Dallas City News

When the Cowboys take the field this Sunday to face off against the Falcons, they will have something in common: both teams experienced a significant decline on defense after Dan Quinn left their team. The Cowboys didn’t fire Quinn, though, whereas the Falcons did.

When they did fire Quinn, then the head coach, Atlanta promoted Raheem Morris to the interim role. Morris had previous experience as a head coach, being promoted from within to lead the Buccaneers after Jon Gruden was fired back in 2008. At the time, he was the youngest head coach in NFL history, but Morris was fired after three seasons. Several years later, he was part of Quinn’s inaugural staff with the Falcons, holding roles on both offense and defense before rising to defensive coordinator in what turned out to be Quinn’s final season.

Morris went 4-7 as the interim head coach and received several votes of confidence from players to be retained as the full time head coach. Falcons owner Arthur Blank instead pivoted to Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, and Morris joined the Rams as their defensive coordinator. Flash forward three more years, and Smith is no longer a head coach while Morris is the head coach in Atlanta, back again.

As the head coach, Morris doesn’t call the plays on defense, but he’s brought the same scheme that he ran with the Rams and, previously, the Falcons. His defensive coordinator is Jimmy Lake, the former head coach for the University of Washington who spent last season as an assistant head coach with the Rams.

Lake’s career has primarily unfolded in the college ranks, where he rose through the ranks quickly as an ace recruiter with an aggressive scheme. Last year’s stint with the Rams was Lake’s first NFL gig since he was the defensive backs coach on Morris’ Buccaneers staff back in 2010 and 2011. That relationship played a part in Lake coming to Los Angeles and then following Morris to Atlanta this year.

So while Lake calls the plays, this is very much a joint effort between the two longtime colleagues. Both are defensive backs coaches by trade, and Morris came up in the Buccaneers organization when Monte Kiffin and Rod Marinelli were revolutionizing defense with the Tampa 2. Lake spent time within the same scheme while in Tampa Bay, and he later combined the tenets of the Tampa 2 scheme with the hybrid schemes that are commonplace at the college level to build a style of defense that frequently produced high-level NFL talent.

All of that is very present in the defense the Falcons now run, one that looks very similar to what they ran just a few years ago when Quinn was still the head coach. That is to say that the Falcons primarily operate with five defensive backs, with one of the highest rates of nickel packages in the league. They don’t blitz much, only ranking 20th in blitz rate, and present a light box at the eighth-highest rate. This is a defense that sells out to rush the passer, primarily with just four defenders, and often encourages offenses to run the ball on them.

One area where Morris has always differed from Quinn comes on the back end. Whereas Quinn preferred to play with the middle of the field closed off, usually running Cover 1 or Cover 3, Morris has always adhered to the two-deep safety shells that have become more widely adopted in recent years. Morris and Lake utilize zone coverage at one of the highest rates in the league, a trend that has followed Morris throughout his career.

So far, the results haven’t been great in Atlanta. They currently rank 21st in defensive DVOA and 23rd in EPA/play. The secondary has been especially susceptible, giving up 6.3 passing yards per play, which coincidentally is tied with Quinn’s Commanders for 11th worst in the league. One major reason for the poor pass defense is the fact that Atlanta is dead last in the NFL in both pressure rate and sacks.

That’s allowed quarterbacks plenty of time to find open receivers in the zone coverage, with opposing quarterbacks throwing into a tight window on just 11.2% of their throws. For context, only four starting quarterbacks are averaging less than that on the year; in other words, Atlanta is letting guys get wide open a lot. Dak Prescott currently leads the league in tight window throws, so things should get easier for him against this secondary. The word “should” is doing a lot of work, though.

This figures to be a game where the Cowboys offense could really get their mojo back. Atlanta simply doesn’t get to the quarterback, they refuse to blitz as a means of compensating, and their secondary is getting eaten alive because of it. Prescott seemingly got back in rhythm with CeeDee Lamb this past week, which should help open things up elsewhere, especially against this secondary. However, the offense has been stagnant all year.

In short, the Falcons defense presents plenty of opportunity for the Cowboys to score points. If they can’t get things rolling in this one, against this beleaguered defense, then it’s probably a glaring sign that this offense is fundamentally broken. But hey, no pressure.