And then, there were two.
News broke during Grant & Danny’s show Thursday that Raheem Morris, who had a second interview with the Commanders scheduled this week, has agreed to become the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, leaving Bill Belichick out in the cold (as Atlanta was seemingly his only suitor) and the list of vacancies down to Seattle and Washington.
“If you just look at it on paper and you say the Falcons chose Raheem Morris over Bill Belichick, that sounds a little bit crazy, but is it crazy at all?” Grant asked. “Raheem Morris is a good defensive coach, first and foremost, he is an outstanding leader of men, exceptionally relatable to players – they love the guy to the point where you're gonna be able to recruit, and that’s kind of got the opposite relationship with players that Belichick has – and he's not gonna demand any front office control. He's gonna fit in very nicely, presumably, with Kyle Smith, who was here in Washington when he was here with Terry Fontenot, the GM in Atlanta, and I actually think it's a way better fit for them than Belichick.”
Great news for GP and his Ben Johnson Alerts, as there’s only one other competitor now…but also great for Morris.
“I was worried Raheem was gonna get frozen out of this process, but he's going back to Atlanta where you'll remember, he was an assistant coach not too long ago,” GP said. “He’s a Kyle Shanahan guy, all the way back to their days in Tampa, and now working under McVay in Los Angeles, he will get his second shot.”
“I've forgotten about that part of his career because he's been coaching for so long, but didn’t he have the interim head coach tag there in 2020?” Danny asked.
Yes, he did, and he has also coached offense in addition to defense, so he fits all the categories.
“This was one of those interesting ones where objectively I'm going, this is a very good candidate who deserves a gig and I hope he gets one, but I also wasn't that excited about having him come here for some reason,” Danny said. “It’s probably my own unfair stupid bias from his time 13 years ago as a head coach that I can't get out of my head, which is not fair, but it's still kind of the way I felt. I was more excited about other candidates. That said, the universal acclaim and praise and how beloved and elevated he's been, with so many different people kind of speaking up on his behalf in terms of how sharp he is and how well he relates to players, I have not seen anybody say he's overrated or that's not true or he's just fine. He’s basically universally beloved, sort of like the cool guy, and what he did in Los Angeles this year, I don't think it gets enough credit. They took a garbage unit without much talent outside of Aaron Donald and he made them serviceable as a group, and they went on a nice run and gave Detroit all they could handle in the Wild Card round. Really impressive resume, so good for him, man. I'm glad.”