FLOWERY BRANCH — Falcons first-year coach Raheem Morris has his team in first place in the NFC South with six games to play in the regular season.
The Falcons (6-5) are set to face the resurgent Chargers (7-4) at 1 p.m. Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium with a chance to stop a two-game losing streak and help their playoff chances.
“This part of the year is where you want to be,” Morris said. “You want to say, let’s go back to September, we want to be playing relevant football in November. That’s where we are at. We’re exactly right there. Things didn’t go exactly how we wanted. Things didn’t go bad.”
Morris know the Falcons must find a way to continue to improve.
“You couldn’t ask to be in a better position to go out there and coach a football team and lead men than where we are right now,” Morris said.
The Falcons have posted six consecutive losing seasons and have not been to the playoffs since the 2017 season.
After facing the Chargers, the Falcons play at Minnesota on Dec. 8 and at Las Vegas on Dec. 16. They return to Mercedes-Benz Stadium to host the Giants on Dec. 22 and play at the Commanders before finishing at home against the Panthers.
The Falcons, who are 4-1 against NFC South teams, control their own chances to win the division. They last won it in 2016. The Saints won the next four, and the Bucs have won the past three.
“There’s always the learning curve,” Morris said. “And the best form of example is just look at our history of football, right, and how the game goes. Who are those top teams right now, and what did they do over the last three years. What it looks like in that path and finding ways to make that path mimic that so we can become those teams, right?”
Morris pointed to the climb of the Detroit Lions, who look like the best team in the NFC this season. They had to climb over Green Bay and Minnesota in the NFC North. The Falcons are trying to move head of the Buccaneers and Saints, who have combined to win the past seven NFC South titles.
“You talk about the Detroit Lions, you know, three years ago where were they at on defense, offense, special teams?” Morris said. “And then how much better has it gotten to, like, they’re arguably one of the best teams in the NFL right now.”
So, the Falcons are hoping that they are laying the foundation for a similar future.
“That’s what their record says,” Morris said. “That’s how they play. When you watch them play, (I got) a chance to sit down and watch them play (Sunday). You look at that team and you see the toughness, you see the execution, you see all the buzzwords that we consistently talk about in football. That’s what (we’re) trying to build to.”
The Falcons’ bye at the 11-game mark came at a good time for the team to regroup.
The Falcons are hoping to get back some of their injured players to help with the playoff push. They also want to eliminate untimely penalties.
“Everybody’s going through something,” Morris said. “There’s always ways to manage it. And that’s where the genius of keeping your guys as healthy as possible, and the healthiest team usually is the better team.”
The Falcons tried to keep their players healthier by holding walk-through workouts on the Wednesdays before their past two games that preceded the bye week. But the healthier Falcons lost to the Saints and the Broncos.
The Falcons, who in September defeated the Eagles and played the defending Super Bowl-champion Chiefs tough before losing, need to recapture of their early-season magic.
Quarterback Kirk Cousins has not thrown a touchdown pass in the past two games. He has thrown 17 touchdown passes and nine interceptions. He has a 96.6 passer rating, which ranked 13th in the league before the Week 13 games started Thursday.
“To me, the self-inflicted wounds for the offense is what’s killed us,” Morris said. “You look at yardage — there’s no way you look at the yardage that we were able to gain on the Saints and whoever we play in any loss and say these guys clearly lost that game. That’s not the case.”
Morris is not a fan of stats, normally.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about, like, how do you close out those drives to get the points to allow your defense to play with those leads,” Morris said. “Then, there’s some decision-making stuff in that, too. You don’t always put it on the players, right? Take the ball last game (against Denver), maybe (we) score first, and the whole result is different, right? Who knows?”
The Falcons gave the Broncos the ball to begin the game and deferred their decision until the second half kickoff. Denver scored on their opening drive and built a 21-6 halftime lead.
“But, it’s just all of those things that go into play — really pointing the finger at myself first, some of the decisions that I can help on,” Morris said. “Some of the things I can help those guys with. Then allowing those guys to be able to fix some of their problems. Then collaborating together and going out there and doing it.”
The Falcons’ defense has slipped over the course of their 11 games. They don’t have much of a pass rush, but have limited teams’ explosive plays.
“You kind of base it on what your team is, who you’re playing,” Morris said. “You got to look at all those things first, right? It’s just how, you know, (former New England coach) Bill Belichick said it the best, like what’s our way of winning this football game? And it starts there. Whatever that is, that’s what you got to be ready to go do.”
Morris enjoys that he’s discussing football matters and ways to get his team back on track late in the season.
“I’ve been in a situation where you’re talking about whole other conversations, and that’s no fun,” Morris said. “This is fun, right? How do we improve ourselves to get ourselves in a better position to finish this thing off … to keep ourselves going right where we’re going and keep looking forward and not backwards.”
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