If you haven’t heard by now, Sean McVay had quite the reaction to the New England Patriots drafting Cole Strange with the 29th overall pick on Thursday night. After seeing the pick come across live during his press conference, McVay was stunned to see Strange drafted that early and laughed about the Rams wasting their time studying him, thinking he’d be available at No. 104.
McVay didn’t intend to come across as disrespectful toward Bill Belichick as a GM or Strange as a player, so he wanted to clear things up. Les Snead told reporters Friday night that McVay called Belichick and Strange to let them know that he didn’t mean any disrespect towards them.
“Because of how that video went viral in fun, that was the chemistry between us and us going through this process trying to evaluate, but I know Sean talked to Cole this morning, did talk to Coach Belichick just to say, ‘Hey, there was nothing – we really like that player.’ Sean was just jest at myself for ‘Hey, why did we waste our time on him again?’ Snead said.
Rams reaction to Patriots selection of Cole Strange at #29.
This is hysterical. pic.twitter.com/ADzqt4lizQ
— Andrew Siciliano (@AndrewSiciliano) April 29, 2022
McVay also said it was a misunderstanding with how he came across in the video, which was pretty harmless, to be honest. But he wanted to make it very clear that he has a ton of respect for Strange and Belichick.
“I wish that it wouldn’t have gotten misunderstood,” McVay said. “It was more of a reflection of, I was actually giving Les a hard time because when we started watching him, I think we both were in agreement, there’s no way he’d be there (at 104) because we like the player so much. If there’s anybody that has more respect for Coach Belichick and what he’s done than I do, I’d like to see them because I have tremendous respect for this profession and the players that play at this level and I would never want it to get misunderstood for Cole Strange or the Patriots organization that anything but respect for the player. That was my reaction and any misunderstanding was my fault for the way I probably communicated that.”
Now that that’s in the rearview mirror, the Rams can continue focusing on their work coming up on Day 3 of the NFL draft, when they have seven total picks.
