Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay is a bit more controlled on the sideline these days, which is a major change from his former public persona. So what changed for the now 40-year-old McVay? He told reporters this week it was actually a conversation with an NBA MVP.
Asked about his history of having a "get back coach," McVay explained that he no longer needs a team staffer — it often was Ted Rath, the strength and conditioning coach — to pull him out of the way when a referee was near. If McVay were to get in a ref's way, it would be a penalty for his team, so Rath's role was to keep the enthusiastic McVay clear of the field when need be. Now that he’s matured, though, McVay said he is “not that much of a [expletive] anymore” where he needs Rath or anyone else to hold him back.
It's a realization that dawned on him when he had a conversation with Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets, a team that, like the Rams, is owned by Stan Kroenke. I got to the playoff game, they lost at home at Ball Arena. I go to the locker room afterwards and Nikola sees me.
He says, ‘Where is your get back coach?'” He then continued with a laugh, “Golly, this is what the NBA MVP knows me as. I am a failure.” It's hard to describe McVay as a "failure," but given that timing, it's understandable why he would have felt that way. Jokic won his first MVP in 2021, and to that point, McVay's career highlight was likely his team's losing effort in Super Bowl LIII in 2019.
A few months after this interaction with Jokic, though, McVay was on top of the football world, winning his first title at Super Bowl LVI in February 2022. It's hard to call him a "failure" with a ring.
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