Even at his young age, Sean McVay already has proved to be one of the sharpest football minds among NFL coaches.
Unfortunately for the Los Angeles Rams head man, his first trip to the Super Bowl pitted he and his team against one of the greatest coaches in the history of professional sports.
It’s fair to say the Los Angeles Rams were a more talented team than the New England Patriots this past February. But championships aren’t won on paper, and the Patriots once again outsmarted their opponent en route to another Lombardi Trophy. The Rams at no point looked comfortable in Super Bowl LIII, especially on the offensive side of the ball, as they were limited to a mere three points.
So, where did it all go wrong for L.A.? McVay believes his team’s shortcomings can be circled back to subpar preparation.
“I think the biggest thing you look at,” McVay told NBC Sports’ Peter King, “is are you putting your players in a position to really understand and own the intent of what we’re trying to get done? That’s where I think I fell short, because whatever we’ve asked of our guys — you know, you look at what a great quarterback Jared (Goff) is and I say, ‘What could I have done leading up to that game to have a better contingency plan and better communication specific to the ownership that we want to be able to have from coaches and players?’ And that shared ownership is the most important thing because, you know, we can do all we want and it’s easy for me on the sideline to be able to just kind of sit and watch. I’m not the one having to make the plays. Where I felt like I didn’t do nearly a good enough job is putting us in a position to really have an answer based on whatever they activate coverage-wise and then there’s understanding of, ‘OK, here’s what we’re trying to get done.'”
The Patriots’ defensive game plan clearly caught the Rams off guard. New England opted for far more zone coverage against L.A. after primarily featuring a man-to-man style for the majority of the season. McVay seems to believe he invested too much in what he’d previously seen from the Patriots.
“They had really been such a heavy, exclusive single-high, man-coverage team almost as high as any team I’ve ever prepared for,” McVay said. “Where I think I fell short is you become accustomed to, ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing,’ but not taking into account, ‘Hey, these guys game plan, too.’ Let’s make sure that you’re not so driven by what you see on the tape that then when it does end up being something different that you’re really not as ready as you expect to be specific to putting your players in a position to be ready.”
The championship stage likely hasn’t seen the last of McVay, and it’s safe to say he’ll be much better equipped to handle the moment should his team play on Super Sunday down the road.
