Head Coach Raheem Morris Week 15 Media Availability | Monday, December 8th | Press Conference

Head Coach Raheem Morris Week 15 Media Availability | Monday, December 8th | Press Conference

really uh um from last night, just how we explained it, it was uh not much different, you know. Um the game got away from us at halftime with the big kickoff return. Um and then we, you know, had a a drive there to answer really being able to go down and and really nullify that that kickoff return with a really great offensive possession of our own. Then we fumbled away down their red zone. So, uh when that happened, they got up two scores. Um that’s going to be tough sailing when you’re playing against Seattle Seahawks. Uh with that pass rush and uh without inability to convert on third down uh especially in some of these longer situations with these guys being able to get after us that way. Um that was tough selling. So with that happening that got away from us. Um that was not a part of what the game should have looked like or wanted to look like. They wanted to look more like the ugly first half. Being able to play really good defense, being able to run the football, you know, converting more third mediums and keeping the change moving. see they scoring points um which really hurt us from the red zone um with our pennies yesterday with the holdings um to get us off track but it was really exactly what we explained when I came out of the game and felt the same way after watching today. Yeah, coach, how do you keep the morale of of your team together with, you know, some of the things off the table at the playoffs and so forth? Yeah, that’s that’s awful. You never want to be in this spot, but really just the job is to go out and play spoiler right now. You got a Tampa Bay Buccaneer team on Thursday that um that we got a lot of respect for that we love to play um that’s always a highly competitive football game and um I expect no different. I love the fact that um our guys get to get back on the grass and go out there and take another shot at it. Uh we got some high character people in our building um and now we just got to go look at the tape. We got to go figure out from a team and collective group on what we need to do to win this football game because that’s the only thing that really matters. Um just uh you know what would it mean if they get Mike uh Evans back? I think he’s trying to play this. Yeah, more problems for us, right? Mike Evans is an excellent player. Um he’s one of the best um if not the best um that we see and um he’s just one of those guys. He’s been an all-time great for he’ll be an all-time great for the Bucks. He’s he’s been a great um that we’ve competed against for a very long time. He competes at a very high level. Got nothing but tremendous respect for him and what he’s been able to do throughout his career. Um and um if he plays, he plays, but uh we got to go out there and try to find a way to beat these guys no matter whether he plays or not. What has been the key to their takeover of this the NFC South four years running trying to and compete in competition for their fifth division title? I think it really started with excellent quarterback play, right? started with Tom Brady and they spilled over to to Baker and uh what they’ve been able to do from the quarterback position the last couple of years has been outstanding and that’s what’s maintained the dominance for those guys and how they played making them highly competitive every single year. Coach, when you watch the tape as far as the special teams is concerned, I mean being it’s kind of seasonl long problem. Yes. You’ve got to have some diagnosis. I mean is it some of it effort? Is some of it just guys not knowing their assignments? I mean is it a combination of all these things? I mean, as you said, you can’t clearly continue to go down this road with the special teams being, you know, it’s just what you said, you know, um it’s the last part, you know, is a is a combination of different things, right? It’s you get out there and you make one mistake and it is it is just multiplied across the board. And when you make mistakes across the board at this at different times, when they get exposed, you make everybody expend more energy. And when people expend more energy, you get bad results that you got. You can’t go out down on the first kickoff and make an outstanding play, do it exactly right. Make the tackle inside the 30, inside the 20, whatever the case may be. Go out there, get the three and out by your defense and really play well. You have to have some consistency and some consistency be able to do it down in down out no matter who goes out there, no matter where you’re kicking it or who you’re kicking it to. And we have not found that and it’s been absolutely frustrating. I mean, you can’t play all your starters on special teams. So, the idea of rotating guys out is limited, right? I mean, that’s you can’t, you know, the the the the hard part for us is we dedicate so much time and people in the special teams, right? We have people on our roster that are that are strictly dedicated to it. We went out and got these people. We sought them out. We found them. We put them on our grass. We put them on our football team and they’re out there to make those plays. And we got to make them. And like there’s no excuses for that. There’s no uh there’s no better way to put it than other than frustration. Um to to be absolutely 100% with you. Um that’s those are frustration. Those are frustrating plays particular when it happened in games like that in moments like that when you got a chance to win. You got a chance at least make it competitive I should say. Sorry M. Sorry about that Mark. Uh we had heard that uh you know you had a pretty uh intense speech yesterday after the game to to the guys in the locker room. Can you just give us you know what what the message was? Nope. Okay. We got to go win. Uh on the special teams I just had to ask do you plan to make any staff changes there? Um, you know, staff changes right now is irrelevant. You know, you always want to go across and you’re always going to have to evaluate everything at the end of the season. You know, like, um, we got to go out there and cover kicks. We got to go out there and block and protect. We got to go out there and do all the things that we’re capable of doing. Um, we got people that know how to do it. We got people that know what to do. And we got to execute. Like, that is that is the part that is driving me nuts, the execution part. Was there was there a speech like that that that we had heard about? Did that happen? I’m sure the players told you that’s where you got it from, Mark. So, like um there’s always going to be a little bit more intent behind it. There’s always a little more feeling behind it when it comes out and it doesn’t go your way and we able to talk to your guys. Um and thankfully I have you guys take that all out of me when I come talk to you guys as calmly as I can. Sorry to bounce back to it. um as as the head coach with regards to the special teams and kind of need to get things cleaned up. Do you take any kind of hands-on approach there with with the guys and and with the coaches or do you kind of prefer to leave it to No, you um you know me well enough like I kind of hands-on with everything like it’s it’s a hands-on approach to all the things and whether it’s personnel decisions, whether it’s what we’re going to do um decisions you have to make within the game. Um, I knew some of the issues we were having, you know, just talking about the Jets game and that’s tough to concede given to the 35 yard line, but the one time I didn’t, it hurts me. Um, yesterday we come out, get some problems ironed out, we look really good in the first two, and then the third one happens. And the inconsistencies there is definitely something that you I take personally. Um, and it’s always going to be a hands-on approach with really everything on a football team and everything that we say. Anything I come in and tell you guys, we’re having problems with, it’s going to be a hands-on approach with. Um, it’s never going to be a leave it. um leave leave it to the to to whoever’s responsible for it first and foremost. It’s always going to be a helpful mentality across the board when we have it here. Jaylen Walker left Sunday’s game. Any update on him and why he had a helmet on the sideline? Yeah, it was a it was a bruise. Um looking forward to him playing this week. Um I forget what his exact designation is going to be. David may tell you a little bit, but there’s obvious going to be some limitations to his practice habits and things of that nature. Obviously, it’s not the same this week because it’s a a short week. So, but I’m looking forward to implant an update on Drake London. Drake is still, you know, daytoday. Um, we’ll get a feel there. Um, I would say Doris is dayto day as well. Um, feeling good about Doris. Um, anybody else curious about from an injury standpoint? Kate Nellis left the game, but he came back. He came right back and finished the game. I’m I think he told you guys he was fine. You know, I think that’s it. I’ll let you know. Yeah. difficult. Is it difficult for you personally to finish these last four games without thinking about your personal situation and what it means for you? It’s not u that’s sorry Josh I didn’t mean to cut you up. It’s not you know that for me that’s the that’s the that’s the price of doing business, right? You don’t put yourself in these positions to to worry about those things, right? That could like you as a leader, you got to stand up in front of people and answer the questions, the hard questions and you also got to stand up and be a good example for your guys and how you go and finish things. And like you you can’t you can’t have difficulties in finishing and then go sell it to your guys, right? like you guys got this same thing, man. We got the same type of things on the line. And like for all of us, like for us, it’s like let’s go find the best version of oursel. Let’s go be that because like it’s coming and like you know when I look at guys like it’s not hard for me because I look at guys like Bjan, I look at guys like Drake, I look at guys like Chris Lindstöm and everything that I know that they pour into this football team. Jake Matthews and everything you know they pour into this football team. You want to give it back to him. You want to give it back to him fullfold. Kate Nellis going out there and you know hurting his arm and going back in and finishing that game. like it that those things matter to me and those players matter to me. So like I’m going to go give them everything I got. So to be selfish and think about my own personal stuff. No, that that that’s not right. I’m going to give these every I’m going to give these guys everything in this organization everything I got. Is that basically your message with Arthur Blank in these Monday meetings? Is that No, that Arthur Blank I’m I’m talking to him about what happened. You know what our plan was? He knows it. Like we give it to him. We talk about it before the game. I think I think it’s something that I love to be able to do with him just to show him what the plan is so he’s not sitting in the box wondering what’s going on. And then after the game, we we can clearly say and sit there in front of each other and and just tell what we didn’t get executed or we did get executed to win a football game. And like those are the important things to me. Like I’m I’m not there selling Arthur on whatever his decisions are. I got to make my own decisions and go find out what we need to do to win football games. I think that’s the most important. You get the sense he still supports you. He is 100% in support of me. Uh I I supporting an issue, you know, the he is absolutely outstanding and like his ability to listen to us, his ability to be there for us, his ability to be in it with us, um is absolutely 100% awesome and like is is everybody. It’s all hands- on deck mentality with the organization and I can’t say enough about that. What what can you show in these final four games that are of value not only to you know the players but to the owner to your team and everything else that hey we went off the rail somewhere but this might be a better version of who we should have been. I think it’s about sorry this is about like 100% like I think I think I know I think you got to go out there and just show like what you’re capable of doing and being very good at what you are being able to go do those things on offense being able to go do the things on on defense that we finished and then really being on special teams really recapturing the moment and finding out what you could have been and what you should be doing and then actually you know finding some other people you know there’s people out there that going to get some opportunities that hadn’t got them all year and I look forward to watching those guys as well so like and and not to say that you you’re going out there you putting people out there that got to give you the best chance to win every single week and some people earn some opportunities within the practice settings. How much have you felt the return of Devon Diablo since he has come back from his injury? He is absolutely outstanding. You know, we wasn’t wasn’t our finest hour yesterday. Um particularly in the second half, but you know, Dine is is is is a is a menace. Um he is uh in a good way for us and uh he absolutely is one of our leaders on defense. Um and I I look forward to working with him every single week. um calming presence. You know, he’s one of those guys you don’t even think about, you know, whether he’s going to be ready or not. He’s going to be ready. The the third down issues obviously cropped up again yesterday. The Falcons are NFL worst on EPA for play on down. Do you have any kind of diagnosis or is it is it scheme? Is it is it um the ex I mean obviously the execution plays a part. Kind of what is your diagnosis of that? You always got to talk about execution on third down and then you got to execute at a high level. You know, we had the first third down game was great. Van ran a great magnificent route. We threw the ball to him. He caught it and ran with it. The next execution we didn’t execute the the protection the right way. We still get the ball up there. We get an opportunity ball. We got to come down with that. You know, the next one we get an opportunity to get the ball out there and we we drop it. Um we got other opportunities in the game where drops and then once you got into the second half, man, it really got out of whack. You got those third and really long ones that you don’t want and that’s when it really gets bad for you. Um but it is definitely down to execution. It’s definitely down to um that dog making that dog play and we didn’t get it done yesterday. Anything else? Thanks everyone. Okay, guys. Thank you guys.

Atlanta Falcons Head Coach Raheem Morris speaks with the media as the Falcons begin preparations for a TNF on Prime Video matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

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