[Elvis]

He always had the biggest say. Nothing has changed when it comes to that.

Based on Jourdan's reporting i think things probably have changed some. It sounds like McVay will be more involved than ever before.

And that's not to say he didn't have substantial involvement before now...

[Elvis]

It's pretty interesting.

Wade had agreed to be McVay's DC if McVay got a HC gig. It was a great thing for a 30 year old offensive wiz to have on his job application: Wade Phillips, are you kidding me? There goes most concerns a lot of teams might've had about hiring McVay. And Wade is a legendary DC. (He once joked he only agreed because he didn't think anyone would hire McVay.)

So i imagine McVay deferred a lot and learned a lot from Wade. But after 3 years, McVay coming into his own as a HC, the Fangio defense giving his offense fits, not to mention Wade's contract was up, McVay decided to go a different direction.

Staley. Jourdan says McVay and Staley really challenged each other, Staley's defense helped McVay self scout the offense, understand how teams would be attacking it. Oh, and the Rams had the #1 defense by a lot of metrics that year.

Raheem is a great, well rounded, all around coach. I'm not sure if he's a defensive genius but maybe i don't give him enough credit.

Jourdan says McVay could call a defense at this point in his career. I guess one of the things i wonder about with McVay probably being the most involved he ever has been and Shula being a pretty big question mark, who will stress test the offense if McVay is coming up with a lot of the ideas for both sides of the ball? How will he deal with whatever is coming next?

McVay's batting average on DCs is really good, so odds are pretty good this is going to work out just fine...

[/zn/]

McVay's batting average on DCs is really good, so odds are pretty good this is going to work out just fine...

Yeah I think that's the safe bet.

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[PARAM]

Yeah I think that's the safe bet.

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The thing that puts my mind at ease is McVay and Shula go waaaaaay back. McVay knows Shula well and Shula knows McVay well. I gotta believe due to the longevity of the relationship they've had to discuss defense over the years, as well as offense. In depth. And due to the respect McVay certainly has for Shula, perhaps some tweaks the latter envisions are acceptable to McVay. Even welcome. I hope we see a little more aggressiveness from the D. I believe in the shell concept, preventing big plays but there's also a time to throw caution to the wind and dial up huge pressure. Of course we don't know how the front 7 are going to perform. Perhaps they get plenty of pressure without blitzing. But does that make blitzing all the more enticing?

[Elvis]

Jourdan says McVay could call a defense at this point in his career. I guess one of the things i wonder about with McVay probably being the most involved he ever has been and Shula being a pretty big question mark, who will stress test the offense if McVay is coming up with a lot of the ideas for both sides of the ball? How will he deal with whatever is coming next?

When i wrote this i had totally forgotten about Sean Desai. That's his job, defensive coach working on the offensive side of things...

[ramsman34]

The Rams really seem to have a unique, if not cutting-edge, way of running their operation. Matching that up with the talent we believe they have, and this should be a special season.

[actionjack]

The Rams really seem to have a unique, if not cutting-edge, way of running their operation. Matching that up with the talent we believe they have, and this should be a special season.

Agreed, I just hope we have a normal to less than normal amount of injuries.