This offseason has been different for Sean McVay, unlike his first two with the Rams. After his first and second seasons, McVay was coming off playoff appearances and even a Super Bowl berth, needing to find ways to get over the hump and win it all.
Now, he’s left with the task of simply getting back to the playoffs after the Rams went 9-7 and came up short in the NFC last season. With the disappointing year came changes on the coaching staff, too, as Wade Phillips and Skip Peete were both let go, while John Fassel left to join Mike McCarthy in Dallas.
McVay brought in his own guys to replace those coaches, most notably with Brandon Staley as his defensive coordinator, John Bonamego heading the special teams and Kevin O’Connell joining as the offensive coordinator.
Those changes have sparked a fire on McVay’s competitive side, making him more motivated than ever before.
“I’m excited and motivated and really, I would say more rejuvenated and reinvigorated than I’ve ever been since I first got here,” McVay said in a press conference Wednesday. “That’s a reflection of these men up here. The excitement about getting back with our players and really attacking this season by strategically taking it a day at a time and understanding, ‘All right, let’s really look inwardly at what are the things that we can do to be better.’”
Being a 34-year-old coach himself, most of McVay’s hires were also on the younger side. O’Connell is also 34, while Staley is 37. New running backs coach Thomas Brown is 33 and defensive assistant Jonathan Cooley is just 30 years old.
The outlier is Bonamego, 56, who brings more than a decade of NFL coaching experience to the special teams unit. McVay lauded him for the work he’s done with other teams and loves the experience he carries, seeing it as a big plus.
With all this youth and the new faces in the building, it’s easy to see why McVay is fired up for next season.