Sean McVay’s encyclopedic knowledge of play calls is his most infamous party trick, but remembering names is probably his second.
He’s famous for addressing reporters by their first names during press conferences, the kind of personal touch that probably endears him to the weathered scribes more than most like to admit. The name-dropping usually comes with piercing eye contact, the kind I assume they teach in MBA courses and self-help seminars, and the kind most people are too self-conscious to deploy.
Still, as the Los Angeles Rams prepared to welcome 36 rookies—including their 14 (!!!) draft picks—to training camp, even McVay had to study up. With those new faces making up 40 percent of the preseason roster, it was a lot of work.
“I made sure that before they came in, I had everybody,” McVay said. “That was a Tim McVay thing. My dad was really good about calling everybody by their first name. And so I definitely was the only one in the building that knew everybody’s name that first day that all those guys came in.”
It’s fun to imagine McVay poring over flash cards as if he had a test to cram for.
No. 17, Puka Nacua. Wide receiver, drafted in the fifth round. If anyone on the outside gets hurt, he’s starting.
No. 27, Timarcus Davis. Cornerback, undrafted. Probably getting significant snaps in nickel packages this year, and probably more if anyone gets hurt.
No. 49, Tanner Brown. Kicker, undrafted. Please, please let this work.
No. 99, Aaron Donal—oh, wait. That one I know. Phew.
This is what it looks like when a team that was recently loaded with veteran superstars runs smack into the financial realities of the salary cap. The Rams, coming off a 5-12 record in 2022, the worst in league history by a defending Super Bowl champion, will field the youngest roster in the NFL this year. Ourlads lists 12 rookies as first- or second-stringers; in the middle of camp last year, there were five. The Rams’ entire special teams unit was born in 1999 or later. It’s an incredibly odd dynamic that this team also includes superstar veterans Aaron Donald, Cooper Kupp, and Matthew Stafford and the influential McVay as coach.
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So what’s at stake for the NFL’s strangest roster? There is a wide range of outcomes. The Rams could just get by, stumble through what’s clearly a rebuilding year, and make it to 2024 in much better financial shape, having paid off some debts of rosters past and possibly adding some much-needed salary cap flexibility. There’s also the possibility that these young Rams will show meaningful progress by finding a few gems in this year’s rookie class—perhaps outside linebacker Byron Young or defensive tackle Kobie Turner, two third-round picks who should benefit from playing alongside Donald, or maybe Nacua, sort of a poor man’s Kupp—and developing them with the playing time they’ll get this season. The best-case scenario probably has little to do with Super Bowl runs or salary cap management, but instead with the chance for McVay and his staff to coach this young roster, to really teach and lead, and for that process to lift the team’s spirits—McVay’s first among them—which have grown heavy since the Rams held the Lombardi Trophy up in February 2022.
The Rams roster is the physical embodiment of the nosedive they took last season, the one that wore so hard on McVay that he closed the year by describing football as a “beautiful torment” while declining to commit to coaching this season. Having 36 rookies on a team 18 months after winning the Super Bowl is the NFL version of life coming at you fast. But he didn’t quit, and since it’s safe to assume that McVay knows too much about football to think this roster is Super Bowl ready the way the all-in squad of 2021 was, he’s signed on for a rebuild. That’s what makes the stakes so interesting for these Rams—it’s not just the results of their process, but how it feels. Put simply, they need to reach financial stability while also keeping those superstars happy and not causing enough angst to spur a surprise retirement or two. What would be a cliché for 31 other teams may be the crux of the 2023 Rams campaign: They need to have fun out there.
During one recent training camp session, McVay spent the better part of the 2.5-hour practice chasing backup quarterback Stetson Bennett around the field during drills, barking corrections at the 25-year-old rookie after each play. It didn’t matter that this was the last practice at UC–Irvine, where the Rams typically set up shop for the first couple of weeks of the preseason. That last on-campus practice has traditionally been a low-speed walk-through, but not this year. Early on in camp, McVay had to slow the pace of practice down, as the bulk of the youngsters needed more time for simple installs. So now that his rookies were finally getting up to speed, McVay was determined not to waste a moment. With not only an inflated rookie class but also 10 new coaches on the staff, McVay was giving camp counselor as much as football tactician.
“I think you have to have some level of patience,” McVay said. “But I think there’s a necessary urgency as well. You want to make sure that it’s an uplifting urgency and not something where you’re not learning your learner and doing a good job connecting with these guys.”
Because the Rams remain exiled in salary cap hell, they’ve had to rely on rookies rather than spending big in free agency. They couldn’t afford to chase the big names this year, but the modest veteran deals they did make were done with specific intent. Wide receiver Demarcus Robinson, running back Royce Freeman, cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon, and safety John Johnson weren’t splashy signings, but McVay and general manager Les Snead liked each player for what they could add as mentors to a young position group, in addition to what they could add on the field.
“I think that’s a big part of the reason I’m here,” Johnson said.
Those veteran voices are important to this complicated team-building process, but it’s still true that the Rams’ superstars speak the loudest. Some of the key names, like Kupp and Stafford, have been in and out of camp—Kupp just returned to practice on Wednesday after missing several weeks with a hamstring issue, while Stafford, who missed time last season with a back injury, has taken rest days and also splits reps with the other quarterbacks.
Donald, though, has been healthy and a tone-setter. He is coming off the worst season of his career—he had five sacks and 10 tackles for loss in 11 games in 2022, ending a run of five consecutive seasons of 11 sacks or more. He also missed games due to injury for the first time in his career after suffering a high ankle sprain against the Chiefs in Week 12. For the second consecutive offseason, he, like McVay, openly thought about retirement.
But, also like McVay, Donald has returned full force. His insistence that he has “a lot to prove” is hard to take seriously—he’s a three-time Defensive Player of the Year—but his practice regimen has included a heavy diet of double- and even triple-teams, the kind that he faces regularly in live action but that the Rams have typically not sent his way during camp in past years. The added work is something Donald wants for himself and something the Rams think is smart coaching and training—sending a message to the three dozen rookies who closely watch Donald’s every move: This is going to get real, and fast.
“We know we have a lot of young guys, and at some point, that can’t be a crutch for us. And it won’t be for us as coaches, and we’re not gonna allow it to be for our players,” McVay said.
It’s interesting to watch McVay, a coach who’s made his mark on the league mostly through schematic brilliance, sprint around performing the more analog duties of coaching—and seemingly loving the process and the complete reset it has provided his team. The Rams won. Then they crashed. They burned. They moped and openly soul-searched. Some of them thought about never coming back. Now, they get to start fresh as the team that’s been defined by its coach more than any other west of New England pins its hopes on McVay’s ability to develop this young squad—and that squad’s ability to reinvigorate him.
