I'm no genius. I'm not being humble, either- my wife will agree with me, and has even directed the descriptive "half-wit" my way on more than one occasion. She's not always wrong.
What I can do is discern patterns. I'm sure true geniuses can do that as well, which makes me question whether Sean McVay really is the genius/wonderkind that so many people wish to describe him as.
Doing the most simple of research, something that your average third grade child could do, there is a really basic pattern that emerges, and I don't think it's coincidence. The Rams have won all of two games. In the Seattle game, the Rams threw 38 passes and ran the ball 40 times. In the Indy game, the Rams threw 40 passes and ran the ball 36 times. Almost a 50/50 split between running and throwing. Hmmmmmm.
You'll never guess what happens in the three losses. Against San Francisco, the Rams threw 55 passes and ran the ball 22 times. Against Cincinnati, the Rams threw 33 passes and ran the ball 13 times. And finally, in losing to Philadelphia, the Rams threw the ball 37 times and ran it 14. Hmmmmm. What do these things have in common? Well, it seems like there is a correlation to having a balanced attack (literally almost a 50/50 run/pass split) and winning games, and having a completely unbalanced attack (on average, 2.5 passes for every run) and losing.
"But, but, but", the McVay worshippers will claim, "we were down badly and our only hope was to drop back and throw to have a chance!". Nope, and you almost couldn't be more wrong.
In the first loss, the score by quarter was: 7-3 SF after one, 17-17 at half, 20-17 SF after 3 and a final of 30-23. We were never close to being out of the game.
In the second loss, the score by quarter was: 3-0 LA after one, 6-6 at half, and 16-9 Cin. after 3, to lose 19-16. Never close to being out of the game.
In the latest loss, the score by quarter was: 7-7 after one, 17-14 Phila. at half, 17-14 Phila after 3 quarters with a final of 23-14. Once again, nowhere close to being blown out. Yet the labeled genius voluntarily made his offense one-dimensional in every loss, despite never being behind by more than 9 points, and lost every game. Hmmmmm. A true genius would probably recognize that his defense is very weak, so probably the longer he can keep them off the field, the better his chances are. That would mean running the ball and keeping the clock moving.
Sean McVay's arrogance is going to be his downfall. Every week there is his platitudes about him having to be better, and every week it's the same old same- nothing changes. He is absolutely no different from Mike Martz with his belief that football was invented the day he became a coach, and over a hundred years of tradition is boring history- Sean McVay will show you that he is the smartest guy in every room. As soon as Dick Vermeil wasn't there to rein Martz in, his unchecked ego destroyed Kurt Warner and the Rams fell into a ten year abyss. Sean McVay has the same ego, and without going out and buying every proven star he can lay his hands on (Stafford, Miller, Whitworth, Watkins, Ramsey, Beckham Jr., Peters, etc.) he wouldn't have won anything. His drafts have been horrific, save this year, and within the last couple weeks we have unloaded a couple of his second round draft picks for 6th and 7th rounders. That isn't brilliance, kids. The Eagles showed Sean McVay that the game will ALWAYS be won in the trenches- if you have an offensive line that keeps your qb upright and opens holes, the most pedestrian skill players can be very successful. If you have a defensive line that gets after the opposing qb and stuffs runs, you will always be in the game, even if a lot of your scores will be ugly 10-7 and 14-10 games. Sean McVay has never learned this, and Sean McVay shows no signs of ever learning this. Think for just a second what an offensive line of Jackson-Avila-CREED HUMPHREY-Dotson-Havenstein would look like- I guarantee you that Sean McVay is the reason that isn't our current line. On the opposite side, Aaron Donald was never provided the help that he should have been. Again, Philadelphia just keeps loading up on stud linemen, and never has the attitude that they possibly have enough. McVay seems to have decided that since he had Aaron Donald, that was all he needed. Imagine what could have been with Donald inside next to Larry Brooks, with Jack and Freddy outside them? Hell, how about Aaron next to DeMarco, flanked by Carter and Wistrom? Nope, no glamor on the d-line, so McVay has never made that effort
Teams are almost always carbon-copies of their head coach's personality. Sean McVay is a pretty boy, and his teams have been flat soft forever. I truly think on some days that Sean McVay can handle a loss as long as his QB throws for 450 yards, just as I often thought John Robinson didn't mind an L as long as Dickerson went for 160 yards. Shula, Noll, Landry, Walsh, Parcells, Gibbs, Johnson, Belichek (like him or not) all valued strong o-lines and strong d-lines and could smash you in the mouth when they had to. Every one of those guys understood the fundamentals of football- if you can't get one yard when you need it, you don't deserve to win. No matter how dynamic some of the superstars were on all those squads, they would line up and cram it down your throat when they had to- Csonka, Harris, Dorsett, Craig, Riggins, etc. Every other damn week those coaches wouldn't lose their minds and have their QB drop back and throw 60 passes. Until Sean McVay grows the hell up and actually holds himself to account, please put the brakes on the genius label.
