If you have been rooting on the same uncompetitive, inconsistent, unimaginative, tantalizing, agonizing football team for your entire life as I have, you might be wondering how the Rams did it. The answer lies with their wunderkind coach’s process.
Sean McVay is the NFL’s youngest head coach at 32 years old. He was hired at 30 which made him the youngest NFL head coach ever. In 2017, his first year, he led the Rams to an 11-5 record and the best offense in the league. From the NFL abys, St. Louis to the City of Angels. In the process, he managed to rescue the careers of Jared Goff, his QB and former 1st overall NFL Draft selection, and HB Todd Gurley, two top talents who had struggled to live up to expectations since entering the league. This season his Rams have leaped out to an 11-1 record, and McVay has his team in the conversation for their first Super Bowl appearance since the greatest show on turf.
Football is a complicated sport with plenty of variables and moving parts. Rather than dreaming up crazy plays to run that look cool on a whiteboard, his scheme emanates from a central guiding philosophy and is far more reliant on communication and interdependence than hero ball. McVay encourages dialogue with all his players and is eager to hear their concerns about what they are being asked to do. McVay is receptive to these concerns and rather than being arrogant or stubborn, he engages his players and is willing to explain his reasoning behind every assignment. He devotes time to brainstorming with each player alterations to his game plan to make his players more comfortable in their roles. Ensuring all his players are on the same page and understand their assignment on every play allows his unit to act as one body: an extension of his football mind.
In this way, McVay is doing less coaching and more teaching-- even collaborating with his players. His future hall of fame left tackle Andrew Whitworth (who is 6 years older than him) explains it like this: “not only do I understand what to do, I understand why I would want to do it that way”, it’s never “I don’t care if you understand it or don’t, we’re going to run this play’”. This builds trust throughout the organization and helps it flow both up and down the chain of command. When the Rams are in a tight spot, his team knows he will call the right play, and he knows his players are fully prepared to execute.
McVay is not only a good communicator but has a tremendous amount to communicate. Current Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur describes McVay as “extremely intelligent, loves ball more than anybody I’ve been around. And he’s just brilliant. I think he might have a photographic memory. He’s just rare”. His ability to orchestrate high powered offenses stems from his uncanny ability to understand how an opposing defense thinks and subvert their philosophy. He knows exactly what his opponent wants to do, pretends he's going to do that, then at the last second with just the most delicate sleight of hand, jukes 11 grown men out of their cleats.
Watching the Rams doesn't really feel like watching football. It feels new.
As someone who is not a football fan, I thought this post was really interesting. I never really thought of football as something creative before, and it was interesting to see that perspective. I would be interested to know what kind of creativity McVay has, whether its internally or externally motivated, whether he focuses more on insight or problem solving, etc.
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