Head Coach Raheem Morris Week 10 Media Availability | Monday, November 3rd | Press Conference

Head Coach Raheem Morris Week 10 Media Availability | Monday, November 3rd | Press Conference

leaves you guys on my couch, but a tough one, you know, obviously, man. Uh hard fought for game. Um had an opportunity to win. You know, obviously we got to play better on third down on both sides of the ball. That that was the story. Um when you talk about stats, you know, because if you click off a couple of those third downs, you you’re able to make them manageable and get those things done. That allow you to get a couple more run attempts versus a very hard running team. I mean that’ll get you more that’ll get you closer to the area where you want to be 25 runs you know hopefully somewhere in the 101 100 yard rushing and and if you pop a big one great you know if you don’t um you just make it manageable for your guys to be able to maintain uh being able to run the ball so you can keep some of the balance um there and it was head in that direction which you got to be able to get some of those things better on third down. Um at the in the second half what we did well was we made those third downs manageable to be able to go for it on fourth down. So because we had to be aggressive there to try to get some of those things going. got two big time fourth down conversion in the red zone which is awesome. Um and then on defense we had a couple that you want to win and we had some winnable third downs on defense particularly early in that first half on the third and I don’t know exactly what they were but 10 let’s just say long third and long situations where we can get off the grass there and you get off the grass there you get offense more chances and you stop those guys from going to those live drives putting up 21 points um you know hopefully hold them to field goal at the very worst case scenario and and give me a chance to win that game that way. Then at the end of the day, you got to make that kick and and give himself a chance and and you know that’s that’s the game. Start with the um I know you’ve had more chance to go back over and take the alleged snap or simulation. So you get a chance to look at it more. Did you see anything different? So it was this wasn’t a look at this was this was our players telling us that they simulated a snap out there and they heard something and obviously they did. That’s why he snapped it. Um but it was again this was no intent that they did anything wrong. There was no intent that those guys did anything wrong. We’re just telling what happened when I was asked why the ball was snapped early. He was snapped early for our fault. It was on us. We got to find a way if the ball gets snapped early to try to get intentional to ground into the right guy. You know, obviously hard with a free unblocked runner coming at you and we can’t snap the ball early. No matter what anybody does, it’s got to be more about us. Um that was just me being angry yesterday. Somebody asked me what happened. I was just being honest with the guys told me coming off the grass. So to that I don’t want to make it a snap gate, right? No, that’s fine. Which I probably already did. Clap gate or whatever it is. Yes. Did that end with Mike? I mean, did he just dump it because he thought it was going to be blown dead like it was a false start or No, he was trying to throw that Mike. You see when he threw the ball, he’s pointing at Excuse me. He’s throw that cow. He’s trying to throw it at cow’s feet and pointing that cow, but his cow was a little bit further than he wanted him to be. Is there a world where you tell like he’s does it feel like he has to try to do something there other than just spike it in the ground? Well, the thing about late game, game’s on the line. Like the the thing about it is you know you can’t take the sack, right? So, he’s trying to get it out of his hands and to get the whole quarterback protection, throw it at his feet, you know, yada yada yada. Just he was he was a Kyle was probably one or two steps too far. You got to throw it a little bit better than what he did. Um, right decision, right mindset with unblocked players coming at you because none of our offensive line moved. Um, but we got to get that near eligible defenders, excuse me, offensive players feet. uh to go to to Romo or you going to be bringing people in? Are we sticking with them? Where are we going with this? You know, obviously we got to look at that and we’ll started that process already of, you know, we’ve worked out a bunch of different people. So, we’ll be able to bring people in and figure out what it’s going to be this week. Um at the end of the day, you got to make that kick. Um and like we talked about, those press situations aren’t built on practice fields. They’re built in games and they’re built in that environment. I mean, some of that, look, the big picture, the problem is that you’ve kind of lost some cache because it’s been a problem now for 18 months, a year and a half. I personally don’t believe that that’s your fault. There are people above you who make those decisions and I believe that should have been corrected. I won’t ever I won’t ever use that to say it’s not my fault. You know, I’m a part of everything that happens here and um we do thing everything together. Um, so everything that happens, you know, you can put me a part of that as well. I won’t ever we don’t have that type of organization. We don’t have that type of u that mindset. Um, but we got we got to we got to get it fixed and like um it has to be fixed now and it has to be fixed right now. Uh let’s get to um Divine still being out. I know the snap count between Harrison and JD favored Harrison. Is that something we’re going to do going forward? I mean, is he going to start to take more of those those snaps and responsibilities? Yeah, obviously in the week and how we planned it last week. We planned it with the three-headed monster going out there. Had a little bit of dime, had a little bit of Harrison a couple weeks ago, had a little bit of JD, I think, favored out a little bit differently because how the bases of the PL the game was played. You know, yesterday worked out more even with JD and and Harrison getting more of the reps and he’s trending in the direction of earning more rights on the field. And you know, a lot of credit to first of all Ronnie, you know, coming here in training camp, you know, being on the practice squad, Devon goes down and to put himself in that position is hard to do and he’s thriving in and playing well and doing some good things. You know, obviously JD is doing some good things, but obviously you have to do better. Um, you have to do better in your opportunities and the situations that you get. Um, so we’re always going to go with the better players or the people that give us the best chance to win. And and right now is looking that way. Obviously, I know we got to go through the whole process of the game plan, the week, what what it looks like, but Ronnie certainly earning more snaps every single week. Yeah, I want to go back to third downs really quickly because I, you know, 25% success rate on third down over the last three games. I know it’s not a one-sizefits-all because obviously these are all different third down scenarios, but what are practical steps that this staff, this team is taking to be better in those situational moments? So, it’s it’s hard to put the two games in the factor because we talking about the last game where it was two different quarterbacks and we weren’t able to run the football. We didn’t play well up front. So, I’ll take that one out and talk about the one that happened yesterday. We got to put oursel in more favorable situations to get the third downs. You know, when you go third and 10, third and 12, third and nine. Um, any quarterback can tell you, especially the one sitting behind you, how tough those situations are. Um, we want to get those things. We’re in more manageable third downs to be able to get those things going, particularly in those opening drives and starting fast. Um, we had a couple drives there, we didn’t use a third down, you know, had a couple drives and then we got to the the red zone. You’re able to actually go for it on fourth down. So, you got two down territory and things of that nature that make those things manageable. Um, things that we can absolutely win. So, those are the steps. It’s like starting faster, being able to run the football more efficiently, having the ability to have out not get not get behind the stick, so to speak, and really, you know, keeping in that mode because when we get in those situations, we’re in the third down and medium window, we got a lot better chance of being able to convert those things. To that end, I know you just mentioned a moment ago, you know, converting more fans with Goliath and run the ball. You had it, you threw it as twice as much as you passed. Yes. It felt like yesterday the game plan just speculating was more of like let’s not run Bon straight ahead or or the outside zone. Let’s get him out in space already and throw it to him and use that as extension of the running game. But it feels like the the actual running game itself has become stagnant particularly in the last two weeks. And it’s either it’s not being executed well or schema whatever it may be. But, you know, if you can’t run the ball, you’re dead on arrival in this league, aren’t you? Uh, not yesterday. We talked about yesterday and what it looks like and people playing this football team, you know, have some issues running the football. You know, we about to play an opponent that runs the ball really well and they played Pittsburgh yesterday and they didn’t have a great day running the football. So, um, this team, they got some really good players. They got some they got a really good football team. They do a nice job stopping the run. We knew it would be tough sledding. You know, we got it to the point we’re able to rush the ball 16 times for about a 4.1 average or whatever it was, 4.4 four average, whatever it was, and we had to find some space. We had a little more left on the bone out there yesterday. You got to convert those third downs so you get more opportunities so you can have those opportunities to run the football as a team like that. We did want to definitely get some easy completions to try to supplement the run game, whether it was bubbles or some screen, things of that nature. So, we definitely tried to utilize those things and um we got to the point where we gave ourselves a chance to win and we just got to go win that football game and execute the plan. One of the areas that you’ve been struggling in, Raheem, has been the red zone. How important was it to have success down close and get the ball in the end zone? Yeah, it was great to watch Mike and Drake, you know, go out there and be able to perform and do it at a high level and really watch all those guys protect at a very high level for some of the things we had and then also having the ability to be aggressive on some of the fourth down calls um with Drake and Mike, you know, tried to hit Kon of those things, but you got to be able to go execute in the red zone in order to give yourself a chance. That’s exactly what they did in the second half. Is there an expectation as you move forward? How good Greg’s been that you’re gonna I know you guys are doing a really good job of moving around so they can’t double him. At some point, do you start to expect some bracket coverage on him? Yeah, he’s going to get doubled. You know, that’s going to happen. Um he’s going to get doubling and everybody’s got to step up and um it’s right about that time. We need people to step up. So, you got to have some people step up. Whether it be Mooney, whether it be Cal Pitts and all the other guys that we got, Bian, we got a lot of guys out there that can make some things happen. They got to go make it happen for us. So, like we can expect those things to happen in the red zone moving forward. Um, but we’ll go out there and try to utilize the guys that we have and and score as many points as we can. Going back to the run game, Zach spoke last week about identification issues up front. Um, was that something that you saw persisting into this game or did you feel like there was improvement there? No, much much improved, Tori, when it comes to that. You much improved on the run game, you know, the things of the identifications, everything. This was a tough team to run. I could have told you that on Saturday if you had asked. Um we knew that the they’re tough to run against and uh but we definitely went out there and got some things blocked up better. Uh we definitely got some space. Uh we definitely had some misops um that we could have had a few more yards on that would have made things look a little bit better or feel a little bit better, but uh we knew it would be a tough team to run the football on going into it. But you just had to try to put some, you know, get out there and get some people going and get some things going. So and find different ways to move the ball. So that’s what they did. Gave us a chance to win and we didn’t win it. What does what does the Jaylen Walker presence mean for you guys from a personnel standpoint? It was it was great to have him back, you know, being to move him around that moveable piece. He was on the edge. He was in the middle. He was a dropper. Um he had a couple significant plays in the game that this whether it be the two sacks that he had um that helped James pick up one ball and help us score in the red zone one time or it was another one where he got a big time sack with some moves and things of that nature. his presence, his energy against the run and the pass um is is definitely a sight to see and something that we look forward to seeing more of. Assuming you’ll know more as the week goes on about Chris Lindstrom, Matthew Bersron, their injuries, you know, obviously you give those guys to Wednesday to see what’s happening. You know, Burj obviously was the ankle yesterday, had the leave out, probably second play or so. Um Chris made it through most of the game and had the leave out and their replacements came in, did a you know, pretty good job. You know, I can’t can’t complain about that, but look forward to getting those guys back and we’ll know more about that as the week goes. As you kind of go through the weekend prep, is there like a realm of possibility where you can activate Storm? He’s in that 21day window, have him at tackle tackle, potentially move Elijah Wilkinson inside depending on what happens with Chris and Burge. Is that kind of a a thought process that y’all have or y’all feel good about where things were from last night? That’s always a possibility with Stone coming back. you know, you’re talking about a guy that’s played significant ball for us, but we have to see where Storm is. You know, obviously he’s still in that window. Um, trying to make it back, wish nothing but the best and we’ll see where he is and we’ll move forward from there. But for sure, Tori, you know, Elijah’s played guard for us, he’s played tackle for us, and you know, Storm started tackle for us, some of those different things. And obviously, Payton’s has some significant starting time for us and things of that nature. So, you know, all those things are a possibility. For any addition status, no, still an IR. Uh, nothing new. He’ll still there. Is there any like realm of possibility that he comes back this year? I’m I’m asking that because Troy. Yeah, Troy. Um, there’s just been a lot of confusion from kind of what preeason was being said and now. You never want to rule it out. Okay. No, but um we’ll have to just wait and see. You know, nothing nothing new. Uh no window activated, none of those things. Um you know, still working with our about people and getting them right. Trying to get them right. Frustrating. It just seems, you know, I was saying to them earlier like it almost feels like if you had the same reason you were losing every week, it’s diagnosable. It’s fixable. But it seems to be just a different thing each week that comes up and bites you guys. Is it causing extra frustration? No, because I think that’s the National Football League, right? It’s like like you talk about it every single week like what things matter, you know, and and how do you go fix those things and how do you figure out how to go win this football game? I think you got a way to win every football game. There’s definitely that. And in my opinion, you got to go find those ways to win every football game. And yesterday, we talked about third down being a big critical down for us. And we failed at that on really both sides of the ball and still gave ourselves a chance. Gave ourselves a chance to win that football game. Um, so there’s a way to win every single one. We just got to find a way to win them. Anything else? Thanks. Thanks. All right, guys. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music]

Atlanta Falcons Head Coach Raheem Morris speaks with the media following the Falcons’ road trip against the New England Patriots.

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