Falcons’ Raheem Morris says long stint between HC jobs made him better, not bitter

Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

INDIANAPOLIS — One of the first questions Raheem Morris took this week at the NFL Combine simply asked him what advice he would give to kids hoping to get to where he is today.

“Just work, really, extremely hard,” the Falcons’ new head coach said. “Learn from your mistakes, continuously grow throughout the process in whatever you’re doing. Those are some of the major things that’s allowed me to be back in this position.”

Morris is 47, and a young, energetic 47 at that, grateful for a second shot at the top of his profession. It’s been 15 years since he was promoted to head coach with the Bucs in 2009, struggling to a 3-13 record his first year, barely missing the playoffs at 10-6 the next year, then falling back to 4-12 and losing his job after three seasons and a disappointing 17-31 record.

It would be a decade and four head coaches before the Bucs got back to double-digit wins, and it took Tom Brady to pull it off. Morris had a long road back to where he is now, with three years as a position coach in Washington, then six in Atlanta, including four years on offense to broaden his background. He was the Falcons’ interim coach for 11 games in 2020, but was passed over for the permanent job, so he spent the past three seasons with the Rams as defensive coordinator, winning a second Super Bowl along the way.

He got a job that Bill Belichick interviewed for, twice, and he’s answering questions about the Falcons now because he has convinced owner Arthur Blank that he can be the coach to end the franchise’s six-year drought of losing seasons and get the team back to the playoffs. 

And he’s doing it with swagger.

“I’m not afraid to say that we have the ability and we’re capable of going out there and win, next year, if we do some of the right things,” Morris said. “That’s not an arrogance. That’s not a confidence, a cockiness. That’s more of a credit to the people that are in the building…

Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/falcons-raheem-morris-says-long-stint-between-hc-jobs-made-him-better-not-bitter

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Publish date : 2024-02-29 14:53:30

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