The Los Angeles Rams were dealt a major blow with the departure of Brandon Staley following an impressive debut year as defensive coordinator.
Although Staley had his work cut out filling in for Wade Phillips, he helped turn this defense led by defensive tackle Aaron Donald and cornerback Jalen Ramsey into the No. 1 group in the league in the 2020 NFL season. His efforts landed him the head coaching gig for the neighboring Los Angeles Chargers this offseason.
Staley has now been replaced by former Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator and interim head coach Raheem Morris. While taking over such a talented group with high expectations comes with its own set of challenges, he is certainly no stranger to the task.
Morris is looking forward to getting to work with such elite players and feels his time around Hall of Famers should help pay some dividends, per J.B. Long of the team’s official website:
“When you walk into a room with two potential gold jacket guys, it’s always intriguing. And it’s a lot of fun to see those types of guys,” Morris said. “But when you see the guys that are around those guys, it really makes it intriguing for me as a coach because the guys that play around those guys really become as important as anybody. I’ve been fortunate to be part of some No. 1 defenses and coach in the National Football League when we coached Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks and Ronde Barber and the likes of those guys when we were in Tampa and being around those guys, you know that the people that those guys are around, the people that potentially got those gold jackets and put those things on, what they do for the other players makes it so exciting. What they do for the coaching staff makes it so exciting. What they do for the fanbase, the team, everything about it – and when you got those types of players, you can win championships, and we’re all in this game to try to win championships.”
Morris also touched upon the potential adjustments he is going to make to Staley’s No. 1 defense:
“Staley did a great job last year, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “You’ve got to give his coaching staff a lot of credit, as well. ‘E’ [Ejiro Evero], Aubrey [Pleasant], Joe Barry, [Chris] Shula, [Eric] Henderson. Those guys did a great job of stepping up and I am thankful that a lot of those guys will remain there. I will use as much of the things they had success in last year as possible and will implement some of the things I think can help. Every year in football, you’ve got to go back and watch the cut-ups and watch what you can do better. You’ve got to watch how you control, how you can scheme better. How can you make more players more effective? How can you make Aaron [Donald] more effective? How can you make Jalen [Ramsey] more effective? Those are the things we’ll do to emphasize and those are the things we’ll do to move forward in order to keep this thing going and get these guys to win a championship. At the end of the day, we are going to have a championship from our rings and we are going to be playing this weekend.”
Morris is a familiar face for McVay after the pair spent time together both with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Washington Football Team. He now finds himself in a position to once again coach two Hall of Fame-caliber players in Donald and Ramsey.
Morris will have the benefit of taking over a group that already enjoyed plenty of success under his predecessor so he will not have to change much from a scheme standpoint. Regardless, his comments indicate that he will still be looking forays to kick things up a notch.
