Breaking news: Sean McVay is a very good head coach!
Through eight seasons, McVay’s coaching resume is everything he could have ever dreamed of when he became the youngest coach in modern NFL history in 2017. A Super Bowl win, a plethora of former assistants dotting the league’s coaching ranks, near-universal acclaim as one of the top offensive minds of his generation. His performance this year has been exemplary as well, navigating the loss of both Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua, not to mention Aaron Donald and a plethora of defensive pieces. It would have been entirely understandable had the Rams bottomed out, begun trading away pieces and started a rebuild process. Instead, they’re a half-game back of the division lead in the NFC West, with a head-to-head win over the 49ers and a dethroning of the Vikings under their caps. They’re still at the bottom of the divisional pecking order in terms of playoff odds (25.6% in our most recent simulations), but they’re very much a live out and only getting better as they get healthier.
The win over the Vikings also added another feather in McVay’s cap. It was his 80th win as a head coach, and with that he passed John Robinson for the most wins in franchise history (including the postseason). He’s only the second coach since the merger to take a franchise wins lead before turning 40 years old, joining John Madden. He also joins Andy Reid and John Harbaugh as the only coaches who lead their current franchises in wins.
This is a stat that seems kind of neat at first glance. Then you think about it for more than five minutes, and it becomes almost inexplicable. When Madden became the Raiders’ all-time win leader in 1972, the franchise was a dozen years old, and had spent most of the pre-Madden years in the bottom half of the AFL standings. The Rams? They’ve been around for nearly 90 years. And you’re telling me that no coach had ever reached 80 wins, in all that time?
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