The Falcons dropped a post-Christmas bombshell on their fans this morning, announcing they will be retaining both Dan Quinn and Thomas Dimitroff for 2020. After Atlanta’s 5-2 turnaround, Blank thinks the Falcons adjustments will allow for their success to continue into next season.
One of those alterations was Quinn relinquishing his defensive playcalling duties and moving Raheem Morris from a wide receivers coach to a defensive back coach. Since he decided to do that, Atlanta’s defense is top ten in nearly every category, despite missing several critical pieces. They’ve only allowed 18.1 points per game over the last seven weeks and have accrued 13 turnovers, leading Quinn to believe Morris is the right man to take over the defense in 2020.
Raheem Morris will lead the defense in 2020.https://t.co/Laa8xVUgkC
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) December 27, 2019
Even though he is only 43 years old, Morris has a long history of coaching in the NFL and landed a head coaching job in Tampa Bay for three seasons, starting back in 2009. In his second year as coach of the Bucs, he turned them into a 10-6 team – a record they haven’t been able to emulate since they fired Morris back in 2011, which many believed, at the time, was a hasty decision by the Tampa Bay front office. Nearly ten years later, it is evident that was the case.
Following his release from the Buccaneers coaching staff, Morris became the Washington Redskins defensive backs coach before joining Quinn and the Falcons staff in 2015. While with Atlanta, he’s been the assistant head coach, wide receivers coach, and defensive backs coach, but defense has always been his specialty. According to most accounts, players love playing for him, which can be seen throughout Atlanta’s defensive turnaround.
This was a no-brainer since Blank decided to keep the gang together for one more season. Morris has been essential to the Falcons resurgence and probably deserved this opportunity from the start. Now, we will wait and see if Atlanta plans to make any other changes to their coaching staff, namely at offensive coordinator. While Quinn, Dimitroff, and Morris may be safe, I wouldn’t say the same thing just yet about Dirk Koetter.