Up until the NFC Championship Game, the San Francisco 49ers owned the Los Angeles Rams. They had won six in a row, in large part because of their running game and stout defense. The Rams were happy to see Robert Saleh leave the division last year, and now the other thorn in their side, Mike McDaniel, is also exiting the NFC West.
The Dolphins hired McDaniel, formerly the 49ers’ offensive coordinator, as their new head coach, pulling him from Kyle Shanahan’s staff. With the way he designs plays on offense and capitalizes on matchups on a weekly basis, McDaniel should succeed in Miami.
Sean McVay, who worked with McDaniel in Washington, is happy to see him land a head coaching job, especially one outside the Rams’ division.
“Great communicator, incredibly smart, very creative, innovative thought process as it relates to both the run game and the pass game,” McVay said of McDaniel on Monday. “He gets a lot of credit for being involved in the run game but when we were in Washington, another guy that really sees the game through the totality of all 22. It’s not just, what are the offensive guys doing? But what are the roles and responsibilities of defense? How can we try to utilize some of the things they’re being coached to do to take advantage of that and try to manipulate their rules and the things and put them in conflict with their eyes. Mike will do a great job. I think he’ll surround himself with a great coaching staff.
“I just think the world of Mike McDaniel and selfishly, I’m not sad to see him leave our division, either.”
The Rams finally snapped their losing streak to the 49ers last Sunday in the NFC title game, coming back from 10 points down in the second half to beat San Francisco. It punched their ticket to the Super Bowl, where they’ll try to do something both they and the 49ers failed to do in the last four years: beat the AFC representative to win a ring.
