Raheem Morris expected to join the Falcons as defensive coordinator

Raheem Morris will join the Atlanta Falcons as a "hybrid assistant-defensive coordinator," according to the Washington Post (h/t D. Orlando Ledbetter). The Falcons are likely to hire Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn as their next head coach, and Quinn apparently wants Morris to have a big role in running his defense, although Quinn will still call plays. Hence the weird job title/description/thing.

Morris was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' head coach from 2009 through 2011, and the team went 17-31 during his tenure. He was fired after ending the 2011 season with ten straight losses, just a year after falling a tiebreaker short of making the playoffs. Morris initially replaced Jon Gruden in one of the weirder coach-firings over the past decade, when the Glazers decided mid-January that they wanted to cut ties with their general manager and head coach.

Morris was promoted from the position of defensive backs coach, and he probably wasn't ready to be a head coach at the time, but the Glazers were rumored to be afraid that another young, genius coach would leave town, as Mike Tomlin had done earlier. Morris fired his offensive coordinator two weeks before his first season, and his defensive coordinator was demoted toward the end of the year.

And despite all of those issues, Raheem Morris' 2010 Bucs won more games than any other Tampa Bay team since 2005.

Oddly enough, Morris has only had one job since leaving the Bucs: as Washington's defensive backs coach, where he oversaw a perpetually mediocre-to-horrible group -- one that included former Bucs cornerback E.J. Biggers for most of his tenure. I guess rumors of Morris' defensive genius were exaggerated?

Regardless, it looks like the Bucs will get to face their former head coach twice per season now. Good fun.

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