One of the biggest things a leader be it in sports, business, or government is knowing what you don’t know. For Sean McVay, that is a lot and that’s okay, after all he’s 31 years old making him the youngest head coach in history. Considering that at the age of 31 Bill Belichick was still a linebackers coach that makes McVay’s task a daunting one. Thus far McVay has demonstrated that he knows what he’s doing in certain aspects of the job such as handling press conferences, extending an olive branch to Eric Dickerson, and hiring Wade Phillips to run his defense because he openly admitted that defense isn’t his forte. This might sound like all common sense stuff but there are older first time coaches than McVay that never learned that lesson and the previous youngest head coach Lane Kiffin didn’t seem interested in learning any of these lessons and had to be humbled many times before it seemed like he got it.
McVay has been open about seeking advice from others as he’s set to begin his tenure with the Rams. His job is tougher by virtue of having to revive an offense that’s been an absolute train wreck for years. To do that he made sure to pick the brains of several coaches during meetings such as Sean Payton, Mike Tomlin, John Harbaugh, and Dan Quinn. His biggest ally has been Miami Dolphins head coach Adam Gase who had the experience of being a younger head coach last season (Gase was 38) so he has a similar experience that McVay does. Gase and McVay were said to be close because they were part of a group of young coaches that got to learn at the pro level without having to work in college first. His tenure in Washington also allowed him to learn from the Shannahan and Gruden family of coaches and they are still very much in touch. This might all sound like a common sense approach but the saying goes, common sense is not all that common.
On his own staff, McVay is fortunate to have decades of knowledge to mine from Wade Phillips who has embraced the young coach even going so far as to say “I know I’m going to learn a lot from him”. As discussed yesterday, McVay will also have regular visits from Rams legend Eric Dickerson and he understands how valuable it is to have a guy like Dickerson around because they have experiences that the head coach simply will never have. It might not translate to the field immediately, but thus far McVay has done all the right things leading up to OTAs and training camp. He is open to new ideas and seems to be ego-less in his approach to taking over the team. He doesn’t appear to see his youth as a chip on his shoulder but rather an opportunity to grow with the job. Sean McVay seemed like a gamble at the time he was hired because he was 31 and didn’t have the pedigree of someone like Kyle Shannahan but the more and more time goes on it appears this is a gamble that will pay off.
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