Raheem Brown: The Next Mike Tomlin?

This offseason is going to bring a lot of new head coaches, but particularly one candidate has grabbed my attention in the last days: Raheem Morris.

Probably the candidate with less hype around the league, but his curriculum speaks by himself.

Since 2002, he has been with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (defensive quality control coach), since the 2003 season, learning directly from Monte Kiffin as defensive assistant and being an assistant defensive backs coach in 2004-2005 before having a stint as Defensive Coordinator in Kansas State during 2006.

He returned to Tampa in 2007 as the defensive backs coach and stayed in that position until Monte Kiffin announced he was heading to Tennessee, when he was promoted to defensive coordinator. Since he has been in Tampa as a coach, the pass defense has been ranked in the top five of the NFL, proving his quality as a coach.

Why he will succeed as a head coach?

• He knows perfectly how to run a Tampa-two defense.
• He knows how to develop young players (Aqib Talib, Tanard Jackson, Jermaine Phillips, etc...).
• He knows how to pick players.
• He is young (32 years old) and very, very talented.
  

Which teams are interested in him? The Denver Broncos and the St. Louis Rams (so far).

So we are going to start making suppositions here.

Denver Broncos: If Raheem Morris becomes the Broncos' head coach, he will have a lot of work to do.

If he can maintain most of the offensive coaches he will have the half of the work done: Rick Dennison stays as offensive coordinator, Jeremy Bates as QB Coach, Booby Turner as RBs coach, etc...That will allow the team to don't make a drastic change in both side of the ball and will keep the offensive unit together.

At defense, he will have good players to work with like Jarvis Moss, Marcus Thomas, Champ Bailey, D.J. Williams, etc...But we all now that the Broncos defense needs a huge turnaround and a defensive minded head coach seems to be what they need. And someone like Morris could do it.

St. Louis Rams: If he ends as the Rams' head coach, most of the work load is at the offense, they need a whole offensive line change along with more quality players at the rest of the positions like a big time receiver (Torry Holt isn't immortal) or a better QB that doesn't struggle like Bulger.

He will probably need to bring a new offensive coordinator and lot of coaches here to help him.

At defense, he will have some good and young players to work with like Chris Long, Adam Carriker, Tye Hill, and Atogwe. But he will need more defensive playmakers to improve the team and with all the needs of the Rams it will be hard to change the face of the team in one or two years.

Conclussion: Raheem Brown is a great prospect for head coach. I think the Denver Broncos need to hire him. Rick Dennison deserves to have his shot, but the Broncos need another kind of coach.

It really looks like a Pittsburgh Steelers '07 situation, after they loss their long time head coach they bring a young defensive mind in Mike Tomlin. Then he had a lot of structure already done, like the Broncos now.

If they hire Brown, they won't regret it and will have a head coach for many years that will only will improve during the progress of time.