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Matthew Brown: Second time around the charm?

matthew brown, the union-recorder, milledgeville, ga.
·4 min read

Feb. 2—This is for all those who feel that Atlanta Falcons management got in the way of Bill Belichick becoming the head coach in the Peach State. This is for all those who feel that owner Arthur Blank couldn't bring himself to meet the demands of the NFL record six-time coaching champion. This is for all those who feel that Atlanta Falcons management 'settled' for Raheem Morris to end the coaching search.

Morris may not lead the Falcons to six Super Bowl victories. Belichick was certainly not going to lead the Falcons to six Super Bowl victories. Belichick's best chance at six more NFL victories period is if he is chosen as the interim replacement when the first coach is fired (Dallas? Philly?) midway through the 2024 season.

That's enough of the dead horse beating (hey, don't be calling that man that kind of name!). You would get more out of a press conference from a ... can I please move on to the next point?

Morris succeeded a Super Bowl-winning coach, Jon Gruden, at Tampa Bay in 2009 and went 17-31 in three full seasons. So it's been more than a decade since Morris has been in charge of an entire franchise full time.

I say full time because he joined the Atlanta Falcons in 2015 with three job titles, including assistant head coach. He was on the staff of now Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn, who put him on the offensive side of the ball with Kyle Shanahan for three seasons. The first one, 2016, was the Super Bowl season Belichick and Tom Brady spoiled (No, it was Quinn. It was Shanahan. It was yellow!).

As everyone also has been made aware, on an interim basis Morris did run Atlanta's whole show in the pandemic year of 2020 when Quinn was fired after starting 0-5. He only won four games, which some may or may not add to his overall record, and moved on to Los Angeles as defensive coordinator for the Rams. There, Morris gets another Super Bowl ring (he was on Gruden's staff in 2002) for the 2021 season.

I go over all of this to ponder: Maybe success is found the second time around. Morris is 47 years old, which means he's 32 the first time he's made a head football coach in the NFL. We are seeing several hires like that. Take Mike MacDonald of Roswell. He goes from Baltimore Ravens DC to the head man in Seattle at the ripe age of 36 (I'm reading that he attended the University of Georgia and even worked on Mark Richt's staff for four years, but nothing about him playing for the Bulldogs).

Ben Johnson, who decided to remain the Detroit Lions offensive coordinator, is 37. Seven current head coaches are in their late 30s. New Tennessee Titans coach Brian Callahan is 39. His former boss in Cincinnati, Zac Taylor, is 40 and already has a Super Bowl appearance. He lost to Sean McVay, Morris' former boss, who became a champion at 35 the second time he made it to the Big Game. Mike McDaniel (in case you thought we had history with two coaches sharing the same name, not quite) of Miami is 40 as well.

McVay was in fact the youngest coach ever hired at 30. Morris is fifth on that list. Don Shula was 33 when he's first hired by the Baltimore Colts. John Madden was 32 when the Oakland Raiders hired him.

Belichick himself was approaching 40 the day he began as head coach of the original Cleveland Browns. In four years, he was 36-44 with one playoff win (over New England). He did not move with the Browns to Baltimore after the 1995 season. Instead he goes to New England to work with his former boss from New York Giants days, Bill Parcells.

I have written about how the University of Alabama had a head coach who never coached a game, so is he really a former Crimson Tide boss. Is or is not Belichick a former head coach of the New York Jets? He was there with Parcells again for three seasons, and it looked like he would succeed him as Jets head coach. He's announced as such one day, then the next, which was press conference day, he's talking about his resignation from the franchise.

And so the New England odyssey begins.

Point being, who saw the greatest of all time on the sidelines in Cleveland? Second time around ...

(If at all possible, give pet adoption a try through the Animal Rescue Foundation in Milledgeville. Donations of any kind are also in great need. ARF is a little red building at 711 S. Wilkinson St., and more information is available at animalrescuefoundation.org.)