FLOWERY BRANCH — In 2009, Falcons coach Raheem Morris was 33 years old when he took over as Tampa Bay’s head coach.
Now, more than a decade since he was fired after the 2011 season, Morris, 47, is running his first training camp with the Falcons.
“I don’t take any of this for granted,” Morris said. “I like to always reset myself and start over. I enjoy this time of year, probably more than most. There’s something about the evaluation period of looking at guys, the teaching, the learning, that comes with football.”
Morris, who most recently was the defensive coordinator for the Rams, was hired to replace Arthur Smith, who posted three consecutive 7-10 seasons. Smith had Matt Ryan near the end of his career and a horrible salary-cap situation.
When the Falcons didn’t have a breakthrough last season, Smith was terminated. Morris, who served in several capacities on Dan Quinn’s staff from 2015-20, was named the coach after a wide-ranging search that included two interviews with former New England coach Bill Belichick.
Morris appears to be in full control of the situation after the team signed quarterback Kirk Cousins in free agency and implemented some schematic changes over the offseason.
“The requirements of us coming to work and going out here and being able to get some things together,” Morris said. “Our guys living on campus, kind of getting that college feel a little bit, that’s always a fun mood. It’s always good to make the meetings a little bit light and then reach up to a serious mode with these guys.”
Above all else, Morris wants to make camp as fun as possible as the Falcons try to stop a streak of six consecutive losing seasons.
“But football is fun, this is a great reminder for us that it is what it is,” Morris said. “You can feel the excitement in the room.”
Morris was elated to get a second chance to a head coach in the NFL. He’s the Falcons’ 19th head coach and first full-time African American coach.
“It is absolutely outstanding that we get a chance to be together and be a part of this,” Morris said. “I just get fired up about all that stuff. I feel like, whatever I was, 24 (when he started to coach), 32 in Tampa as a head coach, but the 24-year-old Raheem Morris, that was able to go to his first training camp in 2002, it doesn’t feel much different.”
The practice rules have changed dramatically since then.
“It feels exciting, but I do have more thought process behind it; on how you practice, actually being a part of the performance team and how we want to move forward,” Morris said. “It’s still fun. It’s still football. It’s still what we love.”
Don’t expect the Falcons to have a lot of fights. When teams went through two-a-day practices and more padded practices, fights were common.
Morris basically has a no-fighting rule.
“I’m never going to waste reps in practice with fighting,” Morris said. “You try to mitigate that and limit that as much as you can. Obviously, there are some hotheads out there that you have to be able to talk to. It’s more about controlling the messaging in the room and what you’re trying to get done.”
The Falcons will ease into training camp with an eye toward their joint practices with the Dolphins on Aug. 6 and Aug. 7. The Falcons are set to play exhibition games at the Dolphins on Aug. 9, at Baltimore on Aug. 17 and host Jacksonville on Aug. 23.
The Falcons are set to open the season Sept. 8 at home against the Steelers.
“What we’re trying to get done and accomplish in this first block will be speed and competition; those are the things we’ll be adding to what we didn’t have in the spring,” Morris said. “The competitive edge of breaking up a pass, the competitive edge of beating that guy on the edge in the pass rush, some of those type of things will be added.”
If the Falcons know what their new scheme requires, Morris believes they will play fast.
“The speed will come and then eventually the physicality will come,” Morris said. “When the physicality comes, I think if you address those things up front with your team, you’re able to talk to those guys and let them know what you expect and what it’s going to look like. (Then) nobody’s caught off-guard.”
Morris has a plan for rookie quarterback Michael Penix Jr., who was drafted in the first round with the eighth pick in the NFL draft.
“Obviously, Kirk (Cousins) took our first-team reps, Penix and (Taylor) Heinicke definitely split our second reps, and (John) Paddock was able to get what he can get,” Morris said of the offseason reps. “(When) we get to those moments and get the chance to get Paddock some of those things.”
Paddock will get some action as camp progresses.
“Usually, they will split days when we get the chance to get to the other field, to get those guys reps and get those guys ready,” Morris said. “Our walk-throughs and jog-throughs are very important for those guys. It will be exciting. It won’t be much different than what you are accustomed to seeing from the spring and what we did in OTAs.”
The Falcons will have some modified workouts for Cousins, which will open the door for some reps with the first-team offense.
“It’s going to be the same,” Morris said. “… We are going to go with the ones with Kirk and then Michael Penix Jr. and Taylor are going to split those twos. I’m giving you Mike Tomlin voice: ‘They going to split those twos. It is what it is, the standard is the standard.’”
Morris didn’t reconvene “The Brotherhood,” which was instituted during the Quinn era. He doesn’t have a mantra for the team.
“I like the team to form that, I really do,” Morris said. “I remember throughout my time coaching football, as lucky and as fortunate as I’ve been able to do, the best mantras have always come from the team. It has come from some significant moment that’s happened, whether that be training camp or something that happened during the season.”
He’d prefer that to happen organically.
“I don’t like to build that,” Morris said. “I don’t like it to be false enthusiasm, something that I thought up during the summer. That’s not really related to what the guys are about. I like it to be built from within the team structure.”
How the Falcons play eventually will lead to how they are perceived and what they’ll be called.
“I like it to be built from what we show on video and what we show on tape,” Morris said. “I think these guys will show you what the team mantra will be.”
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