When Sean McVay takes a coach under his wing, the league takes notice — and hires a new head coach
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Sarah Barshop, ESPN Staff Writer
MINNESOTA VIKINGS HEAD coach Kevin O’Connell remembers one of the first conversations he had with Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay after O’Connell was hired to be the Rams offensive coordinator in 2020.
“From the day I went there, he talked to me about, ‘I do believe that you’re going to have an opportunity to be a head coach in this league,” O’Connell recounted. “I think you’re more than capable, but I want you to take advantage of this opportunity and grow.'”
When the Rams hired O’Connell following a stint as offensive coordinator in Washington, it wasn’t really an interview, McVay said, but “more of an opportunity to say, ‘All right, we’d like to have you come here.'” McVay said he could immediately feel O’Connell’s ability to lead and his “capacity for the game.” O’Connell spent two seasons with the Rams before getting hired in Minnesota.
O’Connell is one of many coordinators or assistant coaches who have coached under McVay, prospered and found higher-level coaching jobs elsewhere. It’s not only what O’Connell and the others have learned under McVay, but specific opportunities given and how McVay has prepared them.
McVay — the youngest NFL head coach in the modern era when he was hired by the Rams at age 30 in 2017 — hates to lose coaches to higher-level positions elsewhere. Yet, he knows when he was a young coach, such opportunities were given to him and he wants to pay those opportunities forward.
“That’s how I was treated,” McVay said. “I had people that were willing to put their arm around me. I saw great examples of that and I don’t know if I truly appreciated how special it was until I look back on it.
“What’s been great about it is that when you’re in the right place and you have the right heart, there’s nothing that you take more pride in than seeing all these guys that have done such a great job elevating, whether that’s from within or externally.”
McVay’s mark is evident with a glance around the NFL. The list of current NFL head coaches who have previously been on McVay’s staff includes: O’Connell, Zac Taylor of the Cincinnati Bengals, Raheem Morris of the Atlanta Falcons and Matt LaFleur of the Green Bay Packers. In his latest protege-turned-opposing-coach matchup, McVay will coach across from O’Connell on Thursday night, when the Rams host the 5-1 Vikings (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video).
“There’s a traditional way that people have hired head coaches, and then there’s a nontraditional way,” Rams’ passing-game coordinator, defensive backs coach and assistant head coach Aubrey Pleasant said. “And I think the one thing that [McVay] understands here is he’s become a gatekeeper, to say the least, in this league. And I think when certain coaches put a stamp on other coaches … it allows other organizations to take notice.”
PLEASANT INTERVIEWED WITH McVay for the Rams’ open defensive coordinator position this offseason. He did not get it. Instead, McVay promoted former linebackers coach and pass-rush coordinator Chris Shula after Morris was hired by the Falcons.
“[McVay] wanted me to know that I didn’t get that opportunity because he didn’t think I was ready,” Pleasant, who is in his sixth season with the team, said.
The pair had a long conversation, Pleasant recalled, in which they talked about “continued growth” and how McVay could help the assistant coach become ready for that role — and eventually a head coach opening in the future. Later in the offseason, McVay promoted Pleasant, adding assistant head coach to his job title.
McVay followed through with that offer to help, asking Pleasant to speak to the rookie class about the Rams’ culture and having Pleasant serve as the team’s head coach for two games during the preseason. Pleasant said it was “priceless to get a hands-on experience.”
“To go through the obstacles and the rigmarole of pregame, postgame, production meeting, media, talking to the refs, it’s invaluable experience,” Pleasant said. “He understood that there’s a difference between actually wanting to grow and being given those opportunities.
McVay uses the preseason to give coaches those chances. Pleasant, Shula and former Rams defensive line coach Eric Henderson split defensive playcalling duties in 2023, and the year before, Shula and Henderson split it 50-50.
Shula said while there’s less game planning during the preseason, just going through the mechanics of getting the personnel and getting the calls out helped when he did it for the first time as a defensive coordinator.
It’s an opportunity McVay received himself during the preseason when he was the offensive coordinator in Washington under head coach Jay Gruden (2014-16).
“I was fortunate to be poured into it when I was a younger coach, and there’s nothing like getting those settings and situations in a less … I don’t want to say less competitive, but it is simulating real time with the play clock [and] different things of that nature,” McVay said. “It was a reflection of some of the ways that I was treated that I thought was really cool. Then when I actually did start calling plays my second year as coordinator in Washington, you were at least better prepared for it.
“You always like to try to put yourself in those positions to prepare, but there’s nothing quite like getting those reps.”
And while those opportunities were intentional on McVay’s part, there were times he helped coaches grow even when he didn’t realize it.
“Just watching him as the playcaller and kind of designer and how he allowed me to have an impact and a role and really a voice within the offense, not only in front of the players, but also with game planning and ideas,” O’Connell said of the way McVay indirectly guided him. “So that’s helped me come here and assume a much greater role, kind of running everything, still being the playcaller, but really having the right guys around me.
“… So I don’t know if he was necessarily doing that out of, ‘This will help Kevin in the future,’ but it certainly did, getting to be around that for two years.”
TAYLOR SPENT TWO seasons in Los Angeles before he was hired as the Cincinnati Bengals’ head coach in 2019. During that time, Taylor grew close to McVay, and that opened his eyes to what being a head coach was really like.
“He was very open with everything he experienced as a head coach,” Taylor said. “It was probably the first time in my career I was close in age to a head coach.”
“He just wanted to talk to his peers and let everybody kind of know what was going on. … We in no way, shape or form were the head coach of the Rams [nor] had near the responsibility that he had, but you felt like you knew what he was going through, to an extent.”
For Morris, who spent the 2021-23 seasons as the Rams’ defensive coordinator, that openness from McVay allowed him to see “behind the curtain” on how an organization was run.
Morris had been a head coach before with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2009 to 2011 and the interim head coach with the Atlanta Falcons in 2020. But during his three seasons in Los Angeles with McVay, Morris recalls being part of the process in major decisions that helped him grow as a coach.
“It just keeps you in the loop of dealing with the ownership, dealing with management, dealing with the president, dealing with all the guys we’re here to deal with in that building. Being able to be a part of those decisions,” Morris said. “So now, when you get here and you’ve got to make some new decisions, you’re well aware or you’re ahead of the curve of how you want to move around.”
Shula said there were times he’d be hanging out in McVay’s office when general manager Les Snead or vice president of sports medicine and performance Reggie Scott came in to talk to McVay.
“He’s not like, ‘Hey, just get out of here,'” Shula said. “You can kind of be a little bit of a fly on the wall sometimes where you feel like you hear some of these internal head coach conversations.”
McVay said he tries to have “an open environment,” something that is a reflection of how he said he was treated as an assistant coach and coordinator under Gruden and Mike Shanahan. And by opening up communication with other coaches, it allows them “to be able to have the comfort in disagreeing, too.”
That’s how the whole organization is run, Pleasant said.
“The transparency here that this organization provides, no matter if it’s through [team president] Kevin Demoff, [vice president of football and business administration] Tony Pastoors or Les Snead …” Pleasant said. “We really talk a lot about the personnel, the people that are here, which gives you a front seat of how to build a roster. … That is something that is without a doubt, a very unique opportunity here.”
IN RECENT YEARS, the Rams have had significant turnover on their coaching staff, mostly as coaches have been promoted. This offseason, Morris was hired by the Falcons and took Rams assistant head coach Jimmy Lake as his defensive coordinator and passing-game coordinator/quarterbacks coach Zac Robinson as his offensive coordinator.
The Rams are 2-4 this season. Their young defense has struggled at times, but it took a big step forward Sunday in the team’s victory over the Las Vegas Raiders. One could argue the coaching turnover has benefited Rams coaches but hurt McVay’s team.
But when addressing Morris’ new job, McVay said the flip side is that it allows coaches such as Shula, a first-year defensive coordinator, a chance to shine in his new role.
And while not every one of those coaches got their start under McVay, there’s no doubt the success the Rams have had in recent years — especially after winning Super Bowl LVI — has led to opportunities for these coordinators and assistant coaches.
Taylor said during Super Bowl media day in 2022 as the opposing head coach: “I think the joke is if you had a cup of coffee with Sean McVay, then you’re going to be a head coach in the NFL. And there’s a ton of truth to that. Because if you spend time around the guy, he gives you a ton of confidence in yourself.”
“I know for a fact he doesn’t want coaches to leave, but I also knew Sean when he was a young coach and he had aspirations,” Pleasant said.
McVay said that while he obviously doesn’t like losing members of his coaching staff, it has led to attracting “really high-quality people.”
“A lot of these guys have gone on to get other leadership roles outside of this building, you miss them tremendously, but they also contribute tremendously to what goes on in here,” McVay said. “… It’s all part of the journey.”
“Those guys impacted me, and I hope their experience here impacted them as well.”
And while O’Connell joked that Thursday’s game isn’t him and McVay going one-on-one — “even though I think he’s probably quicker, a little bit more sudden change, [while] I’ve definitely got the length and sneaky athleticism.” — when the head coach looks across the field, he’ll see a person he said not only had an “incredible impact” on his coaching career, but him as a human, as well.
“I have so much respect for him, how he runs that organization, his leadership, his football intellect,” O’Connell said. “He’s as good as [it] gets. I’ve got nothing but love for him, and we’ll always be like that. And we’ll always look back on those two [years] as incredibly impactful on, not only my career, but getting to culminate it winning a Super Bowl was something that I will not ever forget for sure.”
ESPN’s Ben Baby, Marc Raimondi and Kevin Seifert contributed to this story.
