Jalen Ramsey gave a passionate NSFW speech defending Raheem Morris

[theramswire.usatoday.com] Jalen Ramsey gave a passionate NSFW speech defending Raheem Morris

Cameron DaSilva
November 11, 2022 12:24 pm PT
Jalen Ramsey is tired of hearing about how Raheem Morris calls too many soft zone coverages, how his play calling is conservative and how the Rams defense isn’t playing well enough because of the coordinator. Those are all criticisms Morris has come under in recent weeks from fans, and Ramsey has had enough.

During his media session on Friday, Ramsey was asked about Morris and some of the heat he’s taken lately. Ramsey has always come to Morris’ defense and heaped praise on the Rams’ defensive coordinator, but he was especially passionate about this topic Friday.


Ramsey went on a five-minute rant about Morris when asked about his critics, ensuring everyone that Raheem isn’t the issue in Los Angeles.

“Rah fire. I don’t give a (expletive) what they say about Rah. Rah fire. I’m telling you. Rah fire. People don’t have no clue. Rah is fire. For real, for real,” Ramsey began. “The fact that he’s not a head coach somewhere, for real, is like a blessing for us, especially in that defensive room. Rah is the real (expletive) deal. I ain’t even lying to you. I’m passionate about that (expletive). Rah is like that. His play calling, the way he allows us to play free, fast, with no fear. The confidence he puts in each of us as players. We have great players on the defense and he’s still teaching us things and expanding our game to be even better than we have been in the past.

“This man just taught me something this morning, just sitting in his office for 45 minutes, he’s just teaching me something new that nobody ever taught me before. Ever. Just opening my eyes up and we’re in the middle of my seventh season and I just learned something new this morning. Rah is that good.”


After talking about Morris’ greatness, Ramsey then discussed the inaccurate takes he’s seen on Twitter about the Rams’ coverages and scheme. He said no one knows what coverages the Rams run or what they’re trying to do on defense.

Some of it comes down to what looks the offense is giving them, too, which dictates the coverage the Rams use on a given play. And Morris gives players a lot of freedom to play techniques that they want to, which Morris appreciates.

“I see some of the dumbass criticism and ‘why we playing soft?’ and certain things like that. He gives us the freedom to play press on some looks, off on other looks. People don’t really understand football like they think they do when they get on Twitter and they’re talking,” he continued. “Y’all don’t really understand like y’all think you do. Y’all don’t understand the coverages we’re playing. Y’all don’t understand we might be in a certain coverage on one side but the other side is a completely different coverage. We do a lot of mixture of things. Y’all don’t understand how certain players are playing multiple positions and gotta know a lot of different techniques and alignments and assignments. Y’all don’t understand how the offense, whether their receivers come out in a condensed look or they’re outside wide, how we gotta play our techniques differently or how we might have to play off.

“People don’t understand a whole lot of stuff that’s going on. I’ve been super successful in my career playing press-man on guys when I get those opportunities, and so to combat that, offenses come out and they put their receivers in condensed looks so I can’t get up and press. It is what it is. So what do I do? I learn how to play off technique a little bit better and I learn how to play different techniques that Rah has taught me a little bit better and find out what the offense is doing and look at their looks and play things differently. But then when I get those opportunities, I still play press. I played press a good amount of times on Mike Evans in the game. I’ll still do that, but he gives us the freedom to use all the tools that he’s taught us.

Fans are under the impression that the Rams only run soft coverages and run zone. Ramsey compared the Rams’ defensive scheme to building a house.

He said if you’re building a house, you won’t exclusively use a hammer, even if that’s your best tool. It’s the same in football, saying the Rams have a toolbox full of tools that they use, even if one technique might be their strength.

“I don’t get it sometimes. If you’re building a house – I’m not a construction worker, I ain’t never build a house – but if you’re building a house, you don’t use a hammer to build the house. Even if the hammer is your best tool, you don’t use the hammer to build the whole damn house, right? We got toolboxes, too, as defensive backs. We’re not gonna use the same tool every single rep throughout the whole game to accomplish the goal we want to accomplish.”

Finally, he opened up about the Rams’ loss to the Buccaneers, giving up a touchdown with 9 seconds left to lose on Sunday. Like so many others, he pointed out that the Rams only gave up field goals until that last play, and only allowed 17 points.

Yet, they still lost the game.

“And then, let’s talk about it. We didn’t finish the game how we wanted to, but we played a hell of a game on defense,” Ramsey said. “We gave up (expletive) field goals and people talking about ‘Rah ain’t call a good game.’ Like, what the (expletive) are y’all looking at? What are we talking about? This is the NFL and we gave up field goals, still gave up under 17 points. What are we talking about? Y’all are trippin’. If you wanna say ‘Why is Rah calling this?’ Nah. We choose the techniques we wanna play. We choose sometimes whether we want to press a look or we wanna play off. At the end of the day, if y’all want to, blame me. I don’t give a damn. Blame me. But it ain’t Rah. I can tell you that. It ain’t Rah. It ain’t his play calling. It ain’t the confidence that he’s put in all of us. All of that. Rah fire. Y’all don’t even understand. I’m cool with Rah being my defensive coordinator for the rest of my career. If that’s how they want to play it, then that’s cool. But Rah’s like that. That pisses me off. That pisses me off more than if people say something about me, saying something about somebody who is really like that and really good, especially when they don’t even understand what’s really going on. That’s annoying, but anyway.”

Morris isn’t a head coach, but he has experience as one and Ramsey sees him as an extra head coach in the building alongside Sean McVay.

“Rah is the best. I’m telling you. For real, for real. Rah is really another head coach that we’ve got in the building,” he added.

If you didn’t previously think Ramsey felt strongly about the job Morris has done, this speech should tell you everything you need to know about how he views Raheem.