There aren’t many people out there who will tell you Sean McVay isn’t one of the 10 best coaches in the NFL. After a rocky 2019 season, McVay started this year with some truly brilliant game plans and play calls in the first three weeks.
But on Sunday against the Giants, he was far from his best.
The Rams won an ugly one, surviving against New York with a narrow 17-9 win at home. For a game that had a 13.5-point spread in favor of the Rams, an eight-point victory is hardly impressive. And it could’ve been much closer than that, too, with the Giants nearly mounting a comeback before Darious Williams picked off Daniel Jones in the final minute.
McVay is always quick to take the blame, at times when he doesn’t deserve to fall on the grenade. But in this instance, it’s fair to point the finger at the head coach. His play calling was questionable, his personnel decisions were puzzling and his offense inexplicably struggled to move the ball against a bad Giants defense.
Of course, McVay isn’t the one running the ball, blocking defensive linemen or trying to tackle ball carriers, but he is the one pulling the strings on the sideline.
For starters, his decision to ride Malcolm Brown over Darrell Henderson raised some eyebrows. Henderson was coming off back-to-back games of 100 yards from scrimmage, looking like he had established himself as the top running back for L.A. Yet, Henderson touched the ball only nine times compared to 14 touches for Brown.
Brown turned his 14 touches into 56 yards, while Henderson gained 38 yards on his nine opportunities. Make no mistake, neither running back performed up to standards and provided very little in the way of rushing the ball, but Henderson has regularly been the more explosive playmaker for the Rams. Yet, McVay didn’t ride the hot hand coming into this one, giving Brown more chances than the second-year back out of Memphis.
The other issue was McVay’s play calling. With the Rams up 17-9 and only 2:33 left on the clock, they had a chance to put the game away with a couple of first downs. Instead, they gained 1 total yard and burned a total of 15 seconds on the three-and-out.
McVay ran it all three times, once with Henderson, once with Cooper Kupp and once with Brown. Like his play calling in the red zone earlier in the game, McVay got too passive. Hindsight is always 20-20, but the Rams would’ve been better suited to throw the ball on second down rather than running the ball with Kupp on a play that led him out of bounds, stopping the clock.
And on third-and-11, he chose to burn one of the Giants’ timeouts rather than taking a chance to pick up a first down and ending the game. Fortunately, Williams bailed the Rams out with a game-saving interception, but the guarded play calling on the drive prior nearly cost L.A.
Going back to his red-zone play-calling, McVay opted for two straight screen passes on second and third down after Jared Goff took a sack on first-and-goal from the 4-yard line. Dalvin Tomlinson snuffed out the first to Brown, and on third down, McVay went back to the screen well for another one to Robert Woods. The Giants stopped that one easily again, tackling Woods for no gain.
L.A. settled for a field goal, taking a 10-3 lead. In that scenario, it would’ve been nice to see the Rams be a little bit more aggressive, taking at least one shot to the end zone. Granted, McVay didn’t expect Austin Blythe and Austin Corbett to blow a blocking assignment on first down, but that play was well covered by the Giants, too.
Execution had to be better on Sunday, but McVay will probably tell you he didn’t put his players in a position to succeed – and he’s right about that this week.
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