. It’s not their job to like us. It’s our job to make them like us. So, like we got to go out and perform and we’ll get that back. Just to make sure I’m clear, you’re not considering any offensive staff changes. No. No. Josh Zach said I think commanders week he said wouldn’t have mattered where I called plays the way the guys up front were playing and they were playing with their hair on fire. Is it troubling to you that you’ll see a performance like that up front and then a performance like Carolina and last week that did that fluctuate so much? It’s not troubling. It’s expected for them to play like that. you know, they play like that more than not, you know, but we do have the episodes and incidents this year we didn’t play as well as we should. And that’s what we got to get the consistency going so we can play that well so they can operate the whole team in the offense. They’re our lifeline, man, and we need them. You you’ve been on a team that won the Super Bowl and saw that level of consistency. How come you’re not able to get it here? Well, we’ve had that level of consistency out in LA, but we also went through a four-game losing streak where that level of consistency hit the bottom and you had to bounce back. So you had to find ways to fight through adversity. And the only way you do that is you go back and trust your process. Get back out, go to practice, come back and go to work and lean on your leaders and get those guys to go and figure that out. You know, it was actually happened to us in 2016. We had a nice little skid there. What it was a twoame loss streak and then we found a way to get hot and then you never know what’s going to happen. So we got to turn this thing around and it’s our job to do it. Got a lot of confidence that we can, a lot of confidence in people that in our building and a lot of confidence in people that are going to help us to do this thing. Did you feel like the team was prepared to to win? Like like the coaching staff kind of got the players ready and from a game plan standpoint that that they should have gone out and won that game yesterday? I do. You know, I felt like, you know, we had the opportunity to go win the football game. You know, everybody will try to make excuses about who he didn’t have, but really doesn’t matter. You got to go out and execute the game plan that we had in place to go out there and try to win that football game. And we want to be able to go out there and control it with the run, be able to control it our time of possession, do all the things that we’re capable of doing. That actually protects our defense. That keeps those guys off the grass. that gives us a chance to go out there and earn field position on special teams and win the football game. And yesterday Miami out Atlanta us. They got us. Um coach, as you re-evaluate uh Phoenix coming back, I don’t know how to do bone bruises if it’s range of motion or agility or to test that. But what will y’all be looking for to see, you know, if he can make it back on the field? A lot of that led is communication with Michael. You know, obviously he’s the only person that knows what it feels like. he’s the only person that knows that he can stabilize himself and get out the way. Um so a lot of those things will be talking about it. Obviously we got a lot of smart people in here um looking at it to evaluate some of those other things and range of motion and things of that nature, but um a lot of that would be communication with Michael on a daily basis. Was the decision based a lot on mobility just because it is a leg injury and you know you had said you don’t want to put your quarterback in harm’s way. Not at all. Was that a reason for that decision? Oh no doubt. you know, like a lot of that stuff is based on how he feels, you know, his ability to move, get out the way, do all those things that are important to play the quarterback position. Um, I will not put him in harm’s way. Um, in order to sacrifice u what we got going on and what we could have going on when he gets back. How do you evaluate the performance of GD Bren just in the interior? Uh, it wasn’t good enough from an overall st standpoint. You know, obviously he’s got big shoes to fill. You know, he went out there and he tried to do those things. Did a nice job on a couple of those plays and obviously there’s some plays that you obviously want back. you know, was able to get out there and do a little bit Ronnie Harrison and get a chance to get him out there a little bit next to him and and the four linebacker, excuse me, three linebacker defense a little bit. Um, we’ll be to do a little bit more of that and try to get him in some of those space areas and do some of those things for JD as well. Jeff mentioned that it was going to have a committee approach. Yep. Placing Divine. Um, can you walk us through what was the plan with the committee approach? So JD was able to get some of the stuff went out there and our two linebacker defenses and then we’re able to go out there and have some dime approach. We had only one snap of it because it wasn’t that type of game when we had to go out there and put Jesse down in the box. I think only happened once yesterday cuz they didn’t really go for it on third down and longs. They ran the football. Um and the other approach was to get Ronnie out there and the 15 snaps that he played for us going out there being able to play to the field to take some of that pressure off him with that speed and things of that nature. So, um all of those things kind of happened, just didn’t happen enough. Everything kind of got out of whack just like our run game, just like our defense, just like everything else that kind of got out of whack yesterday. So, um the committee approach didn’t come to life like you wanted it to yesterday. Were you surprised that I mean I’ll use the word rusty that Kirk looked as rusty as he did. I mean the whole sort of pitch was that he was still here for this situation that you shouldn’t miss a beat theoretically with him. I mean obviously again real football and practice are two different things. No doubt that how ine is fair to say inefficient you look. Sure. you know, like um he’ll tell you too, like he’ll tell you he’ll be disappointed in how he played and some of the things he needs to get done out there and some of the things that we want to get done out there and all the stuff that we want to have happen. But, you know, to say surprised, yes, because of how well he looked, how much command he has to the offense and those things, but you know, he’ll get better and he’ll do whatever’s required moving forward. Um, coach, how will y’all uh start getting prepared for perhaps the hottest team in the league on fiveame winning streak? Yeah, coming up on the best time in life, right? You need them when you’re down. go out there and try to get a big time win versus these guys uh who playing at a very high level and they’re well coached doing a lot of really good things. So, a lot of fun for our guys, a lot of great opportunity for our guys to have a bounce back. Uh Drake May, uh guess he would have been in that group when y’all were scouting quarterbacks. Uh you surprised that 15 touchdowns, three interceptions so far this year? No, he’s a very good football player. He’s doing a great job. He’s being well coached by Josh. They don’t they got it going on and and I like what they’re doing. Were you surprised man gave you so much six offensive line look so much of that six offensive line number? No. Um they haven’t really done it all year but obvious he was here with us you know obviously so like um I know he can do that. He’s done it for us a little bit when he was in Atlanta. Um he’s a young man that we did that when he was here. You know obviously they were down when they blocking tight ends to put him out there and do some of those things. He did a lot of the same stuff that their normal tight end does on that blocking situation and Mike was able to throw him in there and do some of that stuff. So to say surprise, yes, because they haven’t done it, but it was, you know, it’s what they do. Do you get any feeling that in the locker room there’s underestimating opponents in any way? I don’t, you know, we just didn’t play well. Won’t make that excuse to say you went out and didn’t play up to par. You know, everybody knows well known that Miami is a very good football team that been in every single game other than one. Um, and they looked good throughout the course of the season. They just hadn’t put together wins and they did yesterday. Amy, you got you got to shift gears a little bit this week. You’ve had two quarterbacks that aren’t really known for getting out of the pocket the last two weeks. Now you’re going to get a guy that’s had a lot of effectiveness and and moving. Um how much do you have to shift gears and and reintroduce that to your defensive front and trying to keep him in the pocket? He plays very similar to how we did when we kicked Buffalo a couple of weeks ago. You know, that kind of guy, you know, they can move around. They’re very big. They’re fast. They’re mobile. So, you got to prepare those guys the same way you did. You got to treat those guys very similar, very similar styles, very similar styles of play. Uh, and both very good in my opinion. What is your frustration level overall at this point in the season? Uh, very frustrated yesterday and the fact that we didn’t go ahead and execute what we want to get done. Um, that’s the level of frustration that I have and you can keep it right there at that moment because you had an opportunity to fix it this week. So, I’m looking forward to that. One highlight from yesterday I will say Kyle Pittz, his performance and the way he was able to get involved. What have you seen from him just over the last couple weeks? Uh, just execution, doing the right things, you know, coming up with some big moments, some big catches, you know, blocking really well. He’s playing well. He’s playing extremely high level. I’m proud of him. You know, got tweaked a little bit early in that game. Was able to go out there and finish, compete at a very high level. Didn’t even know nothing about it. How did Fuller play his 12 snaps to Harrison and his 15 15? Yeah. 12 for Fuller on. Oh, Fuller. Yeah. Uh, you know, Jordan Fer obviously had to go in when Jesse went down on a screenplay. You know, a lot of that was uh insignificant time. You know, those real snaps that we talk about, but like you know, he played fine. He’s smart. He’s detailed. He’s sharp. he knows what to do. Um he’s been around for a while. Got a lot of confidence in Jordan. The offense been where it’s been these last couple games and the execution like you said, do you get any more hands-on kind of with with the coaches with the guys um in the meetings and such? Always. You know, we always be there for those guys. We do what’sever required to go out there and try to win football games. Uh whatever that means, whatever that requires, we can do. And that’s what we’ll do this week. You know, got to find ways to get our openings back going. Got to find ways to get it going up front. Get these guys off the ball. uh got to find ways to get the get our offense and our brand of offense going with our run game, opening up our pass, doing some of the different things we want to do. So, we’ll find a way to get those things done this week. Do you pull the Carolina tape and this tape and kind of watch them at the same time to see if there’s any similarities between the two? Uh the only similarities really that I talked about today with the owner, matter of fact, was uh we didn’t play well up front, right? And like when we don’t play well up front, those games can get ugly and that’s how it’ll look. Anything else? Are you considering So, yes, Darren, are you considering any personnel changes up front? Uh, up front. I mean, you always got to consider competition, right? We always going to do that every single position. Um, every single every single time, you know, obviously we got Storm coming back with Elijah, you know, obviously we got people inside that we can have we can rotate in there with a hint play some snack for us. Gwinny, uh, getting some opportunities. We got to have always have some high level competition. But, you know, with that being said, the these guys, these five guys that we got out there playing for us has given us a lot in those big time moments where you talking about Minnesota, where you talking about Buffalo. Um, they’ve shown that they can do it at a high level as well. Coach, you saw you got a good look at your wide receiver room without Drake London. What did you make of their performance in this game? Uh, we didn’t play well enough. You know, we got to get Mooney going. You know, obviously we got to hit Mooney when he’s open, but Mooney’s got to do a better job of getting open for himself. You know, obviously, uh, Seals went out there and did a couple really good things. You know, obviously Red stepped up for us yesterday, had to play some significant minutes for us. So whether it was blocking or catching the ball down the field, obviously he got one probably he can he’ll want back. Um and we got to find ways to get them guys to rock. You know, those guys are all capable of playing. They played at a high level before. Got a lot of confident in what they can do. You know, obviously Casey Washington being part of that as well. Thanks y’all. All right, guys. All right.

Atlanta Falcons Head Coach Raheem Morris speaks with the media after the Falcons’ Week 8 loss against the Miami Dolphins.

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