New Atlanta Falcons Head Coach Raheem Morris Adds To Sean McVay’s Insane Coaching Tree

Getty Image / Ryan Kang

Los Angeles Rams Head Coach Sean McVay has been considered a wunderkind ever since his early days as an NFL assistant. When he took the Rams from the worst scoring offense in the league to the best in his first season as head coach in 2017, everyone wanted to hire coaches that had spent time with the NFL’s hottest young coach.

It’s been seven seasons since his incredible debut season as a head coach, but teams still want to hire those that have spent time with the Super Bowl Champion. The Atlanta Falcons hired his defensive coordinator, Raheem Morris, on Sunday, in hopes of getting some McVay coaching tree magic.

Yes, Morris is a defensive coach, while Sean McVay is known for his offensive acumen. But, spending time around arguably the league’s brightest coach had to have made the Atlanta Falcons more likely to hire him.

Despite having low expectations and limited talent coming into the year, Morris turned the Rams defense into a respectable unit en route to the team being a surprise playoff team.

And, he’s actually coached on the offensive side of the ball in Atlanta, serving as the team’s assistant head coach from 2015-2019 and coaching the wide receivers from 2016-2019. Morris did have a very unsuccessful stint as a head coach in Tampa Bay from 2009-2011, but he was the youngest coach in the league at that time and the Falcons are presuming that he’s improved in some key areas.

But, this means that five of McVay’s Rams assistants have been named head coach in just seven years, with another five being named coordinators. That’s a prolific rate that shows just how much people around the league respect McVay.

Three of those coaches, Matt LaFleur, Zach Taylor, and Kevin O’Connell have been huge hits as head coaches, while Brandon Staley was an absolute disaster for the Chargers. It remains to be seen how Morris will do in Atlanta.