Here’s what Falcons coach Raheem Morris said after the 31-0 loss to the Jaguars on Friday:
Opening statement: “We have to go through the process of eliminating people off your team. Doing those things is one of the toughest things for a coach and a front office. We have to get those things done over the next couple of days.”
On how the backups played against the first string Jags: “I think they played physical and tough. They came out and played against that first group for the Jaguars. They did some nice things early. Standing up…really went out there and played in the right way. You never want to call them second-teamers, the guys we put out there today. The guys who went out there today played tough and physical for us. We are trying to define some of those roles. Form the bottom of our roster. And, we have some tough decisions. When you go back and look at it individually. You’ll always find things that you want to see. You’ll always find things that don’t (want to see). We’ll do those things everytime that we go out and play.”
On Donavan Mutin, who had 14 tackles: “Watching him put his pads on and become a physical player in practice. Then watching him in some of these games and lead our team the right way. I think those are the most important things that you want to do when you talk about players. He plays with great energy. He plays with great passion. He loves the game. You can feel his grit and his effort all the time, whether it’s in the locker room, whether you are walking by him in the lunchroom, whatever the case may be. He’s a passionate young man that you cheer for all the team. Those are the kind of guys you want to work with.”
On how he feels the scrimmage went this past week and how he plans to carry that momentum into the regular season: ”I was extremely ecstatic about the scrimmage. It was a physical, competitive, highly fun environment that you guys got a chance to go out there and watch. And I know you guys really appreciated that day. We got a chance to get our owner out. I kicked him off the field once or twice, but he couldn’t stay off the field. He was just out there. They did a nice job of really going out there and making it a game-like situation for those guys who did not have the helmets on. I forget I didn’t talk to you after that practice, but the excitement about that and getting that many snaps – I believe it’s 107 snaps on the day. The transition from special teams to offense, to get it going at halftime to be able to come out and get those guys to come back and rally and get a good first half from the offense and a great second half from defense, highly competitive. You guys enjoyed it. I know [D’Orlando Ledbetter] kept asking who won the game, what was the score, and nobody had an answer for it. I was thinking about what I was going to say when he asked me that because I had no idea. I just felt like the Falcons won the day.”
On the thought process behind CB Kevin King playing safety against the Jaguars: ”Just the versatility of the young man. We can play a little bit at corner. We’ve seen him make plays in the first game against Miami. We’ve seen him play it throughout camp. He has a little versatility to go play some dime position for us, which you have seen in camp and our practice and some of the packages that we have. And today, you put him at safety a little bit with the experience that we have to see him go back there and be able to move around. When you create that kind of versatility, you create a lot of help for us in all the different roles. To give the guy the best chance to be on football team in any fashion, I just think that’s a great job by our defensive coaches to get him ready to play all those different spots, particularly by Kevin King coming off all the injuries he’s had and the tough times he’s had in the National Football League and watching him go play with complete passion and fun.”
On whether it is harder to make roster cuts all at once than making cuts throughout training camp: ”I believe it’s happened the last three, four years since they’ve done that – since COVID, I believe. I actually like it that way better because you give every young man a chance to go out there and prove himself, to give him that fair shot, that opportunity. There is nothing worse than cutting a guy that you had planned on playing in the fourth and you can’t because you have to get down to a certain number on the roster. So, giving a guy a chance to go out there and get some reps, some game-like reps, to put film on for other teams, to talk about being on a different team. I talked to these guys about putting on the shield in the National Football League and how important that is. I learned that the Herm Edwards a long time ago. To give them an opportunity to see other people, to give them an opportunity to advance in their careers or to go home – I talked about it with our owner today – to go home and get ready for when your number is called and your name is called at some point in the season. Those are things that we value. It’s no different than what our culture, it’s no different than what our ethos is when you put people first. The more time you get people to be around us, the better.”
On CB A.J. Terrell Jr.’s contract extension: ”First, I have to say this: I don’t think anybody knew he was up, and that was like the most beautiful thing about the whole process. We’re behind the scenes. We’re talking about a contract. You got his agent working with Terry. We got our money people working with Terry, talking to his agents. All this stuff is going on, and all A.J. did was show up to work, play the corner position, lead defensive backs, give us great energy at practice, tackle, knock down passes, get better, go to work and just play. The excitement for me being here when we drafted him and that process – that was my draft pick. It wasn’t Terry’s. We have to make sure we say that. Terry did not draft A.J. When we drafted him back then, you knew what kind of man he was. You knew what kind of resolve he had. I remember giving him a bunch of stuff about getting beat in the national championship game. Who knew it was going to be Justin Jefferson and [JaMar] Chase? You knew he had some type of fight to him, a certain toughness. He has done nothing but show us that since he’s been here. When a young man is rewarded for doing those things, and we can’t thank the Arthur Blank and the Blank family enough for what they do to reward the guys that really deserve it in our community that’s been a part of what we do, it is absolutely outstanding. I can talk about A.J. all night if you asked me to because I’m proud to have him. His family came. It’s a beautiful occasion. Got a chance to walk around with those guys. Remember it was COVID, so really didn’t get a chance to meet them back then. I was fired up for him to do that. When a young man tells you that’s one of the best days of his life, that’s absolutely outstanding. And his teammates and how they cheered for him and how they were excited for him, that’s just different than what I’ve seen in most places.”
On the flexibility of building the roster with the guys that are currently on the team versus ones that have gotten released around the league: ”You are always going to score scour. We’ve got the nosiest scouts in the National Football League. I talk about Ryan Pace and Kyle Smith, that crew, Hakeem [Smith] and all those guys. Talking about Sal [Conti], it’s all of them. So much. I know right now, Ryan Pace is looking, and he is going to come in and have a fullback on us. We don’t even use a fullback. He’ll have it on my desk tomorrow. It’s just how he is. He goes and looks and finds ways to get people that are better. He finds ways to keep churning the bottom of the roster along with the top as we’ve seen the last several weeks. I’ve got all the confidence in the world in our guys looking around the league finding people. And then it’s up to Terry and I to make those decisions on who can we bring in, how can you make space, whether it’s now, whether it’s later, whatever the case may be. I really appreciate that about those guys.”
On the decision not to play certain players in the preseason: ”For me, personally, and what we have spoken about as a group because we do everything collectively, I hold more value in the joint practices, the mimic scrimmage that we’re able to simulate and do those things. Hopefully, moving forward, you want to be able to have four of those joint practices. One set at home, one set in the road, which we’ll be able to do moving forward because of our new facility that we have, we’ll be able to get the exhibition game with some of our younger players and go show their stuff and put their stuff on the brightest stage in order to put themselves in the best position to make the football team to get them out there. And those are the ways where you can mitigate injury of losing people that you are going to count on when it’s time to win the real games. Like I mentioned before, you don’t get mulligans for losing guys on a team that you are going to count on. I’ve got a lot of respect for this game that for the guys that we put out there, if I’m putting you out there, it’s for an opportunity to do something at a higher level than we think you can do within practice. It’s no different than the first game when we had our two safeties go out there and get a little bit of time. We get one injured and pull the other one because we wanted those two to really go out there and battle for that position to find out who can separate themselves. So we’ll play people based on those decisions, and we’ll continue to have that philosophy as long as I’m fortunate enough to be the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons.”
On what the next week is going to look like for the players as the team gets ready for Pittsburgh: ”It’s still going to be a training camp philosophy for us. You still have the two weeks before that point or at least a week next week you have to get ready. You make the cutdowns and have a different set of practice because of the amount of people that you have for some of the practices. You have more of a low volume, but you have to get some stuff. As you put those people back on your roster, you’ll be able to pick up a different intensity with the medium volume or high volume. You get two of those with the jog thru. That will get us right to that mini bye for the players, get them out of the building a little bit and come back and get ready for Pittsburgh.”
On an update on ILBs Kaden Elliss and Nate Landman: ”I’m going to mess this up, and I’ll tell you later, but they definitely both are day-to-day. I can’t remember exactly.
David Bassity: “Kaden has a groin, and Nate, a quad.”
On joining the Jaguars’ huddle: ”I was in the breakdown with the receivers today because of [Austin] Trammell who played here. You guys know [him] well. He came out to L.A. with us last year. I broke it down with their receivers. I did. Guilty.”
On his thoughts on this preseason game being the last time some of the players put on pads: ”That’s the part I always talk about is tough. That’s the hardest deal when you’re a coach. That’s the hardest deal when you are a personnel guy. That’s why we value so much sitting down with them and telling them and being brutally honest, but at the same time being compassionate about what we think their beliefs are and how they can further move on. And all you can tell them is your opinion. Then you have players that will go out and prove us wrong and you’re going to have players that go out and find ways. They always respect the fact what they got, the open and honest communication from the Atlanta Falcons. And we’ll continue to give people that because we owe them that.”
On how he evaluates the receivers that did not play today: ”The rook made a couple of tough catches over the middle, which is really exciting. Chris Blair came out today and had another couple of exciting catches. They made challenges for us in who you want to keep and how many can you keep and some of those different things. We had a couple of different perimeter runs with some of the guys and watching them block a little bit on the edge. For the wideouts in our division, it’s not all about just the recessions, you’ve got to be able to put your face on people in order to create some runs [and] do some different things. You’ve got to be able to enjoy the process of those guys learning and doing what you can do every single time. They always make it tough on you, and we’ll get together in the next couple of days and we’ll figure out where we want to go next.”
On what he’s seen from WR Chris Blair: ”Been really proud of Chris Blair. When he got here, you really saw him working. I remember walking around the building, not really knowing his name and just noticed that he was one of the guys in the makeshift weight room that we had in our indoor facility right from the beginning. He was in there for a long time, and he was in there with A.J. Terrell every day. Then I would come out, and I would watch him run sprints on his own before we even hired a full-time strength coach who was able to be in the building. He was in there working. Every single day, he would just would walk by me. I was always too embarrassed to ask him, ‘Hey, what’s your name?’ Then OTA day started, and he went out there and made plays and ran routes. He was able to take coaching and able to do the right things all the time. I remember going out there in the OTAs, making some plays in shorts and you’re not wanting to give him too much credit because it’s not as competitive as he wanted to be. But then he got to camp, switched positions, was able to do a little bit more on that side, learn some more stuff, make stuff a little more versatile. Then I watched him get in the games. I watched have a mistake, bounce back from the mistake and come out, really lead the receiver unit. He was able to go out there have a big game last week and become a captain for us in the preseason and did some really nice things. Those kind of kids, they always make if tough on you in these times.”
