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Sometimes, an early fourth-down gamble comes, and the announcers calling the game, or the fans in the stands, might jump all over the assumption that the coaches are trying to make some sort of statement. And Sunday, Atlanta Falcons coach Raheem Morris was trying to do just that—it wasn’t the clichéd one most people would take from it.
This wasn’t some chest-pounding, We’re here message in a big NFC South road game being played in the place Morris himself cut his coaching teeth.
Instead, it was a cold, coherent message of belief from Morris to all of his guys.
Falcons star Jessie Bates III had stripped Tampa Bay Buccaneers tailback Rachaad White on the game’s second play from scrimmage and recovered the fumble at the Tampa 43-yard line. Two snaps after that, Atlanta faced third-and-3. As the offense huddled, pass-game specialist Tim Berbenich, who helps lead game management, had pushed Morris to play it as a two-down situation. Morris then told coordinator Zac Robinson he had two plays to get the three yards.
Robinson, as a result, held back a staple concept to strike downfield, and on third down ran a tunnel screen to Drake London, who dropped the ball. But the call got an aggressive Bucs defense to play closer to the line of scrimmage on fourth down. Kirk Cousins saw defenders creep closer, Kyle Pitts got behind the defense on a corner route, and 36 yards later the Falcons had a 7–0 lead on the road.
“We planned that during the week,” Morris told me by phone a few hours later, on the team bus headed for the airport. “Z-Rob [Zac Robinson] is one of the better people in the world to know how aggressive we’re going to be, when we want to be aggressive, the times we want to be aggressive. He’s always ready for those situations so when they come up throughout the process of the game, it’s very easy to communicate with one of the best offensive coordinators in the world.
“I know he’s only been calling it for a short amount of time, but he’s going to be aggressive. He always wants to be aggressive. I’ve got nothing but belief in our team and our guys.”
In other words, while Berbenich and Morris prepared for the situation, Robinson was ready for it—as were, clearly, Cousins and Pitts.
It’s a small microcosm of what’s happening right now with the Falcons. Atlanta won the game 31–26 to complete a sweep of the three-time defending NFC South champion Buccaneers, and take sole possession of first place in the division. And, of course, that’s nice and was the goal of the trip and all that.
But beyond just the result of the game, there’s something else that’s pretty cool going on in Morris’s second go-round as a head coach. He’s getting the most out of seemingly everyone around him. Mostly, the people in Atlanta would tell you, because he believes in them.
Welcome to The MMQB for Week 8 after a Sunday that might’ve lacked in real marquee matchups, but made up for it in drama. Here’s what you’ll find in this week’s takeaways …
• A dissection of the Commanders’ magical start, continuing with a wild ending.
• A dive into Jameis Winston’s big day, and the spot it puts the Cleveland Browns in.
• Both sides of a pivotal New England Patriots–New York Jets matchup, with both teams now out of the race.
And a whole lot more.
But we’re starting with a cool story unfolding in Atlanta, with a team that seems to be finding its footing as the season heads to November.
Morris’s coaching trajectory is a different one.
Some NFL coaches get two shots at running their own show, with the second one coming shortly after the first. Others, and especially guys such as Morris who came up on the defensive side, only get one chance at being a head coach.
Few careers have tracked like Morris’s path. He was a fresh-faced 32-year-old when the Glazer family tabbed him to replace Jon Gruden as Buccaneers coach in 2009. The owners actually picked him to take over for the legendary Monte Kiffin as defensive coordinator first—in December of ’08—then threw him the keys to the whole operation weeks later. Morris lasted three years, going 10–6 in ’10, and starting 4–2 in ’11, before losing 10 straight, and his job, to finish his final season in charge.
He got a dozen seasons to reset. He coached for three franchises. He went to Super Bowls with two of them, and won a championship. He also was part of two staffs that got fired, survived the first of those firings and made it to the new staff, and became the interim coach in the other circumstance. He spent four years coaching offense to add to all of his experience on defense. Morris, in summary, got to see and learn a lot.
And there’s a specific lesson he learned that really has become more of an appreciation.
“I don’t apologize for my career path,” Morris says. “I’ve got two championships, three Super Bowls. I’ve been around some of the best coaches in the game, and I’m so appreciative of everything that I’ve been able to do, not to mention having some of the best players in the game, when you talk about all the guys I’ve been fortunate to coach, starting back with Ronde Barber and Derrick Brooks, all the way to Aaron Donald, Matthew Stafford.
“Now, being a part of this with Kirk Cousins and Jessie Bates and whoever else emerges from our group, I feel so fortunate to be a part of that, and respect that.”
So how does he show that respect?
By empowering Berbenich first, and then Robinson, and finally, and most importantly, Cousins and Pitts. In turn, the idea follows that he’ll be able to get the most out of all of the people around him—and the team will benefit.
There were examples of that all over Raymond James Stadium on Sunday when Atlanta took a crucial game over to complete its dramatic sweep of the Buccaneers. At the same time, there was also excitement from everyone in red and black over where the victors seem to be going, and how much further they can take this team. At the center of it? A guy who’s learned, through his ups and downs, how to get a team to believe in itself.
“It’s hard to say that you can be a victim when you’ve had as much success as I have had in my career,” Morris says. “You got to have a warrior mentality. And these guys are warriors. I’m so fired up for these guys, to be able to do what they do.”
The key for Morris making all of those guys believe they’re capable of more is believing it himself. And as we discussed the bigger plays of Sunday’s game, starting with how Bates delivered the tone-setting punch-out and fumble recovery, it was clear that Morris does.
“Jessie Bates is flat-out one of the best players in football,” he says. “For Jessie to go out and punch a ball out in the first drive, get the ball back for our offense, give us the short field, [position] us score to get the game going the way you want to get it going, it is high-level ball by one of the best players in the National Football League. That is absolutely outstanding, and I love that.”
Pitts, of course, cashed that one in on fourth-and-3 for a touchdown. The embattled fourth-year tight end scored Atlanta’s second touchdown, too, taking a slant 49 yards to paydirt. And the fact that he had another big day, just weeks after having to fight for playing time, is another good example of where Morris is winning.
Pitts, London and Bijan Robinson were taken in the top 10 in consecutive years, and the three skill-position talents entered 2024 without having lived up to advance billing.
It’s tough to say, even now, that those guys ever will, given where expectations are for players drafted that high. But, slowly and steadily, Morris and Robinson, and the offensive staff, have found a way to get more out of each of them. Pitts had his two scores Sunday. Robinson had 100 scrimmage yards and a touchdown. London had his least productive day since the opener—but he’s pacing for 1,100 yards and 11 touchdowns.
Maybe Robinson won’t be Marshall Faulk, and Pitts won’t be Antonio Gates, and London won’t ever be the true No. 1 he was drafted to be. That really isn’t the new staff’s concerns, but getting the most out of those guys is a priority.
“It’s a belief in those guys,” Morris says. “I believe in Kyle. I believe in Bijan. I believe in everybody on our football team and what we ask them to do. We give them goals and those guys are able to go out there and accomplish their goals. That’s the most important thing for those guys. It’s a certain amount of belief.”
And maybe as much as anyone, Morris has maintained his belief in Cousins.
The coach and his quarterback spent three years together at the start of the latter’s career in Washington, and he saw the same things Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay did back then—a smart, driven leader that you could compete for a championship with at quarterback. It’s why the Falcons moved so aggressively to get Cousins in March, and landed him at $45 million per year, and why Morris never wavered as Cousins got his footing in September.
The 36-year-old was coming back from Achilles surgery. That he wasn’t driving the ball the same the first couple of weeks of the season was expected. The first game against the Bucs, as the Falcons saw it, was a turning point, in that he showed more pop in his throw. This second meeting between the teams was another one—he took another step driving the ball, and also tucked and ran for the first time this year.
That run, good for 13 yards on second-and-14 with 3:07 left, set up another fourth-down decision for the coaches. Morris, Benberich and Zac Robinson, again, decided to go for it with 2:24 left, and Robinson called Cousins’s number. The quarterback burrowed into the line for three yards on a sneak to convert, repaired Achilles and all.
“Kirk’s one of the toughest people I know,” Morris says. “When you ask him to do something, he’s going to do it. Whatever’s required to win the football game, he’s going to do it.
“I can’t emphasize the amount of leadership that Kirk brings to our team. He’s confident. He absolutely has a vision, and he’s able to articulate it to his team in the ways that a coach can’t. I appreciate that and what he is for us and what he is for everybody else. He gives us confidence, and he’s one of the best people in the world to be around.”
Clearly, Morris feels that way about a lot of folks he has around him right now.
One of the things that Morris took from McVay—whom he first met 16 years ago in Tampa, and worked with in Washington and Los Angeles—was the “What It Takes” meeting.
It’s a way of distilling the week’s work into a number of simple things that need to be accomplished in the game’s three phases to win on Sunday.
The meeting happens on Thursday, with its contents reinforced on Saturday night at the team hotel, and then reviewed again on Monday. And the practice encompasses who Morris is all these years later as a head coach. “What It Takes” simplifies winning, and puts great things for the team within reach, while also creating a level of accountability and communication that’s very direct. “Positive but demanding” is how one staffer described it.
And for guys such as Bates, and the trio of young skill players and the old warhorse quarterback, just as it has manifested in individual performance, it’s now bearing rewards in team success. Each of Atlanta’s first five games came down to the final minute. The Falcons started 1–2. They got to 3–2. Then, they blew out the Carolina Panthers, got blown out by the Seattle Seahawks, and now have bounced back with perhaps their biggest win to date.
As a result, it’s O.K. now to think bigger for the Falcons—mostly because, thanks to Morris, they’re all thinking bigger for themselves.
“They just adapted to the growth mindset,” Morris says. “The guys are really into it. They love football. These guys go out every single week and do such a great job of doing that. I can’t complain about what we’ve done. From the first week to the second week to whatever week it’s been, these guys have really gotten better every single week on how to finish games, how to finish situations, how to adapt to what we want to do.
“They’re awesome guys, and I love the team. I love everything about it. I love the process. I love the coaching. It’s what you want to do, how you want to get better every single day.”
Even better, he believes all of those guys still have a lot of room to grow.
Which, in the end, means this team, at 5–3 and in first place, does, too.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Raheem Morris’s Belief in His Team Is Paying Off for the Falcons.
