Almost a month ago, Raheem Morris was getting ready for another day at work as the Atlanta Falcons' defensive coordinator when he was told he'd been promoted to interim head coach.
Morris would replace the guy who hired him, his friend Dan Quinn. And, oh yeah, he was in charge of a winless team with a game on the road in six days.
And with a pandemic still raging.
That was Oct. 12. Twenty-six days later, the 2-6 Falcons are preparing to play the Denver Broncos on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, CBS). Morris has won two of three games since he got nudged up the corporate flow chart when Quinn and general manager Thomas Dimitroff were fired.
“I don’t have enough time to talk about [all of it], but you can talk about a bunch of different things,’’ Morris said this week when asked what has been the most difficult part of the promotion. “You get the job, you lose your friend [Quinn], your friend is out of the building and you have to take over, you have to step in front and lead some men. Then you get hit with COVID, COVID runs through your building, [and] you have to come up with some plans to get the team ready to play a football game.’’
Falcons defensive end John Cominsky and defensive tackle Marlon Davidson were among those who tested positive for COVID-19 in Morris’ first week as interim head coach. The team also had to work remotely in the days leading up to a Week 6 game in Minnesota.
The Falcons stood up to the challenges, riding a four-touchdown day from quarterback Matt Ryan to a 40-23 win. Atlanta intercepted Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins three times.
“You have to go to Minnesota and play a tough team out there and get a win,’’ Morris said. “We were able to bounce back and get a win -- you have to deal with the COVID issues. We’re still dealing with those issues ... [but] this game is built for us to go out there and absolutely attack the problems head-on. It’s been kind of fun for me to go out there and do those things.’’
After that, the Falcons let one get away against Detroit when running back Todd Gurley’s inability to stay out of the end zone with 1:04 left gave the Lions the ball back. They scored on the game’s final play for a 23-22 win. The Falcons then rebounded with a 25-17 win over the Carolina Panthers.
It has all been a decade or so in the making for Morris, who is clearly auditioning for what’s ahead for the Falcons. Owner Arthur Blank called him “the right person to give this responsibility to.’’ Morris was, after all, a 32-year-old assistant coach when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers named him head coach in 2009, replacing Jon Gruden.
Morris had been promoted to defensive coordinator a month before being named the head coach.
Asked this week if he took any lessons from his three seasons as Bucs head coach, Morris said he has learned to share the workload.
“I’m in the moment right now. I’m kind of living what I’m doing right now and doing the stuff that we need to do for this team to win,’’ Morris said. “When I was a head coach last, I was 32 years old and probably thought I had all the answers. Now I’m a head coach, I’m 44 years old, and I know to lean on different people that I can lean on in this building to be able to help me become a better coach every single day.’’
Morris said that from a football perspective, he’d like to find a way to squeeze out a home-field advantage in a season with few or no fans in stadiums. The Falcons are 0-4 this season at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where they’ll face the Broncos Sunday.
“With the fans not being there, the home-field advantage becomes Julio Jones, it becomes Matt Ryan, it becomes the guys you are going to play,’’ Morris said. “The home-field advantage becomes more into the team and into the team base and how you want to be played. There are some teams that are playing really well at home and there’s some teams in the league that aren’t playing really well at home, and I think it’s all based on the team itself and the leadership itself. Right now we’re not playing well at home, and that’s something I have to address.”