When the Los Angeles Rams elected to hire Sean McVay back in 2017, there were plenty of people skeptical of the decision. How would a 31-year-old coach that had no previous experience as a head coach handle the heightened responsibilities?
Fast forward five years later and the Rams have gone 55-26 under McVay (including four seasons with 10-plus wins) and they’ve had one Super Bowl appearance. Los Angeles is still alive in the playoff this season after defeating the Arizona Cardinals on Monday night, pulling McVay into tie with John Robinson for the franchise record with four playoff wins.
Some people have wondered why assistants under McVay have gotten more looks for head coaching jobs in recent years. While it’s become somewhat of an ongoing joke, where people say that anyone that has spoken to McVay could land a job in the NFL, look no further than the remaining teams in the playoffs as to why teams are clamoring to hire McVay’s assistants.
Besides McVay, two of the remaining eight teams in the postseason are led by former assistants under McVay. Matt LaFleur is the head coach of the Green Bay Packers and he’s won 13 games in each of his first three seasons as a head coach, securing the No. 1 seed in the NFC this year.
In the AFC, Zac Taylor has the Cincinnati Bengals positioned for a potential deep playoff run following a win over the Las Vegas Raiders in the wild-card round. The Bengals won the AFC North and made the playoffs for the first time since 2015 in Taylor’s second year at the helm.
And even though the Los Angeles Chargers fell short of making the playoffs this season, Brandon Staley did a decent job in his first year at the head coach position after being hired from the Rams. The success that these three guys have had — along with McVay — will certainly intensify the interest that teams with vacant head coaching jobs will have in Rams’ assistants.
Kevin O’Connell and Raheem Morris are the offensive and defensive coordinators for the Rams, with both of them expected to interview for multiple jobs this offseason. Even Thomas Brown, the renowned running backs coach under McVay, is drumming up interest from teams for a head coaching job.
Having assistants poached from them has become a common theme for Los Angeles in recent years. Given the fact that McVay, LaFleur, and Taylor will be three of the eight head coaches that are on the sidelines this weekend, I don’t expect that to change any time soon either.
