The Atlanta Falcons announced Friday that Raheem Morris will be their defensive coordinator starting in 2020.
“I’ve been impressed with Raheem in his on-field coaching day-in and day-out,” Falcons president Rich McKay said. “I don’t even know what the phrase ‘players coach’ means. The nice thing about him is, if there is one, he is one. And the reason is because he’s a communicator. He’s out at practice every day communicating with all those players, rookies and veterans. And he’s communicating in his own way to them. In other words, it’s unique to them.”
After the team got off to a 1-7 start to the season, HC Dan Quinn made some notable coaching changes including moving Morris from WRs coach to secondary coach. From there, Quinn handed over play-calling duties to Morris and LBs coach Jeff Ulbrich.
Ulbrich called the alignments on first and second down while Morris called plays on third downs.
Since then, the Falcons have gone 5-2 including wins over the Saints and 49ers.
Morris likely would have been a hot coordinator candidate had he not been promoted.
Morris, 43, began coaching at Hofstra as a graduate assistant back in 1998. He later took his first NFL coaching job with the Buccaneers as their defensive quality control coach and managed to work his way up to head coach in 2009.
The Buccaneers fired Morris after three seasons. He spent a few years with the Redskins before the Falcons hired him as their assistant head coach/DBs coach in 2015.
As the Buccaneers head coach, Morris led the team to a record of 17-31 (35.4 percent) over the course of three seasons.
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