Turf Show Times
Is Rams passing game specialist Nate Scheelhaase the next Sean McVay?
When the Los Angeles Rams hired Sean McVay in 2017, they arguably caught lightning in a bottle. McVay was just 30 at the time and the youngest NFL head coach in the modern era. Since then, every coaching cycle teams have been looking to find the next Sean McVay.
Hiring a head coach that young had rarely worked in the NFL with John Madden being the exception. Lane Kiffin went 5-15 before being fired by the Oakland Raiders. The Rams had hired young before in the 1962 when they brought Harland Svare in to be the head coach. Svare won 14 games between 1963 and 1965. Dave Shula went 19–52 as the head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals when he was hired at 32. Another recent example was Josh McDaniels who was a disaster with the Denver Broncos.
However, teams saw what the Rams found in McVay. This was a young, offensive mind that took the NFL by storm. In the old NFL, McVay would have had to put in years as a coordinator before maybe getting the opportunity to interview over the course of a few cycles. McVay had been an offensive coordinator for just three years before the Rams hired him.
Teams have tried to replicate that and it has typically resulted in coaches being poached directly from McVay’s staff. There was the initial joke that if you had shared a coffee with Sean McVay, it increased your chances of being a head coach. However, hiring from McVay’s coaching staff has worked. Zac Taylor went from quarterback coach to coaching the Bengals. Matt LaFleur, Kevin O’Connell, and Liam Coen have all gotten opportunities with all having some playoff success. That’s minus Coen of course because he just got hired. Out of the NFL’s 31 other head coaches, five of them have previously worked on McVay’s staff.
While McVay has developed his share of head coaches, there are also three offensive coordinators around the NFL who have previously been part of the Rams offensive coaching staff. Said McVay, “We’ve had a good track record of some guys that have gone on that have been successful drawers and are now successful coordinators or head coaches.”
The Detroit Lions got a taste of what it was like to lose a lot of their coaching staff after being on top. As Andrew Whitworth noted, “I believe the Rams call this January.”
Teams wouldn’t continue to take from McVay and his staff if the results didn’t speak for themselves. McVay offensive coaches have had a lot of success around the NFL whether as coordinators or head coaches. Teams will continue to look at McVay’s staff because of those results. The Jacksonville Jaguars nearly followed that same path once Coen was hired as their head coach.
Based on my understanding of the situation, Rams offensive assistant and passing game specialist Nate Scheelhaase was one of the leading candidates for the Jaguars non-play-calling offensive...
