THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – The Los Angeles Rams announced it had agreed to an agreement with Raheem Morris to be its new defensive coordinator. Morris replaces Brandon Staley, who was named the new Chargers coach last Sunday.
Morris, 44, brings 19 years of experience as an NFL coach on both the offensive and the defensive side of the ball for Rams. Most recently, he served as interim coach for the Atlanta Falcons for the last 11 games of the 2020 season, after spending the first five as a defensive coordinator. The 2020 season was Morris’ sixth with Atlanta and the first as a defensive coordinator.
In 2019, Morris began the season on the offensive side of the ball by training wide receivers before taking on the position of secondary coach of the Falcons. After this mid-season change, he helped Atlanta to finish 6-2 in the last eight games, and his defense went from having the fewest takeaways in the first half of the season (4) to finishing with the second highest number in the NFL (16) after Week 9. The defense of the Falcons has also improved from 32nd to 10th place in bags, from 32nd to ninth score in scoring efficiency and from 31st to sixth in red zone efficiency over the eight weeks of the season.
Morris joined Falcons in 2015 as assistant chief coach / defensive pass game coordinator. During his first season in Atlanta, Morris helped defend the Falcons to allow the third lowest total number of NFL pass touchdowns that season (19). He then transitioned to the offensive side of the ball and served as an assistant coach / coach for wide receivers for the next three and a half seasons.
Before joining Falcons in 2015, Morris spent the 2012-14 seasons on the Washington Football Team coaching staff as his defense coach. Washington’s defense ended tied for fifth place in the NFL in takeaways, with 31 in its first season. He also drew with 94 defending passes and came in fifth place on the NFC with an interception rate of 3.3.
Before arriving in Washington, Morris spent three seasons as a coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2009-11). He was the youngest NFL coach in 2009. In 2010, Tampa Bay finished 10-6, scoring the best turnaround in the franchise’s history, after 3-13 the previous season.
Morris began his coaching career in the NFL as a defensive quality control coach for the Buccaneers in 2002, becoming a defensive assistant in 2003 before being promoted to assistant defense coach (2004-05). After a stint as a defensive coordinator at Kansas State University (2006), he returned to Tampa Bay to begin his second stint with the Bucs, starting as a defensive coach (2007-08) before becoming head coach. During that two-year period, Tampa Bay allowed the second lowest number of yards per game in the NFL (170.5) and was also among the league leaders with 22 interceptions.
Morris knows Rams coach Sean McVay well, having previously worked with Washington and the Buccaneers for four seasons. Morris ‘second and final season as coach of the Bucs’ defensive defenders was in the same year that McVay was an offensive assistant for Tampa Bay (2008). The two also worked together for three seasons with the 2012-14 Washington Football Team – McVay was in his second and third seasons training Washington’s tight ends (2012 and 2013) and first as his offensive coordinator (2014), while Morris was the technical Washington defender for each of those three seasons.