Falcons coach Raheem Morris makes late case to keep job for third season

Dan Quinn once saved his job as Falcons coach by winning four games in a row to end a losing season. The 2019 Falcons finished 7-9 for the second year in a row with Quinn as head coach, but Arthur Blank decided the strong finish was a sign that Quinn was turning things around.

Blank fired Quinn after the Falcons started 0-5 in 2020. He elevated defensive coordinator Raheem Morris to interim head coach. Morris returned as Falcons head coach before the 2024 season, and now he’s making a case that he can turn around the losing team he leads.

The Falcons (7-9) have won three consecutive games since they were eliminated from the playoffs. If they beat the Saints (6-10) on Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, it would make two 8-9 seasons in a row with no playoff berths for Morris. Maybe that would be enough to save his job, like his old boss Quinn once did.

Blank hasn’t commented publicly on Morris’ job performance or his status for next season. Sports Illustrated reported that Blank hired the consulting firm Sportology to perform “an overall health check on the team’s operations.” Morris and fifth-year general manager Terry Fontenot are under scrutiny.

Quinn had built goodwill with Blank with his job performance before the losing season in 2019. Quinn’s Falcons won the NFC in 2016, his second year as coach, and he took them back to the NFC divisional playoff round the next season.

Quinn was a winner before he started losing. Morris has one winning season in five as a head coach (interim stint excluded). He was 17-31 with the Buccaneers from 2009-11. He’s 15-18 as Falcons coach.

“There’s no such thing as a losing team; there’s only a losing leader,” Morris said after the Falcons lost their fourth game in a row this season. “I’m the leader, and we lost.”

Morris can show Blank tangible proof of progress since then. The latest evidence was Monday night’s 27-24 victory over the Rams, who entered the game as the betting favorites to win the Super Bowl. The Falcons showed grit in that game and during road victories against Tampa Bay and Arizona.

They came back from a two-touchdown deficit in the fourth quarter to beat the Buccaneers. They fell behind 10-0 in Arizona, then dominated the Cardinals over the final three quarters. All three victories were decided by one-score margins. The Falcons now are 4-5 in close games.

“We confirmed who we are,” safety Jessie Bates III said. “Our record doesn’t reflect who we are as a group. We were two, three, four snaps away from being in the same picture as Carolina and the Bucs, (but) that’s not the case.

“Right now, we are just worried about creating that solid foundation for next year.”

Morris now might have a better chance of being the coach. There are some mitigating circumstances surrounding his team not meeting expectations in 2025.

At the top of the list is the season-ending ACL injury to Michael Penix Jr. in Week 11. The Falcons led the Panthers 21-16 in the third quarter when Penix went down. They lost 30-27 in overtime.

The Falcons were supposed to be better suited than any NFL team to overcome an injury to their starring QB. Kirk Cousins is the most expensive backup in NFL history. He was the starter when the Falcons squandered a fourth-quarter lead against the Jets and lost 36-9 to the Seahawks at MBS.

Those are two bad losses among many for the Falcons.

They lost 30-0 at Carolina. They lost 34-10 at home to the Dolphins (7-9). They couldn’t hold fourth-quarter leads against the Buccaneers (Week 1), Colts (8-8) and Jets. Four of those teams won’t be in the playoffs; the Jets (3-13) could finish tied for the NFL’s worst record.

The biggest demerit for Morris is his inability to fix the special teams. Major mistakes by those units played a significant factor in five losses.

The Jets set up a field goal in the fourth quarter of their 27-24 victory with an 83-yard kickoff return. The Seahawks broke open a tie game with a 100-yard touchdown return to begin the second half. The Colts returned a kickoff 49 yards before tallying a field goal to force overtime in Berlin.

Field goals have been an issue for most of the season. The Falcons retained kicker Younghoe Koo after he showed signs of decline in 2024. He missed a 44-yard field-goal attempt with six seconds left in the 23-20 loss to the Bucs in the opener.

The Falcons replaced Koo with Parker Romo. He missed an extra-point attempt late in the 24-23 loss at New England. The Falcons replaced Romo with Zane Gonzalez. He missed a 50-yard field-goal attempt during the three-point loss to the Jets.

The Falcons had to overcome another failure by the special teams to beat the Rams. Jared Verse faced no resistance on his way into the backfield to block a field-goal attempt. He scored a touchdown on the play.

It was another fundamental mistake by Falcons special teams in the penultimate game of the season. Morris has said several times that those types of mistakes can’t happen. Yet they keep happening, and he seemingly doesn’t know how to correct them.