As is normally the case every offseason, the Los Angeles Rams will be losing some coaches from Sean McVay’s staff before the 2024 season.
The first domino was defensive line coach Eric Henderson accepting a co-defensive coordinator position at USC. Additionally, two coaches on the Rams’ offensive staff Zac Robinson and Nick Caley have been interviewing for offensive coordinator positions around the league.
The biggest loss of them all will be defensive coordinator Raheem Morris, however. Morris has done a great job with the Rams since joining the organization in 2021 and has been interviewing for a variety of head coaching positions across the league the last few years.
Going into this offseason, everyone in the Rams organization put their support behind Morris landing another head coaching opportunity, most recently general manager Les Snead.
It appears that time is finally coming for Morris as he is being named the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, per Adam Schefter of ESPN:
Falcons plan to hire Rams’ defensive coordinator Raheem Morris as their head coach, per sources. pic.twitter.com/qlz3PbgEtJ
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 25, 2024
This is a well-deserved opportunity for Morris, who will be returning to Atlanta where he coached from 2015-20 and served as the interim head coach after Dan Quinn was fired in his final year.
Rams defensive players like Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey have spoken very highly of Morris is recent years and now he will get another full-time head coaching opportunity for the first time since 2009-11 when he coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Considering the Falcons don’t have a franchise quarterback in place though, Morris will have his work cut out for him even though he is going to an organization with a lot of talent on their roster.
After far as the Rams go, replacing Morris will be no easy task. McVay has typically gone outside the organization to hire coordinators so some names that could make sense include Brandon Staley and Ejiro Evero given their familiarity with McVay and the Rams organization.
McVay will likely wait for the dust to settle before finding a new defensive coordinator depending on who Morris takes with him to Atlanta from the current staff.
Rams will get compensation draft picks for Raheem Morris’ departure
It isn’t all bad news for the Rams, however, as they will get third round compensation picks in both 2024 and 2025 for Morris’ departure since he is a minority coach. Given how much success McVay and Sneed have had in the middle rounds of the draft, those picks will be huge for building rosters moving forward.
