McVay’s Curious Combine Approach

Sean McVay hasn’t been a head coach in the NFL for very long but that has not stopped him from being his own man.

His recent examples of bucking the status quo include sitting his starters for nearly all of the pre-season and even more recently hiring a coaching staff of guys who all happen to be in their 30s.

His latest move certainly left me and I am sure a few other Rams fans scratching their heads. Regarding the upcoming 2020 NFL draft Coach McVay has elected to leave his newly hired coordinators Brandon Staley and Kevin O’Connell behind in Los Angeles rather than attending the scouting combine in Indianapolis.

McVay was quoted as saying he, “would rather have them in Los Angeles, implementing the team’s new offensive and defensive schemes.”

Even McVay himself has said he is limiting his time at the combine. He was elected to attend the first few days of the event before returning to LA to get back to work with his new coordinators. In his absence the rest of the coaching staff, scouts, and GM Les Snead will be staying behind in Indy to soak in the rest of the combine, or as some like to call it-The Underwear Olympics (Yes I am one of those people).

As of now, the Rams are entering the 2020 NFL Draft with five total selections.

The team enters with one selection each in the second, third, fourth, sixth, and seventh rounds.

It seems like it has been ages since they last had a pick in the first round; however, in reality, it was in 2016 when they used the first overall selection on QB Jared Goff. Some would argue that pick has not returned the benefits you would hope a #1 pick QB would provide, but I am not one of those people.

I will say this next season for Goff is critical. If he has a mediocre season or gets off to a slow start the pitchforks will be coming out in full force. A poor season could see Goff labeled with the “Bust” tag.

While it might seem like the Rams don’t have much draft stock, they have shown they don’t need a lot of high round selections to obtain valuable pieces. The past several drafts have seen many stellar returns on mid-round selections, guys like S Taylor Rapp, OT Bobby Evans, WR Cooper Kupp, S John Johnson, WR Josh Reynolds, LB Samson Ebukam, and TE Tyler Higbee have all been selected in rounds two through four.

I personally think it is a little curious to not send the new coordinators to the combine. Staley is entering his first-ever season as a Defensive Coordinator so I would think he would want to get eyes on potential pieces to install into his new defensive scheme. O’Connell has one year under his belt as an Offensive Coordinator, however, this was with last year’s Redskins.

If you watched even a little bit of Redskins football last year, first of all, I am sorry, but secondly, you know just how inept their offense was.

While I have my reservations about McVay’s strategy entering the combine, I certainly will not be losing sleep over it. Sean has proven to be a damn fine coach, and no I am not just talking about his dashing good looks, and until he gives me a reason to doubt him I just won’t do it.

In McVay We Trust.

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