Fox Sports star Colin Cowherd predicted in October that Rams coach Sean McVay would be the "next Bill Belichick." That was high praise by Cowherd, comparing a 32-year-old with two years of head coaching experience to the modern gold standard with five Super Bowl victories.
But Cowherd may have been ahead of the curve when it comes to McVay, last year's NFL Coach of the Year.
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In just two seasons, the youngest head coach in NFL history has led the Rams to a 24-8 record, two NFC West titles, two playoff appearances and Sunday's NFC championship game against the Saints in New Orleans.
And guess what? The offensive wunderkind already has his own coaching tree, a la Belichick, Andy Reid and far more experienced coaches.
Matt LaFleur, McVay's offensive coordinator in 2017, was just hired as the new head coach of the Packers. LaFleur is only 39. McVay's current quarterbacks coach, 35-year-old Zac Taylor, is expected to grab the Bengals job once the playoffs wrap up. You can chalk up the hiring of other young guns, such as 39-year-old Kliff Kingsbury of the Cardinals, to the McVay Effect.
Fox's Troy Aikman and Joe Buck have watched coaching fads come and go in their nearly 20 years together on the air. On the eve of calling their 15th NFC championship game together, Sporting News asked the duo: Is the NFL becoming Sean McVay's league?
Aikman, a three-time Super Bowl champion for the Cowboys, understands the "intrigue" surrounding McVay. The NFL has become an offensive, pass-happy league. With so many teams investing millions in young quarterbacks, they too want a QB whisperer who can do for their raw, unproven talents what McVay has done with Jared Goff, the former overall No. 1 pick who floundered under ex-Rams coach Jeff Fisher.
But buyer beware, warned Aikman. Consider all the former Belichick assistant coaches who flamed out after getting the big whistle. (Has anyone seen former golden boy Eric Mangini lately?) To succeed in the NFL, the field general has to be a head coach first, not just an offensive coordinator, declared Aikman.
"I’ve alway said, if I was a general manager, and I was hiring a head coach, the very first criteria that that guy would have to meet is the ability to stand in front of 53 guys and command a room," Aikman said during a conference call previewing the championship games. "Because I’ve been in that room. I know how hostile it can be in difficult times.
"Trust me, these four teams playing this weekend, every single one of them, as good as their year has been, there has been a moment and probably more than one, where they were at a crossroads. The head coach had to get up and tell everyone why they’re going to do things a certain way, why it’s going to work or hey, we’re not going to tolerate this any more more.
"These players, even more than when I was playing, they have to respect that guy," Aikman continued. "They have to know who’s in charge. Sean McVay, regardless of how young he is, has been able to do that. Can others? It doesn’t matter how well you know offense. You can know the offense as well as Sean McVay does. But does that then mean you’re going to be a great head coach? The answer to that is no."
"The next Saban and Belichick in the NFL right now is Sean McVay... Over the next five years, he's going to run guys out of this league. He's a paradigm shifter." @ColinCowherd explains the McVay Effect pic.twitter.com/XFfTOOOdcL
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) October 10, 2018
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The NFL is a copycat league, noted Buck. When somebody takes a team from the lowest scoring to the highest scoring in one season, as McVay did with Rams, everybody wants some of that.
But Buck believes McVay may be more of an "outlier" than a model who can be cloned at will to produce other 30-something head coaching stars.
The McVay hire has paid off and will continue to pay off for a long, long time, he said. But if McVay were working at IBM or Google, he'd still be the young hotshot. That doesn't mean somebody who tangentially "met Sean McVay’s Uber driver at a nightclub is going to be next offensive genius," joked Buck.
Good luck finding the next McVay, according to Buck, because he might be one-of-a-kind like Belichick.
"He’s a special guy. He’s got a special mind for this," Buck said. "He’s a third generation guy. He’s been around it his whole life. He got an early start. He played some young. He’s brilliant. But beyond that, being the head coach... is about standing in front of an entire team. Not just your quarterback and the wide receivers and the tight end. And making them believe you have the answers to win that week.
"So we’ll see. We’ll see what comes out of this and this push to find the next Sean McVay — or the next Matt Nagy with the Chicago Bears."
