1. On Sunday, Sean McVay will coach in his second Super Bowl before the age of 40. Which sounds impressive, but he’s averaging only a Super Bowl every 18 years of his life. At this pace, he’ll still only tie Tom Landry for third alltime in Super Bowls coached, with five, and that’s only if he hits age 90, which is still a bit north of life-expectancy circa 2070.
But let’s set the future aside and focus on the present. On Sunday McVay’s Super Bowl counterpart will be a former assistant coach of his, rather than the greatest coach of alltime. It seems the mistake McVay made last time around, in a Super Bowl LIII loss, was going in with a pretty firm game plan for Belichick’s Patriots, only to watch the Patriots throw a series of curveballs (a 6–1 front, but more notably, a secondary that rarely played—and was not built for—quarters coverage going heavy on such zone looks). McVay and the Rams offense seemed to be finding a rhythm by the third quarter, but the Patrick Chung injury forced New England to adjust, and by the time L.A. had adjusted to the readjustment the game was already over because they only let you play for 60 minutes if the game isn’t tied.
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