'Great Hire!' Falcons' Raheem Morris Is Next in Rams' Sean McVay's Coaching Tree

The Atlanta Falcons hired Raheem Morris after serving as the Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator under coach Sean McVay.

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ORLANDO -- Some coaching trees bear more fruit than others. For NFL teams, perhaps no branch has extended as far as the one belonging to Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay.

Since climbing to the profession's highest rank in 2017, McVay has watched five of his assistants become head coaches elsewhere - including one this past offseason, when Raheem Morris was hired by the Atlanta Falcons.

Morris has the Rams' imprint on his coaching staff, as seven former Los Angeles assistants followed suit to Atlanta.

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Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor has watched the exodus from nearly 2,000 miles away. Taylor was once a McVay understudy ready to hatch, turning his one season as quarterbacks coach in 2018 into a head coaching opportunity.

Taylor and Morris have faced off twice, once in Super Bowl LVI and again Sept. 25, 2023. They've split the meetings, though Morris took the Lombardi Trophy.

Their paths didn't cross in Los Angeles, as Taylor left two years before Morris arrived, but after their matchups, Taylor was left impressed by the in-game adjustments Morris made and the constant curveballs he throws at his opponents.

"He's got multiple different personal groupings on defense, so it makes it challenging," Taylor told SI's Falcon Report on Monday at the AFC coaches' breakfast during the league owners meeting. "You kind of have to gameplan for two different teams. But Raheem does a good job evolving during the game and things that maybe are hurting them or things that he's doing to hurt other people."

The Rams' defense was statistically improved in the second half of games, forcing 12 turnovers compared to just four in the first half while their first down rate drops from 30.6 percent to 27.2 percent.

McVay, similarly, praised Morris's work with in-game adjustments, a fitting crossover between two of the game's brightest offensive minds.

But any conversation involving Morris and Taylor wouldn't be possible without McVay and the lineage he's built. For Taylor, the secret to McVay's success starts with culture - the one Morris spent the past three seasons living within.

"What he establishes is something everybody believes in, so when you're in the building every day, you believe in how you're doing everything," Taylor said. "Sean does a great job of making guys feel kind of what he feels. And so, you walk out of there with the belief that everything you're doing, whether it's how you meet, how you practice, how you walk through, how you travel, is how you win. And he's proven - he's done it, he's won. So, guys buy into that."

Across seven years on the sidelines, McVay has compiled a 70-45 record, made five postseason appearances, made the Super Bowl twice and won it once. Suddenly one of the longest-tenured head coaches in the league, McVay's found the formula to building sustained success.

A centraI part to this formula is something Falcons owner Arthur Blank believes Morris learned while working under McVay: building the right coaching staff and stockpiling talent to replace other coaches when departures occur.

Coaches often say there's no greater compliment than other teams hiring their assistants, as it speaks to the job that's been done. But in some cases, when there's a clear drop-off in quality of assistants behind these coaches, results suffer.

This is where McVay and his tree differ. Quality assistants keep walking through the door, several of whom become coordinators or head coaches elsewhere, such as Atlanta's new offensive coordinator, Zac Robinson.

For Taylor, the ability to recognize coaching talent is a key distinguisher for McVay and one of the primary reasons he's tree has grown at such a substantial rate.

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"He does a good job of hiring the right people," Taylor said. "He hires people that have this path to be head coaches. I remember I always thought everybody on our staff could be a head coach when I was in LA and that's kind of proven to be true. That's just the impact Sean has on people - he does a great job of empowering people."

McVay's influence has led Taylor to three consecutive winning seasons, including the aforementioned Super Bowl defeat to Morris and the Rams. Taylor won just six games in his first two seasons as a head coach but has rallied to go 31-19 since.

Morris is just starting his third stint as head coach. The first came with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, when he was 32 years old and self-admittedly unprepared. The second was in an interim spot with Atlanta in 2020, guiding the team to a 4-7 record after starting 0-5.

For his career, Morris is just 21-38 on the sidelines - but that was all before working under McVay and before he became a protege of the league's fastest-growing coaching tree.

And while he's never worked directly with Morris, Taylor believes his branch brother is ready to carry the flag of McVay products turned successful NFL head coaches.

"I've always really liked Raheem and the energy he brings to the team and a defense or an offense," Taylor said. "And I think he's a great hire in Atlanta. I'll be pulling for him down the line."