Tonight on “Thursday Night Football,” Atlanta Falcons head coach Raheem Morris will face his former team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Let’s revisit Morris’ coaching career and how he got to this point.
How Raheem Morris Got His Coaching Start
After working as a defensive backs coach at Hofstra and Cornell, Morris got his first NFL coaching opportunity with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2002 as the defensive quality control coach on Jon Gruden’s staff.
In Morris’ first season at the NFL level, the Bucs had the league’s top-ranked defense and went on to win the franchise’s first Super Bow, dominating the Oakland Raiders 48-21.
The following season, Morris remained in Tampa Bay, serving as a defensive assistant. In 2004 and 2005, Morris served as the Bucs’ assistant defensive backs coach.
In 2006, Morris left the Buccaneers to accept a job as Kansas State’s defensive coordinator. However, that gig only lasted one season. In 2007, he rejoined the Bucs as their defensive backs coach.
After two years in this role, Morris was promoted to defensive coordinator after Monte Kiffin decided to leave Tampa Bay in order to join his son, Lane Kiffin, at Tennessee. Just one month into his first season as defensive coordinator, the Buccaneers fired Gruden.
Morris had been with the team for six years at that point, so he was named the Bucs’ new head coach. Morris was just 32 years old at the time, making him the second-youngest head coach in NFL history at that point.
Morris’ Tenure As Tampa Bay’s Head Coach
After learning the ropes and leading the Bucs to a 3-13 record during his first season as a head coach, Tampa Bay made huge strides during Morris’ second year at the helm.
In 2010, Morris led the Bucs to a 10-6 record, barely missing the playoffs. The seven additional wins marked the best turnaround in franchise history. Also, Morris became the first coach since the merger to start at least 10 rookies and finish with a winning record.
Unfortunately, this would end up being the high point of Morris’ head-coaching tenure in Tampa. The following season, the team struggled to just four wins and lost 10 consecutive games. As a result, Morris was fired on Jan. 2, 2012.
During a recent interview with Pewter Report, Morris reflected on his stint as the Bucs’ head coach and what went wrong.
#Falcons HC Raheem Morris was incredibly young when he was named the #Bucs HC in 2009.
Why didn't it work out in Tampa Bay? He took @PewterReport's Scott Reynolds and @AdamLivsOn back in time to what went wrong.
Energized by @CelsiusOfficial https://t.co/XpCNlvnMoC pic.twitter.com/axrf6AkcUO
— PewterReport 🏴☠️ (@PewterReport) August 9, 2024
“Mark [Dominik] and I were as good of teammates as you could be, but we didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Morris said of the former Bucs general manager. “We didn’t know what to share with each other and what not to keep from each other. We came from a secretive environment…”
Morris notes that he got a chance to learn how a head coach and general manager are supposed to interact once he saw the transparency and relationships that Dan Quinn and Thomas Dimitroff had in Atlanta and that Sean McVay and Les Snead had in Los Angeles. Morris also pointed out that Josh Freeman’s regression contributed to the team’s struggles.
“I was hoping that Josh would continue to grow and get better and better, but he eventually flamed out and didn’t do so well in Tampa. … It just wasn’t able to work out for him,” Morris noted, adding that he still communicates with Freeman, who still owns a home in Tampa and is doing well for himself.
In all, Morris spent nine years with the Buccaneers before he was fired. His next gig was with Washington as their defensive backs coach from 2012 to 2014.
Morris Joins the Atlanta Falcons
From 2015 through 2020, Morris coached the Falcons in a variety of roles, including assistant head coach, defensive backs coach, defensive pass game coordinator, wide receivers coach, and offensive pass game coordinator.
In 2020, he became Atlanta’s defensive coordinator. Similar to what happened in Tampa Bay after he was promoted to defensive coordinator, Morris would become the Falcons’ interim head coach less than one year later after Quinn was fired. Morris led the Falcons to a 4-7 record after taking over.
After the season, McVay and the Los Angeles Rams hired Morris as the team’s defensive coordinator, where he stayed for three seasons.
In 2021, Morris won his second Super Bowl as a coach, helping lead the Rams to a 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI.
Last offseason, the Falcons fired Arthur Smith and were looking for a new head coach. While Bill Belichick was initially viewed as the front-runner to land the position, the organization eventually went with the familiar option: Morris.
As Morris has pointed out, this marked the third time that he’s been hired by Falcons CEO Rich McKay, whom he’s known since his first year in Tampa.
Now, at 48 years old, Morris is much more experienced and prepared for everything that comes with being a head coach.
When the Falcons face the Buccaneers on “Thursday Night Football” tonight, Morris will face his former employer. While the Bucs gave him his first NFL coaching opportunity, they also fired him 12 years ago, and he recently told SiriusXM NFL Radio that “there’ll be no love lost” during Thursday’s divisional showdown.