Jalen Ramsey's old presser defending Raheem Morris is all Falcons fans need to know
If you're an Atlanta Falcons fan having any doubts about Raheem Morris, don't. It's easy for Falcons fans who have been let down over and over to look back to 2009 at Morris' past head coaching experience and judge his underwhelming 17-31-0 record with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, or when he briefly stepped up as […]
If you're an Atlanta Falcons fan having any doubts about Raheem Morris, don't.
It's easy for Falcons fans who have been let down over and over to look back to 2009 at Morris' past head coaching experience and judge his underwhelming 17-31-0 record with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, or when he briefly stepped up as the Falcons interim head coach in 2020 and went 4-7.
Since then, however, he's experienced a lot of growth under Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay. He's also earned the utmost respect from star players in the league, including former Rams and current Miami Dolphins cornerback, Jalen Ramsey.
This old press conference of Ramsey is from the Rams' 2022 NFL season, but the way he spoke on Morris even then says a lot about who the Falcons are getting in their next head coach and why both fans and players either already are, or should be excited about the hire.
For context, Morris took a lot of heat early on that season for playing "too soft."
Ramsey was fed up with the criticism and at the 4:20-minute mark he went on a five-minute rant defending him.
“Rah fire. I don’t give a f*** what they say about Rah. Rah fire. I’m telling you. Rah fire. People don’t have no clue. Rah is fire. For real, for real,” Ramsey said. “The fact that he’s not a head coach somewhere, for real, is like a blessing for us, especially in that defensive room. Rah is the real f****** deal. I ain’t even lying to you. I’m passionate about that. Rah is like that. His play calling, the way he allows us to play free, fast, with no fear. The confidence he puts in each of us as players. We have great players on the defense and he’s still teaching us things and expanding our game to be even better than we have been in the past.
“This man just taught me something this morning, just sitting in his office for 45 minutes, he’s just teaching me something new that nobody ever taught me before. Ever. Just opening my eyes up and we’re in the middle of my seventh season and I just learned something new this morning. Rah is that good.”
Ramsey continued to stand up for Morris' play-calling and called out fans for not "really" understanding football "like they think they do."
And then toward the end of the rant, Ramsey got into the Rams' 16-13 loss that week to Tampa.
"Let’s talk about it. We didn’t finish the game how we wanted to, but we played a hell of a game on defense,” Ramsey said. “We gave up f****** field goals and people talking about ‘Rah ain’t call a good game.’ Like, what the f****** are y’all looking at? What are we talking about? This is the NFL and we gave up field goals, still gave up under 17 points. What are we talking about? Y’all are trippin’. If you wanna say ‘Why is Rah calling this?’ Nah. We choose the techniques we wanna play.
"… At the end of the day, if y’all want to, blame me. I don’t give a damn. Blame me. But it ain’t Rah. I can tell you that. It ain’t Rah. It ain’t his play-calling. It ain’t the confidence that he’s put in all of us. All of that. Rah fire. Y’all don’t even understand. I’m cool with Rah being my defensive coordinator for the rest of my career. If that’s how they want to play it, then that’s cool. But Rah’s like that. That pisses me off. That pisses me off more than if people say something about me, saying something about somebody who is really like that and really good, especially when they don’t even understand what’s really going on."
Ramsey reiterated that Morris is the "best" and said he was "really another head coach" in LA's building alongside McVay.
The Rams did not have the greatest season that year going 5-10, but Ramsey still earned his sixth Pro Bowl nod with Morris as his defensive coordinator. Ramsey was traded to Miami that offseason and the Rams redeemed themselves in 2023 with a 10-7 record.
But regardless of any record under Morris' long coaching tenure, Ramsey's extreme passion for "Rah" just proves what kind of leader the Falcons are getting, which is clearly something they've lacked for at least the last three years.
If you weren't fired up about Morris becoming the Falcons head coach before, you should be now.
