Raheem Morris just fired a former college coach who struggled at coordinating Atlanta’s defense. Now Morris’s looking at replacements at the other side of the experience spectrum.
The Atlanta Falcons avoided major changes this offseason with top personnel like head coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot returning. The one notable change, other than whatever actually happens with Kirk Cousins, was Jimmy Lake’s firing. Lake coached a scrappy yet overperforming defense into a scrappy yet underperforming defense in his only season.
Now the coordinator search is on. For some, the search kicking off early with a coordinator with a long working history with Morris may have set off cause for concern. After all, there is a difference between the best coach available and the best coach available who has worked with Morris.
Since then, the search has expanded beyond just Jeff Ulbrich. Arguably the biggest name so far was reported Saturday by the Atlanta Falcons: former Indianapolis Colts defense coordinator and Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus. Per the mothership:
The Atlanta Falcons announced Saturday that they have completed an interview with Matt Eberflus for their vacant defensive coordinator position. The former Chicago Bears head coach is the seventh candidate to be interviewed for the position following the firing of Jimmy Lake earlier this offseason.
While Lake may fit in the “I hope you know what you are doing” hiring bucket, Eberflus is more in the “I understand what you are doing” hiring bucket. While Eberflus and so many others have flamed out attempting to turn around the Chicago Bears franchise, he was able to bring a strong Indianapolis defensive performance to Chicago. The offense is, of course, another story.
For Eberflus, his time in Indianapolis landed the Colts in a substantial number of top-10 rankings. Also, a proponent of a 4-3 base pushing speed and impact plays, we could consider him a Dan Quinn-lite. Most notable is Eberflus managed to quickly turn around a bad Colts defense and generally maintain that uplift: Colts were near the bottom of the league in multiple categories the year before his arrival and moved into the top 10 in his first season.
If the Falcons can get a similar bounce, or even half that bounce, the Falcons should land in the playoffs. He would be a very interesting hire without much risk of another team snatching him up as a head coach.