Paul Oberjuerge header image 2

Rams Jump the Gun on Coach

January 13th, 2017 · No Comments · Football, NFL, Rams

Sean McVay, is it? All of 30 years old, is Sean?

And this is the Rams’ latest great idea? Hiring the youngest head coach in the Super Bowl era?

Will it be seen, in a few years from now, as a club blunder right up there with spending six draft picks for Jared Goff or guaranteeing another year of salary for Jeff Fisher, the sideline zombie who coached the Rams in 2016? Maybe the Rams were impressed Fisher hung around long enough to tie the NFL record for coaching defeats.

McVay may be a good coach some day. Modern NFL history suggests he is not ready to be a head coach right now, despite Rams giddiness after McVay’s great interview with team officials.

And another weird thing about this? The Rams couldn’t wait another 16 hours to announce McVay as their new coach … so as not to battle for attention on the day the Chargers announced they, too, are moving to greater Los Angeles.

The Rams may love their hire and, heck, maybe he’s the next George Halas, but the reality of the situation yesterday was that the Chargers and their move was a bigger story than the Rams hiring a kid to take over their 4-12 team.

McVay’s appointment was the second-biggest NFL story in Los Angeles yesterday, perhaps because the Rams thought it would be cute to welcome the Chargers to town by trying and failing to steal their thunder.

So, why can’t a guy who is 30 (and 31 later this month!) lead a team to glory?

Well, he could, we must concede. Though it is not the way to bet.

ESPN looked it up. Young guns have been firing blank as NFL coaches lately.

“The four youngest head coaches in the Super Bowl era — a group that includes Lane Kiffin, Raheem Morris, David Shula and Josh McDaniels — went a combined 52-115 before being fired by their respective teams,” ESPN reported.

Humans tend not to recognize how much they don’t know, when they are 30. That’s why so many of us say things like, “If I only had known then what I know now.” That’s why they rarely given charge of something as complicated and nuanced as an NFL team.

From decades of observation, I would suggest that NFL coaches peak in their late 40s or early 50s. After they have lived enough of the league, before the demands of the profession begin to wear them down.

Yes, people like John Madden had impressive records, pre-Super Bowl, but the game is infinitely more complicated now and even guys born and bred to coach, like McVay and Kiffin, who got into coaching at a young age because they spent zero time playing in the NFL, need more time.

McVay would have been an excellent hire as an offensive coordinator, the job he held the past three seasons with the Washington Redskins, helping them become one of the better attacking teams in the league and helping Kirk Cousins become an effective quarterback.

Instead, McVay will be the guy in the firing line (perhaps followed by the unemployment line) if the club reels off another 4-12 or two, and Goff is demonstrated to be one of the worst draft errors in NFL history.

McVay apparently has a five-year contract with the Rams. If things don’t work out, well, the Rams are no strangers to paying coaches not to coach.

The Rams rushed the process by making McVay their field leader, and by announcing him on a day that the Chargers were the big news.

The club continues to make significant mistakes. No reason, at the moment, to believe McVay is not another.

 

 

Tags:

0 responses so far ↓

  • There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.

Leave a Comment