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Greg Auman
NFC South Reporter
Raheem Morris has taken over a Falcons team that has had six straight losing seasons — only the Jets (eight years) and Browns (six) have gone longer without a winning record — so understandably, he was asked Monday about the pressure to win immediately.
“This is what we do,” the 47-year-old said. “This job comes with pressure, and pressure that we’re all built for. You’ve got to embrace that. You’ve got to embrace those moments. You have to want those moments. We’ve got to live for those moments.”
Morris has felt that pressure before. At age 32 in 2009, he got his first shot as Tampa Bay’s head coach — and was fired after a 17-31 record in three seasons. He also spent six years as a Falcons assistant, finishing in 2020 with 11 games as the interim head coach, going 4-7 and losing out when Atlanta instead hired Arthur Smith, whom Morris has now replaced.
Atlanta has gone 7-10 three straight seasons, while playing in a division bad enough that the Bucs have won the NFC South the past two years with 8-9 and 9-8 records. That gives the Falcons a sense of being close, an optimism that Morris can be the coach to bring the Falcons back to sustained success, like they had as recently as with four playoff appearances in five years from 2008-12.
Morris is from New Jersey, but his time as a Falcons assistant means enough to him that he framed his hiring as “coming home,” returning to a team that was special for him, even in its losses.
“When you get a chance to go back home in this profession, it is extremely important, extremely critical to everybody involved,” he said. “That is a special moment, not just for me, but for my family. … I can feel the excitement in my texts. I can feel the excitement in phone calls. … I can’t express the joy that I have right now, to be able to come back and work with all these people around me that I’ve been with for years. This is certainly the best…
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/new-falcons-coach-raheem-morris-returns-to-atlanta-looking-to-rewrite-history
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Publish date : 2024-02-05 21:41:02
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