Column: Rams’ Raheem Morris feels bad for Brian Flores, says he has had better experiences
Raheem Morris is one of the chosen ones, which made him a reluctant spokesperson for the controversy that has embroiled the NFL as it approaches its signature event.
Morris is the Rams’ defensive coordinator.
He is Black.
And when the Rams share the field at SoFi Stadium with the Cincinnati Bengals next weekend, the 45-year-old Morris will be the highest-ranking Black coach on either sideline at a Super Bowl played against the backdrop of former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores’ discrimination lawsuit against the NFL and some of its teams.
“When I heard [about] the lawsuit, I just felt like it was just unfortunate we even have to talk about this,” said Morris, a former head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
He is right, of course.
In a perfect world, conversations would be focused on the upcoming game. But they can’t be, not with the specificity of the allegations made by Flores, not with Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers the only Black head coach in a 32-team league in which the majority of players are Black.
“Obviously, we have a lack of diversity hiring in the National Football League and that’s clear-cut,” Morris said.
The problem isn’t that teams are hiring coaches who they think will win them games. The problem is that almost every team thinks almost every single time that a white coach is more likely to deliver results.
But Morris said he personally hasn’t felt the effects of the invisible white hand that guides coaching hires in the NFL.
Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell will be Vikings coach after Super Bowl, but needs to put that job on hold until finishes job for a championship.
Morris started counting the number of times he has interviewed to be a head coach.
“One, two, three ...”
The count reached five.
“I didn’t feel that way in any of them,” Morris said.
The reference was to how Flores says he feels he was subjected to “sham” interviews by the New York Giants and Denver Broncos. Flores has argued that neither team ever seriously considered hiring him and spoke to him only to satisfy the league’s Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for coaching vacancies.
Morris fondly recalled his interview with the Broncos in 2009 before they hired Josh McDaniels.
“It was a great job to go present myself and put myself in these situations to become a leader in this league,” Morris said. “It really helped me.”
Morris said the experience helped him become a first-time head coach later that month with the Buccaneers. In a couple of months, Morris went from being the Buccaneers’ defensive backs coach to defensive coordinator to head coach. He was only 32. At the time, he was the second-youngest coach of the Super Bowl era behind Lane Kiffin.
Morris won 10 games in his second season but was fired after going 4-12 in 2011.
He has since interviewed for three head coaching positions: with the Atlanta Falcons, after he was their interim coach for 11 games in 2020; with the Jacksonville Jaguars, before their disastrous appointment of Urban Meyer last year; and just last month with the Minnesota Vikings, who ultimately chose Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell.
“I really felt the people in all those organizations did a great job in how they treated me,” Morris said. “But that doesn’t mean that works for everybody and that doesn’t mean everybody is getting treated the same way. I can only speak to my personal experience and how it’s gone for me.”
In short, it has gone well.
When he wasn’t hired by the Falcons or Jaguars, his fallback was to take over a Rams defense that ranked No. 1 in the league the previous season. He’s now headed to the Super Bowl, which he could parlay into another head-coaching opportunity.
His success hasn’t made him any less capable of sympathizing with Flores, who is successful in his own right.
“I just feel bad that that happened to Flo,” Morris said. “I don’t discredit anything that he says because he’s a man of honor, like he said. He’s a man of character. I’m going to do nothing but support him in his efforts to be his best version of himself.”
While Morris backed Flores, some of the Rams were endorsing Morris as a future head coach.
“He definitely can have success as a head coach,” defensive tackle Aaron Donald said.
Donald described Morris as a players’ coach.
“Easy to get along with,” Donald added.
Eric Weddle is sore from his stint with the Rams, but with one more game to go in his career, he’s poised to ride into sunset with a Super Bowl ring.
Cornerback Jalen Ramsey said there was more to Morris than his oversized personality and warm smile.
“This one year, he’s taught me more about the game and how to look at the game and how offenses can scheme different things up and how different things can be played on defense, a lot more than I ever learned in previous years combined,” Ramsey said. “That’s been great for me, evolved me into more of a leader in the secondary.”
With an extensive resume and endorsements from some of the game’s best defensive players, Morris should be a head coach again. He will be a head coach again.
But until stories like his become the rule rather than the exception, the disparities in the league’s coaching ranks will remain a regular part of the sport’s discourse.
Just unfortunate, as Morris said.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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