Two years ago when the Rams hired Sean McVay no one knew what to expect. At the time of the hire McVay was 30 years old and had no head coaching experience. He was the youngest head coach in NFL history and came into a dysfunctional organization that was in a drought of ten straight years with a losing record. Then Sean McVay changed everything.
In just his first year, McVay turned the worst offense in football to the best, he resurrected the careers of Jared Goff and Todd Gurley, and he made the Rams offense feared by the rest of the NFL. McVay created an offensive scheme that no one in the NFL could figure out how to stop. His success from last year carried into this year as coming into Sunday the Rams had the best record in the NFL and were top 5 in every major offensive category. Sean McVay’s offense was unstoppable.
That is until this past Sunday when for the first time in his career, Sean McVay’s offense was completely nullified thanks to the Chicago Bears defense. The Rams were held to only 6 points, 214 total yards, and zero offensive touchdowns. Prior to this game, Sean McVay’s offense had never been held to zero touchdowns. Even in McVay’s other losses he was still able to run a good enough scheme to keep the Rams in the game. This past Sunday was not like the other losses. The entire Rams offense was shut down. They could not run, they could not pass, they could not block, and players struggled to get into open space. Nothing that Sean McVay was calling seemed to work and for the first time in his career, McVay looked lost.
Up to this point in his career, Sean McVay has had very few speedbumps along his coaching road. After last Sunday’s performance, McVay faces more adversity than he ever has before. His offense was completely shut down and he will need to find out how and why.
Part of what defines greatness is how you can overcome defeat. Sean McVay has never lost back to back regular season games in his coaching career and if he wants that to continue he will need to find a way to get his offense back on track. This coming week, McVay and the Rams host the Philadelphia Eagles who are coming off a massively disappointing loss to the Cowboys in overtime. The Eagles are still in the playoff hunt and will give the Rams everything they got. The preparation for this upcoming game will be McVay’s toughest test yet. He will need to figure out what went wrong against Chicago and not allow the same mistakes to happen against Philadelphia or the Rams will be in danger of losing their second straight game.
Featured Image: Gary Klein/The Morning Call
