Sean McVay Explains Late-Game Field Goal That Irked Bettors

Sean McVay irked countless bettors who placed a wager on the Rams-49ers game at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, and prompted others to question whether the Los Angeles head coach might have known about the Week 2 point spread before he made his last-second decision.

McVay denied the latter when he spoke to reporters Monday, less than 24 hours after San Francisco earned a 30-23 victory in LA. The 49ers entered the game as a 7.5-point road favorite, which is why McVay’s decision to kick a last-second field goal made headlines in the gambling community.

“What we were trying to do is we were trying to be able to get a completion to where we kicked the field goal beforehand with the opportunity to be able to — if we had hit that deep in-breaking route, it really would’ve worked out the way that we wanted to,” McVay told reporters when asked about the decision which sent kicker Brett Maher onto the field as LA trailed 30-20 with four seconds left.

“We were going to try to kick a field goal once we got into field goal position to then be able to kick an onside and try to give ourselves the real opportunity to win the game. … But the initial goal was to try to get a two-for-one to where you end up getting into field goal range a little bit earlier with some of the play selections that we had, and then ultimately be able to try to have an onside kick to then be able to go try to compete to tie or win the game.”

McVay went on to address the point spread but said it was Rams vice president of communications Artis Twyman who told him about the gambling blowback.

“Apparently, Artis told me there’s a lot of people in Vegas pissed off about that decision,” McVay said. “I clearly was not aware of that stuff.”

BetMGM revealed Sunday morning that 62% of spread tickets were on San Francisco to cover the 7.5, all of whom turned unhappy after the bad beat.

McVay and the Rams are a 1.5-point road favorite entering their Week 3 road contest against the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday night. Cincinnati might be without quarterback Joe Burrow, which is why the Bengals were moved after they opened as a 6-point home favorite.