Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay quickly established himself as one of the NFL’s most brilliant offensive minds upon his arrival back in 2017.
After all, he helped lead a resurgence on the offensive side of the ball that turned quarterback Jared Goff from potential bust-to-Pro Bowler and running back Todd Gurley into an NFL Offensive Player of the Year. McVay has since made a habit of putting on some refreshing displays of creativity through the years.
One such example included the two-point attempt versus the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs last year. While it may have been a big-brain play on the Rams’ part, it appears they had a little inspiration.
McVay revealed during this week’s episode of “Flying Coach” with Peter Schrager that the credit for the play actually goes to the Miami Dolphins and former assistant coach Shane Waldron for finding it on film:
“I don’t know that I’ve had a big-brain play but a good copy play might’ve been the two-point play that we scored against the Packers where we ended up throwing a perimeter screen to Van Jefferson and then he flipped it to Cam Akers coming out of the backfield,” he said. “Greatest coaches, greatest thieves. Stole that one from the Miami Dolphins via Shane Waldron finding it. Look out for that on the Seattle Seahawks film next year.”
The play helped the Dolphins go up by a touchdown before eventually going on to secure the 22-12 win in Week 15. Although the Rams would ultimately come up short versus the Packers, it seems this play still remains undefeated, via Jordan Heck of Sporting News:
The Rams took their 2-point conversion play from the Dolphins pic.twitter.com/1gIMo685B9
— Jordan Heck (@JordanHeckFF) January 17, 2021
McVay giving credit where credit is due just goes to show how much of a copy and paste league this is. The difference lies in the coaching staff doing their due diligence and finding the right moments to put it into action.
McVay and his staff had plenty of work to do this offseason with the arrival of quarterback Matthew Stafford. The offense fell sort of expectations last year and is now in the process of being tailor-made for Stafford’s skill set.
After all, the Rams put an emphasis on beefing up his supporting cast with the addition of explosive weapons like DeSean Jackson and Tutu Atwell. McVay made it clear that there would be efforts to bring back that deep element this group was sorely lacking during the 2020 campaign.
Fortunately, he appears to be enjoying the process after sharing some rather high praise for Stafford. It is safe to say that other teams may want to be wary of the attention to detail coming from McVay’s staff.
