Now six years removed from hiring Sean McVay, the Rams look incredibly smart for taking a chance on the then-30-year-old coach in 2017. He’s since led them to five winning seasons, four playoff appearances, two Super Bowls and one world championship in his first six years.
Hindsight is always 20-20, but not everyone thought the Rams were wise to make McVay the youngest head coach in NFL history. Rams legend Marshall Faulk initially thought it was a crazy decision to even consider him – that is, until he sat down with McVay for dinner during the hiring process.
Rams chief operating officer Kevin Demoff detailed on The Athletic’s “The Playcallers” podcast how Faulk went from thinking the team was “stupid” for considering McVay, to telling owner Stan Kroenke that he’d be making a huge mistake if he let the coach get away, all in a matter of hours.
Faulk’s mind completely changed after having dinner with McVay and other Rams brass in Los Angeles, immediately hitting it off with the young coach.
“Marshall was the perfect person because he was explaining to me why we had needed a veteran offensive mind to be the head coach,” Demoff said. “And he was happy to go to dinner with this 30-year-old, but he thought that was stupid, and that we were stupid.
“Marshall walks in and he tells Stan, ‘I’m so excited to be here, I think you’re making a mistake but just glad to be part of the process.’ And at dinner, Stan and Marshall have always had a great relationship – a cerebral player, someone who I think everyone respected for football intellect and understanding the challenges around the team. So it was an opinion I knew he’d respect, either way, and one I would have to respect either way. But also the one advantage it had is it was easy for Sean to be able to talk football.
“At dinner, the two of them got going and they hit it off immediately. They’re talking the whole time. I remember walking out and Marshall told Stan, he goes, ‘You let that guy leave tomorrow, you’ve made a huge mistake. That’s your guy.’”
McVay wowed the Rams during the interview process, and clearly he did the same for Faulk. It’s understandable that Faulk would be skeptical of his former team hiring a 30-year-old head coach, especially after the disastrous stretch they had just gone through with Jeff Fisher as their head coach.
And while he wanted a veteran offensive mind, the Rams went with a brilliant young coach who knew the offensive side of the ball better than most. There isn’t a soul in the world who would say the Rams made a mistake by hiring McVay, especially not after the success he’s had already in Los Angeles.
