Great post BT - I look forward to more of your stuff.
You touched on one point that my son and I were discussing Sunday: should McVay be both HC and OC?
Technically the Rams have an offensive coordinator (Kevin O'Connell) so I will rephrase your question in the context of my Sunday discussion: should McVay call the plays? And my answer is an emphatic 'NO!'.
I have to believe that McVay's game management would improve if someone else was calling the plays. It's got to be a major distraction to dedicate even a portion of your attention to down-and-distance for more than half the game. If McVay was divorced from that responsibility couldn't he focus more in in-game adjustments (both on O and D), clock management, etc? Also, if O'Connell calling the plays in to Goff perhaps Goff would benefit from not having McVay over-coaching in real time.
Then, with a dedicated play caller it seems that some like O'Connell could do some things that McVay can't. I'm thinking that when the Rams' D is on the field O'Connell could be reviewing the previous series and see if the calls were predictable, or see if he's straying from the game plan, or just look at the all-22s to figure out what the defense is doing and get some plays ready for the next series.
Bottom line, having 2 guys do those 2 jobs has got to be better than having 1 guy do it. I get it that McVay likes to call plays, but I think the HC role and the OC role both suffer as a result.
AlbaNY_Ram
