[Elvis]

A dozen years have taught Falcons’ Raheem Morris perception is everything



Dan Pompei Oct 13, 2020

Editor’s note: Throughout the NFL season, The Athletic is telling the stories of Black coaches who have been identified as having the qualities and potential to become head coaches. To read the profiles of other candidates, click here.

Raheem Morris was 32 years old.

He had dinner plans for the night of Jan. 16, 2009, with defensive back Ronde Barber.

The Bucs had just finished a 9-7 season, Jon Gruden’s seventh as their head coach. They had missed the playoffs and had not won a postseason game since Super Bowl XXXVII six years earlier.

Barber called Morris. No answer.

Texted. Nothing.

Called again. Voicemail.

At 9 p.m., Barber still had not heard anything.

Morris had been the Bucs’ defensive backs coach for the last two years. Before that, he spent one year as the defensive coordinator at Kansas State. The previous four years, he was a lower-level defensive assistant for the Bucs.

On Christmas 2008, the Bucs announced Morris was being named defensive coordinator. It was a thrilling promotion for him.

Then the Broncos called. They wanted to interview Morris to be their head coach.

Morris was stunned.

After the interview, the Broncos told him not to be surprised if they offered him the job.

Morris was waiting to hear from the Broncos on the afternoon of Jan. 16 when he headed to the barber shop for his weekly cut. While he was in the chair, his phone rang. But it wasn’t the Broncos. It was Bucs general manager Bruce Allen, asking to meet with him and team owners Joel, Ed and Bryan Glazer in their offices at the team facility.

Morris wasn’t even sure where the offices were. He figured they wanted to hear about his plans for the defense.

He was wrong.

They were firing Gruden, and they wanted him to be the head coach of the Bucs.

Barber ate alone that night.

Raheem Morris is 44 years old.

He is taking over as the interim head coach of the winless Atlanta Falcons, even though the defense he has led since the offseason has been mostly awful, allowing the second-most yards per game in the NFL.

Morris wasn’t promoted because of what he did on defense. The Falcons chose him in part because he has been a head coach before, because he has experience on offense and defense and because he connects with people so well, according to Falcons president Rich McKay.

Morris has not been the target of a head coaching search since January 2009.

A lot has happened in his life since.

Raheem Morris was 32 years old.

It was easy to see his promise.

Two weeks after Kyle Shanahan joined the Bucs in 2004, he called his father, Mike, then head coach of the Broncos. “Do whatever you can do to hire this Mike Tomlin guy,” he told him. “But if you can’t get him, you have to get his assistant, Raheem Morris. They both will be head coaches eventually.”

Tomlin found Morris different from almost everyone. “He was an unbelievably quick learner in just about all circumstances,” he says. “He had unbelievable retention skills and an ability to relate and instruct. The rate in which he learned was shocking.”

Whatever “it” was, Morris had it, and it was apparent to anyone around him.

They called him “Ra,” like the ancient Egyptian sun god.

Radiant energy flowed from him and through the Bucs organization, from punter to president, from equipment room to draft room.

“When you got in a room with him, you realized how magnetic he is,” Barber says. “The Glazers loved Ra. The players loved him. Everybody did.”

Morris related easily to his players, in part because they shared a generational bond. His background was similar to that of a number of the young men he was coaching.

Irvington, N.J., where Morris grew up, was famous mostly for violent crime and crack cocaine.

Until he was in third grade, Morris lived with his grandmother Lillian Morris, who overcame much as an African American woman and became a teacher and homeowner. Raheem learned from watching her, and he learned from watching his father, Kenny Vaughn.

For a time, Vaughn worked two full-time jobs and one part-time job, 20 hours a day, six days a week. He fixed buses, worked as a distributor at a pharmaceutical company and drove a delivery truck.

“I saw him as a zombie for about four or five years,” Raheem says.

Vaughn eventually went to night school so he could get one job that paid the bills. Then Morris and his mother moved in with him. “When you are the head of the household, you have to take care of your kids,” Vaughn says. “You have to take care of your family. Raheem didn’t ask me to come here. I had the pleasure of having him.”

As a freshman at Irvington High School, Morris was given a C in English. It was unacceptable to his father, who subsequently forbade his son from playing sports.

Morris got his grades in line and became a standout football and basketball player who earned a football scholarship to Hofstra.

“It was definitely the right decision by my dad to hold me out and not accept the low standard,” Morris says. “It changed the culture for our family.”

It set him on a path to become the head coach of the Bucs.

What he didn’t know is the Bucs were not his destination, just a means to get where he was supposed to be.

Raheem Morris is 44 years old.

It is easy to see his promise.

Morris had been the assistant head coach to Dan Quinn in Atlanta prior to Quinn’s dismissal, and Quinn leaned on him for quite a bit. “You need somebody behind you who can give you the real facts,” Quinn said before being fired. “‘I know you may not have seen this, but you need to know this.’ He’s always been able to deliver those messages to me. ‘You better have a conversation with so and so. You should consider this.'”

Quinn has known Morris for 24 years, since Quinn was an assistant coach at Hofstra and Morris was a safety. He always has appreciated Morris’ ability to know when something is off and then communicate directly about it.

When Morris was hired as Washington’s defensive backs coach after being fired by Tampa Bay, cornerback DeAngelo Hall was an entitled veteran, reputed to be difficult. Hall, in fact, was trying to leverage Washington into trading him.

“I was a little bit of a malcontent and an asshole without a doubt,” says Hall, who was recently hired as Washington’s radio analyst. “I’d be the first to admit it. If Ra could handle a dude like me, he could handle anybody.”

Morris challenged Hall to practice harder and be an example to teammates. Hall complained about head coach Mike Shanahan, expecting Morris to act as a go-between. Morris told him to take his problem to Shanahan and handle it like a man.

“It was his ability to be real and not sugarcoat it,” Hall says. “Having a coach kick it to me straight was the turning point for me.”

Morris always had a knack for connecting with players, and his time in Atlanta has enhanced it.

“What Dan taught me the most was finding a way to reach everybody through different means,” Morris says. “He lets the players form a standard. It is player-led. It’s their ideas. That makes them more accountable. He’s devoted to player development, using resources from other sports and walks of life. It’s not just Dan. I have to give credit to the organization, (former general manager) Thomas Dimitroff, (owner) Arthur Blank.”

Raheem Morris was 32 years old.

When he walked into the lobby of One Buc Place as a head coach for the first time, he passed a statue of Gruden celebrating a Super Bowl victory.

Following Gruden would not be easy.

It would not be easy because of what Gruden meant to the organization and the city, and it also would not be easy because of what Gruden meant to him.

Gruden gave Morris his first NFL job, mentored him and promoted him. Then he gave him his blessing to replace him.

“Take it and run with it,” he texted Morris.

He would try, but it was going to be a mud run.

Upper management was going to have a say in Morris’ coaching staff. Morris was told the Bucs were getting rid of assistants who were Gruden guys but retaining some of the others.

Morris was told, “We’ll get two older coordinators who can help you win. You can oversee it.”

In conjunction with general manager Mark Dominik and the Glazers, Morris hired Jeff Jagodzinski to be his offensive coordinator and Jim Bates to be his defensive coordinator.

By the third preseason game, it became apparent to Morris that Jagodzinski, the former head coach at Boston College, did not prepare players as Morris wanted. Before the fourth preseason game, Morris fired Jagodzinski and replaced him with quarterbacks coach Greg Olson.

Bates, who had been an NFL defensive coordinator for eight years, changed the defensive system for which the Bucs were known. But he didn’t have the players to make his two-gap defense work. Ten games into the season, Morris took over defensive coordinator duties and went back to a Tampa-2-style defense.


Morris acknowledges he wasn’t prepared to be a head coach when he was promoted by the Buccaneers in 2009. (Reinhold Matay / Associated Press)
“I didn’t have enough knowledge of what Bates needed to get it done the right way,” Morris says. “I felt like I failed him. With Jagodzinski, I felt we failed each other with a lack of preparation. I take the bullet for both of those guys.”

Morris knows he should have insisted on hiring different coordinators. But the second-youngest head coach in modern NFL history had not yet earned the right to be bold with his superiors.

He also acknowledges that he should have pushed back when upper management wanted to purge veterans before his first season. Linebacker Derrick Brooks, running back Warrick Dunn, wide receiver Joey Galloway, quarterback Jeff Garcia and defensive lineman Kevin Carter were all pushed out.

Morris called each player and told him he would not be back. “It was the most hurtful thing I’ve ever done in my coaching career,” he says. “All those guys, though they may not have had five or 10 years left, I should have been able to get the most out of them for the following year at least. They were really good character guys and had played a long time. It would have been really helpful for the young guys to have them around.”

The Bucs’ philosophy in 2009 was to go young.

Or cheap.

“Probably one of my biggest mistakes as a head coach was going that young that early,” he says. “I didn’t value, or our program didn’t value, how experienced players could have helped to groom guys.”

In Morris’ first season, the Bucs didn’t win a game until their eighth try. They finished 3-13.

Morris frequently dined with Rays manager Joe Maddon. During an offseason meal at 717 South before Morris’ second season as head coach, Maddon wanted to know more about a football season.

Maddon: “What’s important in your sport?”

Morris: “You want to get to 10 wins quickly, to win the race to 10.”

Maddon: “I like that. You should tell your players that.”

Morris told his team, and the media, that the Bucs were in a “race to 10.” The Bucs ended up winning 10 games but finished third in the NFC South and out of the playoffs.

His performance that season was not unrecognized. He finished second to Bill Belichick in the voting for coach of the year. The Glazers extended his contract.

The next season, he had the youngest team in the NFL. He said his team was “youngry.” In addition to being youngry, the Bucs also were volatile, with many challenging personalities. Among them were Winslow, Freeman, defensive linemen Michael Bennett and Albert Haynesworth, wide receiver Mike Williams, running back LeGarrette Blount, safety Tanard Jackson and cornerback Aqib Talib.

Barber and other veterans had “quasi-interventions” with Morris about how to handle issues those players created. “For a young coach trying to deal with a bunch of, I’ll say impressive personalities, it wasn’t easy,” Barber says.

The Bucs were not equipped to handle adversity.

They began the 2011 season with a 3-1 record, but wiped out and skidded off-road in a loss to the Bears in London.

“The problem with us,” Morris said after the game, “is we’re too young.”

The Bucs finished 4-12 and gave up more points than any team in the league.

After Morris walked off the field following a 45-24 loss to the Falcons on New Year’s Day, his act as Bucs coach faded to black.

Raheem Morris is 44 years old.

He realizes how a football organization should work in a way no 32-year-old could.

Some of that can be traced to Mike Shanahan, who hired him in Washington in 2013.

At 35, Shanahan was named head coach of the Raiders, replacing Tom Flores. Two years later, he was fired. He then served as a position coach in Denver, later becoming the offensive coordinator for the Broncos and 49ers before getting another chance to be a head coach.

He understands Morris.

“I told him I wanted him to have a learning experience like I had after my first head coaching job,” Shanahan says.

Shanahan showed him how to take command of an organization, and how to change his focus from portrait to panorama.

He talked to him about building a staff and which qualities are most important in player evaluations. He went into detail about the differences between gathering information on pro personnel and college personnel. He showed him how to set up a draft. He emphasized the importance of being able to communicate precisely what he wanted in players at each position.

Shanahan’s actions, as well as his words, stuck with Morris. “His ability to lock in and watch something over and over and over and over until he got it was one of the biggest takeaways I took from him,” Morris says. “He kind of had that Kobe Bryant mentality of he’s not gonna leave the gym until he has an answer.”

Raheem Morris was 32 years old.

He already had a Ph.D. in defense. At Hofstra, he was coached by Joe Gardi, the defensive coordinator for the Jets and the “New York Sack Exchange” in the early 1980s.

Morris later became an assistant for Gardi. That’s when Jets coach Herm Edwards noticed him during a Hofstra practice in the Jets’ practice bubble. Edwards offered him a minority internship, and Morris learned how the NFL plays defense in Jets camp.

Edwards then recommended Morris to Bucs defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, who hired him. He learned every day from Kiffin, defensive line coach Rod Marinelli and secondary coach Tomlin, especially Tomlin.

In each of his first five seasons in the league, the Bucs finished in the top five in defense and were No. 1 twice.

Kiffin’s Tampa-2 defense became Morris’ foundation, but he built on it in unpredictable ways. For instance, on one coverage, he made defensive backs interchangeable so the quarterback couldn’t be sure which player had which responsibility.

“He likes to take his players, see what they are capable of, and make something new out of what has been around forever,” Barber says. “He’s not scared to take those chances and invent something because he thinks his players can do it.”

Raheem Morris is 44 years old.

Morris has something few head coaching candidates have — expertise on offense and defense.

When Washington drafted Robert Griffin III in 2012, Mike Shanahan held a series of meetings with his offensive coaches to explore ways to use him. He invited Morris to those meetings, too.

Shanahan encouraged the coaches to spend time with one another because having knowledge about the opposite phase gave all of them advantages. Among the other young coaches on the staff Morris was drawn to were Kyle Shanahan, Matt LaFleur and Sean McVay.

“We would sit around and argue football 24/7,” Morris says. “It gave me a better understanding of what we want to do and how to do it on offense. It was a great learning experience.”


Morris expanded his coaching duties in 2016 when, for the first time, he coached the Falcons’ wide receivers. (Phelan M. Ebenhack / Associated Press)
Morris went to Atlanta in 2015 as the assistant head coach in charge of defensive backs. The following year, Quinn had to hire a wide receivers coach. Quinn and Kyle Shanahan, who was the offensive coordinator, asked Morris to help them vet candidates.

When Morris was walking through a mall, a thought came to him. “Right now, we don’t need a great receivers coach,” he thought. “We need a great communicator who Kyle Shanahan respects. We should just hire the best coach, regardless of position.”

He shared his thought with Quinn, never suggesting he take the position himself. After some deliberation, Quinn called Kyle Shanahan to see what he thought about Morris coaching wide receivers.

“Honestly, Dan,” Shanahan told him, “that’s an unbelievable idea. Raheem would be perfect.”

Morris was the new wide receivers coach — except he didn’t know anything about the position.

There was so much to learn.

How does a wide receiver win at the line of scrimmage?

Which routes go with which routes?

How does each play time up?

What is the quarterback’s progression on each play?

What’s most important versus man coverage?

What’s most important versus zone coverage?

Which traits are most important to the Falcons’ scheme?

He had question after question for outgoing wide receivers coach Terry Robiskie, then-quarterbacks coach Matt LaFleur and offensive assistants Mike LaFleur and Mike McDaniel.

When Kyle Shanahan joined the Falcons in 2015, he taught the offense to quarterback Matt Ryan in detail. The meetings were videotaped. Morris studied the videotapes. Then he went back to Shanahan with questions.

“I’d be like, ‘Dude, where are you getting this stuff?'” Shanahan says. “He’d say, ‘I got your teaching tapes and watched them at night.'”

Tomlin believes Morris has separated himself because of his attitude about learning. “He has redeveloped himself as an offensive coach,” Tomlin says. “Over the course of his career he’s displayed the ability to learn in great detail the 22-man perspective on the game… Everybody can’t switch hit, and he does it very fluently.”

Once Morris started coaching Julio Jones and company, he coached them like they had never been coached, teaching them from the standpoint of how a defensive player or coach would try to contain them.

“He had a huge impact on what we did on that 2016 offense even though his No. 1 skill set was as a defensive coordinator,” Kyle Shanahan says.

When Kyle Shanahan left the Falcons to become the head coach of the 49ers after the 2016 season, he told his father the first coach he wanted to hire was Morris. He could have been his defensive coordinator, his assistant head coach or even his offensive coordinator.

Kyle Shanahan asked Quinn if he would let Morris go, but before he finished his question, he got his answer.

Don’t even think about it.

Raheem Morris was 32 years old.

Two of his players, Barber and punter Dirk Johnson, were older than he was.

He looked more like a player than a coach. He listened to the same music his players did and talked trash as if he were one of them.

Like many of them, he was single. After work, he often headed to 717 South. Salmon is his favorite, and restaurateur Michael Stewart made it like no one else. Some of his players usually were in the house, so they ate together and hung together.

People noticed. It was hard not to. Morris’ personality drew eyes like blinking neon. “He was the life of every party,” Barber says.

“The microscope was on all of us,” Morris says. “If you are caught having dinner with Josh Freeman or Cadillac (Williams), I didn’t see it as a bad thing, instead of me eating by myself. I don’t think I tried to escape the players. My idea of coaching was communication, feedback, being a part of them, getting them to play hard for me. I probably did that the wrong way.”

Raheem Morris is 44 years old.

He used to be able to hold his own on the court with his Bucs players. He could drive to the hoop, and at 5-foot-11, dunk with ease.

He’s slower up the court after tearing a patella in a pickup game during his time in Washington. His game is about the set shot now.

Of course, he has aged in other ways, too.

In early 2012, Morris was trying to get over losing his job. Nicole Marie Moulton was trying to get over losing her father.

They met, bonded and helped one another through difficult times.

Two years later, Nicole became Mrs. Morris. Now, there is Maliya, 4, and Jalen, 1. Morris also has a daughter, Amaya, 10, from a previous relationship.

“Once you have children, you’re grounded,” says Vaughn, Morris’ father. “He’s a family man. He loves it. He has responsibilities like I had when I had him. It’s not just about you anymore. He grew up.”


Morris, who married Nicole in 2014 and has three children, Amaya, Maliya and Jalen, is “a family man,” his father said. (Courtesy of Raheem Morris)
Morris is more than a coach to Barber. “Family” is what Barber calls him. Amaya is his goddaughter. The Barbers and Morrises vacation together almost every summer on a horse ranch in Montana.

“Maturity-wise, I’ve seen him grow tenfold,” Barber says. “He doesn’t have to be the loudest and the guy who stays up all night and spends the most money at the bar. He’s grown out of that phase of his life. … Being married with three kids, he’s grown up a lot as an individual, and it’s probably reflected in his coaching.”

Kyle Shanahan says if he were an NFL owner, he’d hire Morris because he knows he would be one of the best head coaches in the NFL.

“Dude needs another chance,” Hall says. “He was a young, first-time head coach with a bad organization, didn’t wanna spend money. He deserves another shot.”

At the NFL quarterback coaching summit in June, 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh spoke of the difference between being ready for a job and being prepared. That resonated with Morris.

“When I became a head coach, I was ready, but I wasn’t prepared,” he says. “If you are prepared, you are strong enough to tell your owners, your general manager, why you need Derrick Brooks. Now I’m ready and prepared at the same time.”

Morris is a fully grown coach, a fully grown man, ripe to become what some saw in him 11 years ago.

His failures have served him well, gifting him with perseverance, perspective and patience.

“Who he was at 32,” Barber says, “is not who he is at 44.”

[AltiTude Ram]

Jack, you're back in full force. We already have a thread for this.

Merged.

Yep, You started this thread.

Of course you ignored my posts in the Staley thread and started your own thread.

Good news is people got the message!

[Elvis]

Yep, You started this thread.

Of course you ignored my posts in the Staley thread and started your own thread.

Good news is people got the message!

Scoop goes to you.

I saw your post after i started this thread. But in either case, this deserves its own thread...

[actionjack]

It seems like Morris is once again, one of those guys who is very smart and loves football.
I trust McVay and Shanny's takes on him.

[ramsman34]

Maybe he can get MCV’s ear in offense as well. Sounds like a really solid hire. I think our D will be fine. Probably not #1 again but I doubt that happens even if Staley stayed.

[AltiTude Ram]

[Will0120]

I honestly feel so much better about the Morris hire after reading that piece... Not sure if it was meant as a puff piece but it gave good perspectives for sure.

Go Rams!

[sloramfan]

same here will...

that article really settled my nervousness about the future...

looks like a good hire...

go rams

slo

[Elvis]

And it's official:

[ziggy]

Is that photoshopped? How’d they get him a polo so quick?! I don’t think he’s ever done anything for the Rams.