FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Raheem Morris spent his bye week on a quick vacation trip and then playing with his kids.
“I had basically the Olympics at my house with my children, where you play basketball and football and pickleball, whatever ball you’ve got, and you find ways to dominate your kids,” the Atlanta Falcons’ first-year head coach said.
“I needed a win,” Morris joked.
The week off, he said, helped him recharge his batteries and also reinforced a lesson in positivity after seeing his 6-year-old son, Jalen, disappointed by a pickleball loss to his dad.
“It’s really hard for me to ‘oh, woe is me’ the bye week just because we lost (the last two games),” Morris said. “We forget sometimes that this is a game, and it’s really enjoyable when it’s going your way. We also forget sometimes not to pout when it’s not.”
The Falcons (6-5), who have a one-game lead in the NFC South, return to action against the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
“I’m really confident in what we’ve put into it, and I’m really confident in what the guys here put into it to get this thing done,” Morris said. “I’m confident in our ownership. I’m confident in our personnel. I’m confident in our coaching staff. I’m confident in our players.”
The coaches had occasional phone conversations during the bye week and reconvened in the team facility Monday. Morris spent the morning “bouncing around offices,” he said.
“I’ve been in a situation where you are having whole other conversations, and that’s no fun. This is fun,” he said. “This is about, ‘How do we improve ourselves to get ourselves in a better position to finish off this thing that we started to keep ourselves going and not look backward?’”
Here are five suggestions that might help.
Better pass coverage
A secondary with three Pro Bowlers (safeties Jessie Bates III and Justin Simmons and cornerback A.J. Terrell) too often has been a liability. The Falcons are giving up the highest completion percentage in the league (71.6 percent) and 229.9 passing yards per game, which ranks 26th in the league.
Atlanta has allowed opposing receivers a wide-open rate of 16.7 percent, the league’s worst number, according to FTN Fantasy, and the Falcons have given up 1,300 yards after the catch.
The Falcons have changed their coverage plan dramatically under Morris and defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake. They are 31st in the league in man coverage percentage (12.5 percent) and play more Cover 3 snaps per game (15.36) than all but three teams. Last season, Atlanta played man 23.5 percent of the time and played only 9.18 snaps of Cover 3 per game, which ranked 28th.
The transition has been slow despite the training camp addition of Simmons, who was expected to team up with Bates and give Atlanta one of the best safety duos in the league.
“It’s not an issue of being on the same page,” Morris said. “It’s an issue of repetition.
More play action
Kirk Cousins’ play-action rate is his lowest since 2019, when TruMedia began tracking the statistic. From 2019 through 2023, he was at 27 percent or above. This year, the Falcons are last in the league at 7.9 percent. This is not a Los Angeles Rams thing. Los Angeles was fifth in the league in play-action percentage (17.2) from 2019 through 2023 when current Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson was an assistant there.
It’s tempting to think it’s a Cousins health issue, but Cousins appeared healthy throughout training camp and has pronounced himself healthy enough to run any of the systems he has run in the past.
Atlanta’s offensive coaches decided during the bye week that they wanted to increase their use of play action, Morris said.
“That’s something we want to make more a part of our game,” he said. “It’s really something that Kirk does really well. We have those calls — they always will be part of our program. We have definitely neglected that. It’s definitely something we can add to our arsenal.”
Take some defensive risks
The Falcons are last in sacks (10) and sack rate (2.6 percent of opponents’ dropbacks). This is well chronicled. Can that be fixed, and if so, how? Blitzing more is worth a shot. The Falcons are 17th in blitz rate (27.4 percent), according to TruMedia.
The argument against this is that Atlanta’s defense is eighth best in the league at limiting explosive plays (10.4 percent), and taking more chances with blitzes likely will increase that. Something has to change, though, even if just for a game to see if some life can be injected into a unit that looked flat in its last outing.
The Falcons’ defensive coaches are open to being more aggressive in the pass rush, Morris said.
“Bill Belichick said it the best: ‘What’s our way of winning this football game?’” Morris said. “Whatever that is, you start there.”
Tyler Allgeier
Bijan Robinson is sixth in the league in rushing yards (783), rushing success rate among players with more than 100 carries (44.9 percent) and scrimmage yards per game among players with more than 100 carries (103.8). He’s on his way to a career season, and he still needs to be a focus of the offense.
But Atlanta can’t forget about Allgeier. When he gets more than five carries in a game, the Falcons are 6-2. When he gets five or fewer, they are 0-3. Admittedly, this is a chicken-and-egg argument because they want to use Allgeier as their second-half battering ram, and big deficits take away that part of the game plan, but Allgeier’s physical running style gives the Falcons offense something it doesn’t get anywhere else. It’s time to get him more work early in the game plan.
Tyler Allgeier will not be stopped 😡
📺: #ATLvsCAR on FOX
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/SRdaYjqY4e— NFL (@NFL) October 13, 2024
Tweak the early-down offense
The Falcons have the fifth-highest average third-down distance in the league (7.91), which makes it somewhat impressive that they are 18th in third-down conversions (37.4 percent). On third-and-long, though, Atlanta is only 20th with a 20.3 percent conversion rate.
The easiest way to fix this is to get better on first and second down. The Falcons are one of the most balanced teams in the league on early downs, ranking 15th in the Cook Index by throwing the ball 50.9 percent of the time on first and second down in the first 28 minutes of the game. It might be time to let Cousins have a few more early-down pass attempts to decrease what the quarterback has to do on third down.
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(Top photo of Kirk Cousins and Bijan Robinson: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
