Latest news with #RaheemMorris
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Falcons WR Drake London wows crowd with one-handed catch in practice
After getting the day off on Friday, the Atlanta Falcons returned to the field for their second official training camp practice on Saturday morning. Head coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot spoke to a fired-up crowd in Flowery Branch before the players got to work. Wide receiver Darnell Mooney was out due to a shoulder injury, but Drake London was there to provide a little excitement for the fans in attendance. London received cheers from the crowd after bringing in a one-handed sideline catch. Check out the clip of London's catch below, as shared by FOX-5 Atlanta reporter Miles Garrett. Watch: Drake London wows crowd with one-handed sideline grab The Falcons signed veteran wide receiver DJ Chark on Friday evening. The former Pro Bowler worked out with the team before Mooney went down on Thursday. However, Chark's signing happened shortly after it was reported that Mooney would miss a few weeks of practice. Chark was spotted wearing the No. 16 at Saturday's practice. Check out the team's updated 90-man training camp roster and come back after practice for more news and updates. This article originally appeared on Falcons Wire: Atlanta Falcons: Drake London makes one-handed catch at practice
Reuters
5 days ago
- Sport
- Reuters
QB Michael Penix: Falcons' offense should be 'best in league'
July 25 - Michael Penix Jr. has high hopes ahead of his first full season as the Atlanta Falcons' starting quarterback. How high? Well, consider what Penix had to say on Thursday. "Potential? We should be the best in the league," the 25-year-old said. "You know, with the guys we got around us. You know we got a great offensive line as well ... we should be unstoppable." Penix indeed has a number of playmakers around him, notably fellow first-round picks Bijan Robinson, Drake London and Kyle Pitts. The second-year quarterback also fared well in his three starts last season, helping the Falcons total 96 points from Weeks 16-18. Penix, the eighth overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft, played in five games in his rookie season, completing 61 of 105 passes (58.1 percent) for 775 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions. Penix isn't alone in his sky-high optimism about the Atlanta offense. Right guard Chris Lindstrom echoed Penix's notion that the team "can be the best offense," while right tackle Kaleb McGary admitted that while being "horribly biased" in saying that he thought "we're the best ever." Falcons coach Raheem Morris isn't ready to make any such declarations, however. "I like to just buy into the clean slate and let our guys go out there and kind of define it," Morris said. "It's kind of like when we talk about identity all the time. Those things got to be defined daily. I can tell you what I want it to be, but that may not necessarily be it when you turn on the tape. You want to make sure it is when you turn on the tape. "I just look at that, like with the team, I'm really optimistic about the guys, really fired up how they came back, really fired up about what they looked like up until this point, and now we got to go out there and do it." --Field Level Media
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Raheem Morris gets no respect in CBS Sports' 2025 head coach rankings
Despite producing their highest win total in seven years, the Atlanta Falcons' 2024 season ended with more disappointment. Head coach Raheem Morris led the team to a 6-3 start, but Atlanta won just two of its final eight games to finish with a record of 8-9 The Falcons had their share of defensive issues last season, but they likely would have ended their playoff drought if Kirk Cousins hadn't injured his throwing arm in Week 10. The veteran quarterback's production fell off drastically, throwing eight interceptions without passing for a single touchdown during the team's four-game losing streak. Morris benched Cousins for rookie Michael Penix Jr. in Week 16, but many felt it was too little, too late by that point in the year. Even through the team's struggles over the second half of the season, Morris never seemed to lose the locker room. Entering his second year as Falcons head coach, Morris isn't getting much respect around the league. Nobody is saying Morris should be ranked among the top coaches in the NFL, but he is routinely ranked among the worst after one 8-9 season. Morris was placed near the bottom of the league in CBS Sports' 2025 NFL head coach rankings, coming in at No. 27 out of 32 possible coaches. Raheem Morris ranked NFL's 27th-best head coach by CBS Sports For a team that was supposed to be a quarterback away going into 2024, the young Falcons have a lot of questions after Morris' situational calls contributed to another non-playoff season in Atlanta. If Michael Penix Jr. delivers under center, the tides could turn. -- Cody Benjamin, CBS Sports Let's be clear, Morris was far from perfect last season. He made a few game-management mistakes and probably should have taken over defensive play-calling duties from Jimmy Lake when the defense began to struggle. Winning eight games isn't exactly award-worthy, however, some less successful coaches were inexplicably ranked ahead of Morris (see below). Notable head coaches ranked ahead of Raheem Morris: No. 26: Liam Cohen (first-year Jaguars head coach) No. 25:Jonathan Gannon (12-22 record with Cardinals) No.24: Ben Johnson (first-year Bears head coach) No. 23: Dave Canales: (5-12 record with Panthers) The Falcons will have to prove themselves on the field before Morris can get the recognition he deserves. However, the idea that every first-year offensive coach is better than Morris is a bit questionable. Atlanta kicks off training camp for the 2025 NFL season on July 24. Both rookies and veterans will report to Flowery Branch on July 23. Check out our latest 53-man roster projection as you await the start of training camp. This article originally appeared on Falcons Wire: Atlanta Falcons: Raheem Morris disrespected in head coach rankings
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Atlanta Falcons training camp schedule: 11 open practice dates
The Atlanta Falcons ended the 2024 season on a two-game losing streak to finish 8-9 in Year 1 of the Raheem Morris. The team will look to improve upon that record in 2025, and it all starts with training camp. Falcons players (rookies and veterans) will report to the team's Flowery Branch training facility on July 23, and their first practice is on Thursday, July and general manager Terry Fontenot will address the fans at the team's July 26 practice. The Falcons also have two joint practices scheduled with the Tennessee Titans on August 12 and 13. Check out the team's full open practice schedule below. Falcons training camp: 11 open practice dates July 24: 9:30 a.m. ET July 26: 9:30 a.m. ET (Morris, Fontenot) July 27: 9:30 a.m. ET July 29: 9:30 a.m. ET July 31: 9:30 a.m. ET August 4: 9:30 a.m. ET August 5: 9:30 a.m. ET August 6: 9:30 a.m. ET August 11: 9:30 a.m. ET August 12: 9:40 a.m. ET (joint practice) August 13: 9:40 a.m. ET (joint practice) Make sure to check out our latest 53-man roster projection for the Falcons ahead of the 2025 season. This article originally appeared on Falcons Wire: Falcons training camp schedule: Fans may attend 11 open practices
New York Times
22-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
How accurate can Michael Penix Jr. be? 7 key questions as Falcons training camp begins
The Atlanta Falcons open training camp on Thursday. It's Year 2 for head coach Raheem Morris and Year 5 for general manager Terry Fontenot, and it's a critical season for the organization. The Falcons haven't made the playoffs since the 2017 season and coughed up a great chance to snap that streak by losing six of last year's final eight games. Advertisement These are the seven questions that are on my mind as camp opens. They aren't meant to be the seven most important issues. For instance, Drake London is not mentioned at all, and he could be on the brink of a breakout season. Neither is a secondary that must make a leap forward this season. As for Kyle Pitts, that's always a question, and I'm out of answers at the moment. These are just the things that are on my mind as the 2025 season begins. Quarterback Michael Penix Jr. completed 58.1 percent of his passes during his rookie season. His short stint as a starter means that number doesn't register on the league's official list, which is just as well because it would rank 695th among regular starters in the last 20 years, according to TruMedia. Only the Colts' Anthony Richardson (47.1) was worse last season. If Penix's completion percentage doesn't rise, the answers to every other question on this list simply won't matter. The 25-year-old's coaches apparently don't have any concerns that it will. When Penix was thrust into the starting job in Week 16 last year, he was throwing to receivers he hadn't worked with during in-season practices, and the lack of familiarity showed at times. Other times, he simply missed throws. Five starters in the league completed more than 70 percent of their passes last season, but Penix doesn't need to get to that number. Matthew Stafford's 65.8 percent completion rate seems like a good target number. Stafford has a similarly aggressive style and plays in the offense that Atlanta's is modeled after. Kirk Cousins finished 11th last year with a 66.9 percent completion rate, another realistic goal for Penix's first full season as the starter. Practice passing statistics generally are one of August's most overblown elements, but it's going to be worth watching how well and how often Penix and the starting wide receiver group of London, Darnell Mooney and Ray-Ray McCloud are on the same page in camp. The Falcons traded up for the No. 35 pick of the 2024 draft to select defensive tackle Ruke Orhorhoro and then took defensive end Brandon Dorlus in the fourth round. The pair played a combined 167 snaps last season. Orhorhoro spent five weeks on the injured list with an ankle injury, but he had only 11 tackles in the games he did play. Dorlus was inactive for 14 of the team's 17 games and played 19 snaps. Advertisement The Falcons let veteran defensive tackles Grady Jarrett and Eddie Goldman leave in the offseason, opening up snaps for Orhorhoro and Dorlus. Now it's up to the young players to reward Atlanta's faith in them. 'I think it's absolutely going to have to happen in training camp for those guys,' Morris said. Their progress is vital for the Falcons defense and also for the reputation of this staff's draft picks. They drafted eight players in 2024. Penix and linebacker JD Bertrand (fifth round) are the only two to make a significant impact so far. The Jets are the only team with a longer playoff drought than the Falcons, at 14 years. The Panthers share Atlanta's seven-year drought, but no other team has missed more than the last four seasons. In the first 16 years Arthur Blank owned the Falcons, Atlanta won 54.5 percent of its games (11th in the league in that span) and had seven double-digit win seasons. In the last seven years, the Falcons have won 40.5 percent of their games (26th in the league in that span) and haven't reached double-digit wins once. Blank traditionally has been one of the league's most patient owners when it comes to making personnel changes, but he made clear last offseason that he's unhappy with the team's performance since 2018, and that's unlikely to make the 82-year-old more patient. Atlanta has put a lot of resources into improving its pass rush — signing Leonard Floyd during free agency and drafting Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr. in the first round in April — and the investment was warranted if not essential. The Falcons finished 31st in the league in sacks last season with 31 and have been the league's most hapless group of pass rushers for the last two decades. Now, the challenge will be getting those players enough opportunities to rush the passer. NFL teams ran the ball 43.4 percent last season, the highest percentage since 2009. After 10 straight seasons of failing to reach a 42.5 percent run rate, the league has done that for three straight years. It's not a huge change, but NFL teams clearly are more committed to running the ball in response to league defensive coordinators putting so much emphasis on stopping the pass. Advertisement On top of that, teams have gone for it on fourth down at least 736 times in each of the last four seasons after averaging 496 attempts per year the previous 21 seasons. That change affects how often defenses can feel good about what is and what isn't a passing situation, and therefore what defense is called. Defensive coaches love to say, 'You have to earn the right to rush the passer.' Current trends in the league are making that more difficult. The Falcons offense — and the Rams offense, which inspired it — remain wedded to 11 personnel. The Falcons (86.2 percent) and Rams (82.4 percent) were the only teams in the league to use one running back, one tight end and three wide receivers on more than 78 percent of their offensive snaps last season. Meanwhile, the league is starting to trend more to 12 personnel looks with one running back, two tight ends and two wide receivers on the field. Teams used that grouping on 22 percent of snaps last season, the highest percentage since at least the 2000 season, according to TruMedia. Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson was eager to self-scout his group this offseason to avoid being predictable to opposing defenses. 'If you're not evolving in the NFL, you're going to get stuck behind,' he said. Will that mean following the league's trend toward more two-tight-end looks? And, can Atlanta's offensive roster do that effectively? The Falcons were 30th in 12 personnel (10.4 percent) last season. They have six tight ends on the roster entering training camp — Kyle Pitts, Charlie Woerner, Feleipe Franks, Nikola Kalinic, Teagan Quitoriano and Joshua Simon. Pitts has been plagued by inconsistent production. Woerner has 18 catches in five NFL seasons. Franks has one catch in two seasons, and Kalinic, Quitoriano and Simon are long shots to make the 53-man roster. Running back Bijan Robinson enters his third season coming off a career-high workload. Robinson went from 272 touches (214 carries, 58 catches) as a rookie to 365 touches (304 carries, 61 catches) last season, and it sounds like that trend will continue. 'As many times as we can get the ball in his hands, we're going to do it,' Penix said. Advertisement On the surface, that seems like the right idea, but the Falcons should be cognizant of Robinson's workload. There have been 15 occasions of a running back getting more than 300 carries in a season in the last five years. Six of those came last season. Of the other nine, only once did the back have more rushing yards the next season. That was Derrick Henry in the 2019 and 2020 seasons. In the other eight seasons, the backs had an average dropoff of 695 rushing yards the next season. The extra carries that went to Robinson came at the expense of Tyler Allgeier, who still owns the franchise's rookie rushing record with the 1,035 yards he amassed in 2022. Allgeier had 210 carries that season. That decreased to 186 in 2023 and 137 last season. Allgeier will be playing this season on the final year of a rookie contract that will pay him about $4 million in total. He's in line for a large raise, but the Falcons may not be willing to offer him a fair-market deal with Robinson's second contract looming. Atlanta would do well to hold on to Allgeier, who has proved he's a starter-quality back and might entice him with a two-year deal that would keep him around through the final year of Robinson's rookie contract and then a presumed fifth-year extension for Robinson. Or Allgeier might decide he wants more long-term security and more carries elsewhere.
