Snead senses 'authentic chemistry' with McVay

Rams GM Les Snead senses ‘authentic chemistry’ with Sean McVay

Alden Gonzalez

http://www.espn.com/blog/los-angeles-rams/post/_/id/34099/rams-gm-les-snead-senses-authentic-chemistry-with-sean-mcvay

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — The conversations began at the facility and would trickle into the parking lot while the sun was setting, and sometimes not even that was enough. Sean McVay, the Los Angeles Rams’ 31-year-old rookie head coach, was staying at a nearby Four Seasons at the time. Les Snead, the 46-year-old general manager beginning his sixth season with the organization, followed him there on several nights, his wife and his children residing 45 miles south in Manhattan Beach, California.

A couple of times a week for more than three months, from the middle of January until the end of April, McVay and Snead picked a restaurant inside the sprawling hotel, sat down, ordered wine and continued to talk — about football, about their personalities, about life. It often got late enough that Snead found it sensible to book a room, so that he would be closer to work when the alarm clock went off in a few hours. He did it often.

“My family would probably say too much,” Snead said, a wry smile coming over him on a recent afternoon.

Those nights, McVay says now, “meant a lot.”

“You can see, since the day that I got here, that he’s been very intentional about making sure that we have a good relationship and we have open lines of communication,” McVay said of Snead. “That makes you feel good. I think it’s a two-way street, and I think it’s really important for me to do a good job of extending myself to him. That’s why we’ve been able to have a good start to this, hopefully for a long time to come.”

McVay was hired as the Rams’ head coach — and thus the youngest head coach in modern NFL history — on Jan. 12. Snead refers to the time that followed as the purest form of relationship-building, when one can start with the basics, before the distractions and the obstacles get in the way. It was during this stage that Snead found himself in a unique position, with the opportunity to connect with a young incoming head coach who was all alone in a new city. It was also his way of starting over.

“You’re not going to get those moments back,” Snead said. “That’s a special thing. And me being the elder statesman, I was very aware of that.”

Snead doesn’t speak ill about his relationship with former head coach Jeff Fisher, who was fired last December, 13 games into his fifth season with the Rams. Snead and Fisher came in at the same time (though not necessarily together) and signed two-year extensions almost concurrently (though Fisher once famously claimed he was “unaware” Snead received one). Their relationship was never really painted as anything more than cordial. Towards the end, even that was up for debate.

But Snead will tell you he “gained a lot of wisdom from going through the trials and tribulations, successes and failures” with Fisher, who’s 13 years his elder. “That partnership made me better today.”

“There’s no negatives in terms of that relationship,” Snead said of his time with Fisher. “This one is just different.”

It needs to be. Snead’s job security seemed tenuous until McVay was hired. Leading up to that, COO Kevin Demoff talked openly about how every Rams employee was under review. That included Snead, who signed an extension through 2018 that, as Fisher’s situation demonstrated, didn’t mean a whole lot. The Rams have since brought in an entirely new coaching staff — save for three holdovers — and also let go of a handful of scouts. They have in many ways rebranded themselves, because 10 consecutive losing seasons will make one do that.

For Snead to stay, Jared Goff probably needs to pay off and Snead’s relationship with McVay definitely needs to work.

The latter, at least, is off to a good start. Some of those around Snead and McVay have even referred to their dynamic as a budding “bromance,” which Snead tends to scoff at.

“I’m not a millennial, so I would need to see the definition,” he said. “I would need to see the official definition from Urban Dictionary.”

Snead prefers the term “authentic chemistry.”

“Some people have chemistry, some don’t,” he went on. “I don’t necessarily know why that is, but I think my theory in this case is that at the end of the day, all we really want to do is do our jobs to make the Rams the best football team possible. It’s about as sincere as that. There’s really nothing else that matters to us.”

Snead was in the room when the Rams were interviewing head coaching candidates, even while speculation continued about his own return. He saw it as a “rare opportunity” and a “unique responsibility” and never wanted to approach the task out of self-preservation. His singular thought back then, Snead said, was, “We have to get this position right, because it’s as critical a move as we’ll make. The bar shouldn’t be, ‘Are we going to get along or not?’ That’s a given, because you’re going to work together.”

Snead and McVay have since gone about building their rapport, within and beyond football. Snead has turned McVay on to sparkling water and has playfully suggested that while McVay is a faster sprinter, Snead can beat him in an endurance competition. But now he’s hedging.

“I’m not so sure anymore,” Snead said, “because he’s so competitive.”

In those late-night chats at the Four Seasons, Snead saw McVay as someone who has been ahead of the curve in every stage of his life but has “no ego at all.” In Snead, McVay saw “a passionate guy about football” who is also committed to his family, which he found relatable. But it’s early. The season hasn’t begun, the hardships haven’t presented themselves, and a relationship isn’t tested until the struggle hits.

Snead acknowledges that it’s crucial for his relationship with McVay to work, but not for the reasons others might think.

“It needs to work for the Rams,” he said. “It’s not about me. The relationship needs to work for the Los Angeles Rams. Take me out of this. I’m a part of this. But if you do this job, and you do anything for selfish reasons, it’s not going to work out.”