Falcons announce flurry of hires to Raheem Morris staff

falcons helmet 2020

The Falcons announced Thursday a flurry of hires to Raheem Morris’ coaching staff, as well as a couple of holdovers from Arthur Smiith’s staff.

Shawn Flaherty and Patrick Kramer are being kept on as the former returns as an assistant offensive line coach and the latter back as an offensive assistant.

In addition, the Falcons hired John Griffin as director of player performance, Josh Nelson as director of performance science, Paul Constantine as associate director of strength and conditioning, Erik Jernstrom as assistant director of strength and conditioning, Jacquies Smith as outside linebackers coach, D.J. Williams as offensive assistant/assistant quarterbacks coach and Rob Dadona as manager of coaching operations.

Raheem Morris is once again tapping into his relationships from Los Angeles, bringing Griffin over from the Rams, where he’s spent the 2021 and 2022 seasons as an assistant strength and conditioning coach and then the associate director of strength and conditioning in 2023.

Nelson has been brought over from Penn State where he served as an assistant athletic director for the Nittany Lions for the past five years. He began as an assistant athletic director for applied health and performance science before being promoted to assistant athletic director of high performance for the Nittany Lions.

Once again pulling from the college ranks, Constantine comes over from Tuscaloosa, starting as an assistant athletic performance coach for Alabama from 2020 until 2022 before being promoted to director of applied science in 2023.

Jernstrom also comes from the collegiate level, having spent the past three years as an adjunct professor at Linfield University in Oregon. Smith was at Texas in 2023 as an assistant edge coach.

Williams coached the past five seasons in New Orleans as an offensive assistant, another connection to Terry Fontenot. Dadona spent the past five seasons with the Jets, spending the last few as an assistant head coach.

The Falcons are building out a big staff under Raheem Morris, and these are the latest additions.

Photographer: David John Griffin/Icon Sportswire

Scroll to Top
%d bloggers like this: