The Atlanta Falcons were the first team to fire their head coach after the regular season and have finally found Arthur Smith's replacement. The Falcons are reportedly set to hire Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris as head coach.
This will mark Morris’ second stint as a full-time head coach after he led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2009-11. He also served as the Falcons interim head coach for 11 games after Atlanta fired Dan Quinn following an 0-5 start in 2020.
Morris is 21-38 straight up and 26-32-1 against the spread in 59 games as a head coach. He’s 9-18 all-time ATS at home, but did have marginal success in five home games as Atlanta’s interim head coach, going 3-2.
Atlanta hired Morris after conducting an extensive search that included two interviews with Bill Belichick. The Falcons were the only team we know of that Belichick met with, despite eight teams looking for a new head coach. The Falcons reportedly interviewed 14 different candidates, including Mike Vrabel and Jim Harbaugh. However, of all the options with previous coaching experience, they opted for Morris.
Falcons owner Arthur Blank knows the team’s new head coach well as Morris spent six seasons in Atlanta from 2015-20. Morris held multiple roles over the years, including assistant head coach, defensive backs coach, passing game coordinator, wide receivers coach and defensive coordinator, before his 11-game stint as interim head coach.
Morris most recently spent three seasons as the Rams’ defensive coordinator, helping them win Super Bowl LVI in his first season in Los Angeles. He’d interviewed with the Chargers, Panthers and Commanders and was reportedly about to interview with the Seahawks before landing the Falcons gig.
