LOS ANGELES — Every week, Rams head coach Sean McVay has a meeting with assistant head coach Aubrey Pleasant. The topics they cover vary, ranging from practices to team culture to leadership to areas for growth for the team.
During the Rams’ bye in Week 6, McVay and Pleasant’s meeting centered on one subject: Finding the right way to connect with this year’s Rams. The group was 1-4, partly due to a cavalcade of injuries and partly due to execution blunders that had let games slip away. The bye offered an opportunity to reset and find a new course while players were away from the facility.
McVay sensed that his usual methods of communication were not landing with this team. It was a subject he had mused on in press conferences in the previous weeks. So he and Aubrey traded ideas, until the latter offered up one that stuck.
Spend less time on game preparations, particularly on the offensive end, where McVay has made his name. Be more present around the team facility, from defensive meetings to the training room.
“I thought that it would be a great help if he could just be a little bit more present with some of the other things that were going on,” Pleasant said. “There are a lot of head coaches in this league that are calling offense because they are a good offensive coordinator. But we are blessed here because we have an offensive coordinator who is a phenomenal leader. And sometimes you can get so caught up in trying to be the best coordinator that at times things might slip through the cracks or you might not feel that impact on a larger level.”
McVay made the change. Sitting in the back of positional meeting rooms. Walking through the training room, checking in on guys as they got treatment. Popping into the equipment room on Fridays for the Rams’ traditional end-of-week Chick-fil-A cheat meal.
The team has felt his presence, and his messages that have sunk in. A young squad is surging, winning nine of 11 games out of the bye to claim its first divisional title since 2021 and appear in Monday’s NFC wild-card playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, guided in all aspects by its head coach.
“Sometimes you have a rhythm and a routine that you’ve established that’s been applicable for previous years. What I’m always trying to learn is how do you evolve? How do you figure out what’s the appropriate approach for this given team?” McVay explained. “Man, I have really enjoyed it.”
A new age
The first step toward making this change was acknowledging that 2024 was not like the previous seven years McVay had led the Rams.
In many of those seasons, the team was built around veterans. Win-now pieces for whom general manager Les Snead had sacrificed draft capital to obtain via trade in an effort to bring a Super Bowl to Los Angeles.
But after they won the Super Bowl after the 2021 season, the Rams had to reset their books. Veterans were traded out of L.A., and draft picks were used to fill up the locker room.
So entering 2024, the Rams had a different locker room composition than even two years earlier. There were still veterans like quarterback Matthew Stafford, receiver Cooper Kupp, right tackle Rob Havenstein and tight end Tyler Higbee.
But 26 of the players on the Rams’ 53-man roster are first- or second-year guys. Another 12 are still on their rookie contracts. And there are not a lot of players who sit in between those young guys and the vets in terms of age and experience.
“That mix in this team is very unique and we just want to make sure as leaders we’re tapping into both of those groups,” Pleasant said. “And at the end of the day, you can’t expect those young guys to know how to go about it unless we lead and show them. Winning in this league looks a certain way, it feels a certain way. There’s a correct way to go about it and it’s up to us as leaders to make sure that we bring those young guys along with those older guys and not just make it all for the older guys to be an example for that.”
Nowhere is the team’s youth more apparent than on the defensive side of the ball. A year ago, future Hall of Famer Aaron Donald led the group. But following his retirement and the departure of the team’s other defensive captains, there was a leadership reset.
Third-year safety Quentin Lake and second-year tackle Kobie Turner were named captains in September.
McVay called the pair into his office in the days after the Rams’ dispiriting, 37-20 loss to the Eagles in Week 12. Players on the defense hadn’t followed the game plan and stuck to their assignments, and it had allowed Saquon Barkley and Jalen Hurts to put up dizzying numbers.
Turner and Lake felt like the defense needed more accountability, and they needed the head coach’s help.
“And he’s like, ‘Yeah, I’ve actually been thinking I need to go and put my presence in some of these rooms a little bit more and just have my face in there,’” Turner said. “When you have certain accountability issues, when you have your head coach on it and he’s showing up, you can’t think that, ‘Oh, he’s so far away from this and he has everything else to worry about.’”
And it’s not just McVay’s presence, but his football knowledge that has been important for the defense. In Week 18, he spoke with the defensive line about the Seahawks’ cadence at the line of scrimmage. The Rams had committed four pre-snap penalties in the first meeting with Seattle, but were clean in that area in the rematch.
“His opinions, his input that he gives especially on the defensive side is so valuable to us because we know he’s a mastermind when it comes to offense. He’s really a mastermind when it comes to coaching situations in general,” Lake said. “Those things that we hear are so important because a lot of the guys, we see him as the head of the program. And when you get that input, it’s so valuable.”
“Head of the program” is an interesting way for Lake to put it. The term is frequently used to describe a college head coach, who has his hands in every aspect of a team.
But given the youth on the Rams, it was that kind of approach to which a lot of players responded.
“I can see a huge difference. It’s like he’s coming to talk to everybody, no matter who it is, just having those connections and building those relationships with people you wouldn’t normally see him around,” running back Kyren Williams said. “Being able just to hear him say good job, for me that takes me a long way. That shows me that I’m doing something good and I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. Just being able to hear that from our head coach and not from our positions coaches or from anybody else, it makes a difference.”
Out of office notice
“Recluse” is far too strong of a word, but since his days as an assistant for Washington, McVay has developed a reputation for the long hours he pours into film study and game planning.
He used to be proud of the hours of sleep he sacrificed for the sake of breaking down an opponent. He still jokes self-deprecatingly about how players know better than to disturb him in his office during game preparations. Even as the Rams head coach, he has had his fingerprints all over every aspect of his offensive game plan heading into Sundays.
So the first step toward taking a more holistic approach to his team was relinquishing some – just some – of that responsibility to his assistant coaches. Less time on third-down plays and red-zone sequencing, more around his players.
“That’s lessened the load, and it’s also made me better for them by trusting them more,” McVay said.
“Instead of being involved in every part of the offense, stepping back from that, allowing the coaches to coach, but freeing himself up to be able to connect with people,” Kupp observed. “I think that’s been a huge thing for us and the energy that he has when he’s coaching, which is what he loves. What he loves to do is coach and when he’s able to do that, I think that’s when he’s at his best.”
Players and coaches alike have noticed the different energy about McVay since the change. The enthusiasm he has shown on the practice field, going between offense and defense, chatting with guys, providing input on players’ reps, it’s not lost on the people McVay has been tasked to lead.
And it’s not lost on him, either.
“That’s ended up making me a whole lot more fulfilled because when you’re able to develop relationships and feel more connected to not only the team, but your coaching staff and just be a little bit more present, you realize how much you thrive on that,” McVay said. “It’s fun for me, you’re able to feel like you’re more connected to the team, you’re more connected to the coaching staff and I’ve really enjoyed that and hopefully everybody else has too.”