Rams OC Kevin O'Connell named a young assistant to watch during 2022 hiring cycle

[theramswire.usatoday.com] Rams OC Kevin O'Connell named a young assistant to watch during 2022 hiring cycle

Cameron DaSilva
November 17, 2021 6:24 am PT

By now, Sean McVay should just plan to lose at least one or two of his top assistants each year. Every offseason, the Rams’ coaching staff gets raided by other teams, poaching coordinators and position coaches to bolster their own group.

Just this past year, McVay and the Rams lost the likes of Brandon Staley, Joe Barry, Aubrey Pleasant and Shane Waldron, all of whom were given promotions by other teams. This coming offseason, Kevin O’Connell could be the name to watch.


Tom Pelissero of NFL.com put together a preliminary list of young assistants to watch as head-coaching candidates in 2022 and O’Connell was among them. Here’s what Pelissero wrote about O’Connell.

A one-time Patriots third-round draft pick, O’Connell is now in his seventh year of as an NFL coach and third as an OC, including an interim play-calling stint in Washington in 2019 before he joined Sean McVay’s staff in L.A. That staff has been an incubator for head coaches who are currently having success, even though Matt LaFleur and Zac Taylor, like O’Connell, watched McVay call the plays. In every other way, O’Connell functions as a true OC, from scripting to installing, while also working closely with QB Matthew Stafford. The Rams’ decision to block O’Connell from following Brandon Staley to the Chargers (among other teams) shows how valuable he is to them. And O’Connell’s expanded duties this year after some staff departures are helping prepare him for the next step.

O’Connell never on Washington’s staff when McVay was there, being hired as the quarterbacks coach in 2017 and then promoted to offensive coordinator in 2019. The Rams brought him in as their offensive coordinator in 2020 and he’s held that job for two years.

Though McVay calls the plays during the regular season, O’Connell handled that duty in the preseason and has been a key part of the coaching staff next to McVay. As Pelissero pointed out, he helps with game-plan installs and scheming, and he’s also the de facto quarterbacks coach, too, since Liam Coen left to become Kentucky’s offensive coordinator.

If O’Connell were to be hired as a head coach, he’d follow in the lines of Zac Taylor and Matt LaFleur as former Rams offensive assistants to get that opportunity. Staley did it on the defensive side this year, going from coordinator to Chargers head coach.

Pelissero also listed a bunch of other young assistants who could draw interest in the coming years, and three other Rams were selected: RBs coach Thomas Brown, secondary coach Ejiro Evero and TEs coach Wes Phillips, who’s Wade Phillips’ son.