As some NFL teams look for new head coaches, one popular name currently on the market is Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris.
It’s hard to deny how well Morris has done during his time with the Rams, winning the Super Bowl in his first season and now transforming a very young defense in 2023 into a quality unit.
Morris has previous head coaching experience with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and as an interim coach with the Atlanta Falcons, and many feel he is ready to run a team again after working with and learning from Sean McVay.
Despite all of the interview requests he has been getting though, Morris is making sure that his main focus is still on the Rams and the postseason because he understands that the best thing he can show potential teams is that he is good at his job and is a winner.
“I think as you go through this profession the people that request you for these moments, they respect winning more than they respect anything,” Morris said. “So I think their expectations for me are to just present my best self when I talk to those guys and really just be authentic. The pressure is really not on me. The pressure is really not on anybody that I work with or anybody that goes across this business. It’s really just I’m going to do what I do best in order to provide my best information for those guys when I get to that point and I’m not at that point yet.
“I’m still focusing on Detroit. I’m worried about trying to go out here and get a victory for the L.A. Rams. I really believe I’ll handle that when that time comes and is there because Raheem Morris, in the third person speaking, I’m going to be the same person anyway. So I have to go give them my best self and my best version is required.”
The Washington Commanders, L.A. Chargers and Atlanta Falcons are already among the teams that have requested to interview Morris. The NFL made a new rule, however, that coaches still in the postseason cannot interview for other positions until the divisional round, although Morris says that would have been the case for him anyway.
“Really doesn’t factor in,” he said. “It wouldn’t have mattered whether I had two weeks or three weeks and if I was in the playoffs, I wouldn’t be preparing any differently. I’m preparing for Detroit and getting ready for a really good opponent, going out there and playing those guys. If you take this for granted, you don’t have the opportunity to go to playoffs a bunch. Aubrey Pleasant again, had a great glue and he talked about some of the great players in this game who’ve never been in the playoffs and let’s not take that for granted and it’s no different for coaches.”
For the Rams, it’s great to see that Morris is focused on the postseason as they have hopes of making a run. No one expected the Rams to get to this point, but they are here and the work Morris has done with the defense has played a big role in that.
Raheem Morris not handling interviews differently than past seasons
This isn’t the first year that Morris has interviewed for head coaching jobs, but he isn’t approaching it much differently than the past with his current focus still on the Rams.
“I was really thinking about this question because one time I got it I was not in the playoffs,” Morris said. “Probably the first time I got it being the Denver interview and when I got the job in 2009, right? So that’d be a whole different deal to say I wasn’t thinking about it when I got the offer then I would not be telling the truth.
“The times that I have been in the playoffs, it’s been handled the same way because being in the playoffs and getting to this moment… we have so much respect from the NFL, the shield, that everybody knows that that is first and foremost on your mind. I think it’s respected and regarded at a high level when it comes to that.”
