Article on Sean McVay interviewing with 9ers

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Sean McVay is 49ers’ most intriguing head-coach candidate
By Eric Branch Updated 6:53 pm, Wednesday, January 4, 2017

It’s too early to determine a favorite to be the 49ers’ next head coach, but there’s no question about their most intriguing candidate.
He’s younger than five players on their roster and has a close connection to the moribund franchise’s good-old days.
He’s Washington offensive coordinator Sean McVay, 30, the youngest coordinator in the NFL. He is the grandson of former executive John McVay. Sean McVay will interview with the 49ers on Monday in New York, exactly a week after CEO Jed York invoked McVay’s grandfather at a news conference that followed a 2-14 season.

The 49ers also went 2-14 in 1978, and hired Bill Walsh, who hired McVay as the director of player personnel. It was the start of McVay’s 21-season tenure, which included each of the 49ers’ five Super Bowl titles and led to his induction into the team’s Hall of Fame in 2013.
“You need to make sure that the right personalities are there,” York said. “We go back to Bill Walsh. Bill Walsh hired John McVay and they worked together and they were a team.”

The 49ers, of course, are seeking a head coach and general manager after the awkward arranged marriage between Chip Kelly and Trent Baalke dissolved after less than a calendar year.

The question: Thirty-seven years after his grandfather was part of dramatic about-face, is Sean McVay the head coach to hire as York tries to locate another turnaround tandem?

At first blush, McVay’s age would seem to be a disqualifier.
After whiffing on back-to-back coaches, can York really hand over the rebuilding project to someone 11 years younger than kicker Phil Dawson?
McVay, who will turn 31 on Jan. 24, would be the youngest head coach in the NFL’s modern era, eight months younger than Lane Kiffin was when he joined the Raiders in 2007. Kiffin’s two-season tenure was a failure, and the subsequent hirings of 32-year-olds Raheem Morris (Tampa Bay, 2009) and Josh McDaniels (Denver, 2009) also ended poorly.

Still, NFL history also includes plenty of coaches who weren’t much older than McVay when they started Super Bowl-winning careers: John Madden (32), Don Shula (33), Jon Gruden (34), Bill Cowher (34) and Mike Tomlin (34).

McVay’s name might have helped get him in the NFL door, but he has risen through the ranks on merit.
In 2008, McVay was hired by Gruden, a family friend, as the Buccaneers’ assistant wide receivers coach. McVay has spent the past seven seasons with Washington, ascending from assistant tight ends coach (2010), to tight ends coach (2011-13), to offensive coordinator when he was 28 in 2014.

If he’s hired by the 49ers, McVay would bring a deep appreciation for the franchise’s storied past.
Growing up in Atlanta, he played catch with Steve Young and Jerry Rice when the 49ers made their then-annual trip there, it was noted in a Sports Illustrated feature in August.

The story also described McVay studying, again, the 49ers’ final drive in the 1981 NFC title game.
“People think it’s Joe Montana winning this game,” McVay said. “No, sir. It’s this (run) ‘18-19 Bob!’ Look at all these extra bodies in the backfield. Here’s ‘18-19 Bob’ again.”

The game was played Jan. 10, 1982, four years before McVay was born, but, indeed, the 49ers’ 13-play, 89-yard drive that culminated in The Catch included 45 rushing yards and just five completions.

Say this: The kid coach seems to know his stuff.

Interviews: The 49ers conducted their first head-coaching interview with Buffalo interim head coach Anthony Lynn on Wednesday. They are scheduled to interview GM candidates Eliot Wolf and Brian Gutekunst, both Packers executives, in Green Bay on Thursday.

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