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COMPETITION IN L.A.

As for the Rams, the Sean McVay hire makes all the sense in the world on paper. Take the 32nd-ranked offense in the NFL and put it in the hands of the man who helped Kirk Cousins grow into one of the most prolific and accurate quarterbacks in the NFL. (If that sounds like an exaggeration, recall that Cousins passed for 4,917 yards last season in Washington, third-most in the NFL, and completed 67% of his passes, good for seventh.)


The bigger unknown when it came to McVay’s hiring was how his age (31) would translate into ability to lead and manage a football team of 53 egos and personalities on a middling franchise one year into relocating to the second-most populous city in the United States.

Andrew Whitworth took the leap of faith when he left the team that drafted him in 2006, the Bengals, to join the Rams at 35 years old on a three-year, $36 million contract to anchor an offensive line that allowed 49 sacks in 2016. Whitworth is one of two players on the roster who is older than McVay—who was a high school freshman quarterback running the triple option at Marist School in Atlanta when Whitworth was a redshirt freshman at LSU in 2001. Adding Whitworth may prove to be the best decision McVay and GM Les Snead have made early in the process of turning around the Rams, not simply for his pass blocking but for his experience in McVay’s offense. The scheme Whitworth learned under Jay Gruden in Cincinnati is, with slight variations, the same one McVay learned under Gruden in Washington. Former No. 1 overall pick Jared Goff spends much of his time with Whitworth quizzing him on how Andy Dalton handled certain situations in the offense.

In Whitworth’s estimation, the message McVay would deliver this summer would resonate and had the potential to set a permanent tone for the season, good or bad.

“You listen to him talk about defense, offense, special teams and you realize this guy knows football like no other. He’s special in that way,” Whitworth says. “But there’s something else that makes him special. I would imagine its very hard for a coach of his age to be as assertive as he has and cover the topics he has in a team meeting setting. Talking about character, about being accountable to one another, focus, discipline, the way we communicate with other.

“I think it’s a great place to start a football team. You see teams that are really successful when guys carry themselves the right way on and off the field.”

Connor Barwin, another veteran free agent acquired this offseason by Snead, came away similarly impressed with McVay: “He’s figured out what he believes in and what he wants to stand for and what he wants the team to stand for,” Barwin says. “That’s something that’s important, and something somebody might not expect out of a young coach.”

McVay has introduced in his short time with the football team a theme of competition. Whitworth says it was not as strong in Cincinnati, where he played in six playoff games between 2009 and 2015, losing each. Minicamp was an offense vs. defense battle royale more than it was a cut-and-dried installation period, with McVay turning two-minute drills and other team activities into games, assigning points for first downs, turnovers and defensive stops. Losing sides ran gassers. It was all refreshingly collegial, Whitworth says.

“I think one of the coolest things we did in OTAs was create competition times where it’s not just scripted plays,” Whitworth says. “It’s always a positive to create competition when you’re starting a football team. It’s a big step towards being the best version of yourselves.

“You feel like there’s bragging rights, and you create that to help guys not just go through the motions.”