Falcons Coach Raheem Morris Has Taken Bigger Role with Defense

After defensive struggles, Atlanta Falcons head coach Raheem Morris inserted himself more into the fold.

Atlanta Falcons head coach Raheem Morris has helped the defense reach a higher level of play since the bye week. / Brett Davis-Imagn Images

LANDOVER, Md. -- The Atlanta Falcons' defense enters Sunday night's game against the Washington Commanders riding a wave of momentum -- one that has the unit amongst the NFL's best over the past six weeks.

Atlanta is second in the NFL in both sacks (16) and yards allowed (275.8) and is fifth in scoring defense, allowing only 18.8 points per game.

The turnaround comes after the Falcons entering their Week 12 bye ranked in the bottom-fourth of the league in all three categories.

On the first day of Atlanta's bye week, which came after the team's 38-6 loss to the Denver Broncos on Nov. 17, linebacker Kaden Elliss said the Falcons simply needed to execute better.

Evidently, the solution wasn't just execution.

Falcons head coach Raheem Morris, who spent the previous three seasons as the defensive coordinator of the Los Angeles Rams, has grown more involved in the defense's operation, NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport said Sunday morning.

"One of the reasons the Falcons' defense has been better is -- my understanding, after the Broncos game, Raheem Morris, their head coach, took more of a heavy hand in the defense," Rapoport said. "There's been significant improvement."

So, what happened?

At the bye week, Morris did his own self-scout of the defense, as did defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake and each of the team's assistants.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway the Falcons found centered around personnel. Apart from assistant head coach/defense Jerry Gray, Atlanta's defensive coaching staff is entirely new.

The Falcons thought they knew their players, but Morris said it's hard to truly know the intricacies of each until they're actually at the team's disposal. So, given three months of near-daily interaction and 11 games of film to evaluate, the root of who, exactly, the Falcons had with each player grew clear.

Suddenly, their pass rush blossomed.

"You have some thoughts and some visions for what people can do and what they can really do well, and you just bring it to the table," Morris said Monday. "And then, Jimmy can give me the credit, but it's up to all of us really to put them in and implement the things and understand what we want to get done in order for us to rush as one."

Lake inferred Morris took a larger role after the bye week, but Morris doesn't want the attention for the Falcons' revamped defense -- or at least not all of it.

"You got to give credit not just to me, but to really our entire coaching staff," Morris said, "for having the humility, first of all, to come together and do those things and not being just egotistically driven that it's going to be a one-man show that has to have 20 sacks, but how do we rush together in order to get our things to work how we want to make them work."

The Falcons (8-7) hope to continue their strong defensive form against the Commanders (10-5) at 8:20 p.m. Sunday inside Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland.