{"id":83557,"date":"2025-05-27T20:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T20:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/83557\/"},"modified":"2025-05-27T20:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T20:56:09","slug":"forget-about-the-falcons-roster-raheem-morris-needs-to-be-a-better-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/83557\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget about the Falcons roster. Raheem Morris needs to be a better coach."},"content":{"rendered":"

But what about Raheem Morris?<\/p>\n

Is he going to be better?<\/p>\n

With the Falcons\u2019 playoff drought now at an improbable seventh season, the franchise needs more than what they got from him last season.<\/p>\n

ExploreA healthy Bralen Trice could help Falcons turn pass rush into a strength<\/a><\/p>\n

At the least, the jury is out on Morris. Look at it this way. How many times did the Falcons win games they weren\u2019t supposed to?<\/p>\n

Probably one \u2014 the Monday night road win in Week 2 over Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

How many times did they lose when they probably should have won?<\/p>\n

Four stand out in particular \u2014 the home losses to Seattle, the Los Angeles Chargers and Carolina and the road loss at New Orleans.<\/p>\n

Another loss \u2014 at Washington \u2014 was particularly difficult to stomach when Morris made a costly clock-management decision late in regulation that reduced the Falcons\u2019 chances of winning.<\/p>\n

Officially, they were 7-5 when they were the favorites, this in an NFL season when favorites won more than 70% of the time, according to ESPN. The Falcons were 1-4 as underdogs.<\/p>\n

Statistically speaking, Morris was below average at helping his team win when it was favored to do so.<\/p>\n

It was in that vein that I asked Morris, speaking with media on the first day of organized team activities, about the ways that he recognized that he had to improve as a coach from last season. To his credit, he answered it directly, naming his ability to identify problems more quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s something that we all can really do,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when you\u2019re the head coach and you\u2019re overseeing all the different things, you\u2019ve got to be able to see those things a little faster, to be able to make some of those corrections.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those things was the pass rush, which was awful. Through the first eight games, the Falcons had managed only six sacks. It was around that time that Morris made changes, particularly using the blitz more.<\/p>\n

The defense finished with 25 sacks in the final nine games.<\/p>\n

ExploreIt\u2019s time for Falcons\u2019 Michael Penix Jr. to take the reins<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s definitely a great example,\u201d Morris said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those situations where the pass rush got better. I was able to put more hands in, get more involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, the first half of the season is when the Falcons were playing better; they were 5-3 in those eight games when the pass rush was so docile.<\/p>\n

But it does speak to a shortcoming that Morris recognized in himself as the team underwent its standard self-scouting after the season. It shouldn\u2019t have taken eight games for the shortcomings of the pass rush to be addressed effectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to fix a lot of things on offense quickly,\u201d Morris said. \u201cWe were able to fix a lot of things on defense, didn\u2019t do it as quickly as you wanted to do them.\u201d<\/p>\n

That surely is part of why Morris moved to dismiss Lake after one season. Beyond the pass rush, there were dozens of less noticeable problems that cropped up. It is how an NFL season unfolds.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething starts to work and takes off, and then defenses figure out how to stop it, and you\u2019re on to the next thing,\u201d veteran left tackle Jake Matthews said.<\/p>\n

The biggest decision of the season \u2014 sitting quarterback Kirk Cousins when he clearly was struggling after what he revealed after the season was a shoulder and elbow injury \u2014 was quite arguably not made soon enough.<\/p>\n

Cousins was injured in the 10th game of the season, in the road loss to New Orleans. It started a four-game stretch when he threw eight interceptions without a touchdown. Cousins started one more game, a win at Las Vegas in which the team won in spite of him, before Morris made the change.<\/p>\n

For a number of reasons, not least of which is that the leadership of the team could well be changed if the Falcons don\u2019t make the playoffs, it\u2019s critical that Morris be better at this.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really is the name of the game,\u201d said Matthews, going into his 12th season. \u201cYou start in OTA 1, you feel like everything\u2019s going to go perfect, and immediately, even in this first practice, we\u2019ve got to tweak things and fix them. Which team is the best at doing that, can adapt and make the changes?\u201d<\/p>\n

By Morris\u2019 own admission, that team certainly wasn\u2019t the Falcons last year.<\/p>\n

Detractors would say it\u2019s evidence that Morris isn\u2019t the right coach for this team. Those more hopeful would say it\u2019s a reason the Falcons should be better this fall.<\/p>\n

There are no clear answers at the end of May. Morris owns his weaknesses, an admirable trait in a leader. A season may hinge on whether he can improve upon them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But what about Raheem Morris? Is he going to be better? With the Falcons\u2019 playoff drought now at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[2566,223,254,2554,224,7,6,11903],"class_list":{"0":"post-83557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-ajc-freelancer","9":"tag-atlanta","10":"tag-atlanta-falcons","11":"tag-atlantafalcons","12":"tag-falcons","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-ota"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114581797930271064","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}