Rodrigue starts at 1:46 in.

BT has a summary but I am going to provide one too. I want to do it, I feel kind of energized to do it, but that aside, I always thought it was useful if more than one poster puts up a summary like this. I do weave some of my own ideas into this, but when I do that I say so–I am just trying to get what Rodrigue says out there.

She is btw hands down the best reporter the Rams have ever had, bar none.

This is all just Rodrigue. No one expected the season to be this bad and the dominant problem was the injuries. But also they weren’t satisfied with their coaching hires, which basically began late in the year because of the super bowl. In terms of the vacillation by McV, Rams always knew he would take a break at some point though they expected that to be after 2023. McV puts in too much time and effort and doesn’t know how to slow down. As a person he is very disappointed in himself. But the Rams are very high wire and they can’t operate at that level for too long, it burns out. Rodrigue won’t say it but when McV is stressed he may not be the kind of human being he wants to be. To draw the contrast Rodrigue compared him to old grandfather McVay, who always in all circumstances remained kind–and I thought that was a very telling moment. This is me now not Rodrigue but we saw how with Goff he could be a kind of dick. I hear Rodrigue saying McV sees himself as not being stable and grounded enough as an emotional human being–I suspect McV had some bad moments with coaches and players and staff. She is strongly hinting (the way I hear it) that McV hesitated about returning because he himself is trying to deal with having seen himself act that way.

Back to just Rodrigue. He was in a situation in 2022 where things were out of control. The injuries were major and devastating. He couldn’t delegate and didn’t have answers. Rodrigue resists unfair and reductive takes on the Rams. Rams didn’t see themselves as repeating in 2022. Missing a pass rusher for example. But they did expect things to keep going forward (a good 2022 followed by a great 2023). One pattern he saw with McV this year was that he was always struggling,  a bit, to work on his maturity and human tools, but he could always default into thinking about football instead. This year subtracted that, and it was entirely in ways that were beyond his own anyone’s control, and so there was no compensation to turn to when more basic human emotional issues came up. (Rodrigue once again mentions McV trying to process how he handled Goff in 2020).

She talks about how they were injured historically on the OL, she even calls it “insane.” But that caused other issues. He got so he decided he would hire a bunch of different coaches than he did.  He was probably embarassed by the fact that the Rams were not ready this year–at least not ready to enjoy historic success as a defending champ (me again: we saw that right away in game 1 against the Bills, they weren’t ready). They weren’t ready for how teams evolved to pick apart their defense. For the first time the Rams were behind conceptually. And a lot of that meant being behind on things that they themselves originated in the league. They weren’t prepared to stay ahead of football strategies they themselves helped create.

How about this coaching staff? Barnwell asks. They were kind of running out of people. He’s running out of OL coaches who have Bill Callahan principles. He’s running out of Fangio people. He started to hire people who were green who he thought he could mold to be an extension of his own thinking on the kinds of core things he wants to do. Samples, the RB coach, came up. Brown was moved out of the RB room and then the issues start and (Rodrigue strongly implies) Samples wasn’t up to it. The RB room imploded. Now they didn’t have a coach with the tools to solve that (they then moved Brown back to RB). A lot of this also had to do with the fact that because they went to the super bowl, the position coaches McV wanted weren’t there anymore.

Rodrigue thinks he also gets too bullish on guys he wants on the offensive side. Part of his thing with coordinators is to hire guys who balance out all the rough and tumble, roller coaster things McV gets on so he needs a steady “middle child” type to soften things with the players. Plus they had all sorts of ideas of what to do to expand the passing game, and then all that gets left behind if your OL has fallen completely apart.

Rodrigue is talking here before they knew McV would be back, but her answer to what happens if he is back is to say she thinks they put together another trade for another elite player at a big position.

Bits:

Von Miller left because they would not give a 3rd guaranteed year.

Snead is not a “rebuild guy,” he’s a build on the fly kind of guy. And he has a ruthless side to it. He’ll do things instantly, without sentiment.

Rodrigue always thought McV would be back. He was never going to move on from coaching.

Goff and McV were not a good “marriage.” Goff did well with the Rams when he had his own dedicated qb coach. That was 2017 (Greg Olson) and 2018 (LaFleur). (Greg Olson is also responsible for Derek Carr playing well in the years he did–Olson left the Raiders in 2021, and Carr played well for him). In 2019 McV became the de facto qb coach. I think their relationship was based on McV’s impatience and the result was to weaken Goff’s confidence. What we saw in 2020 was Goff playing without confidence much of the time. In the best article on their divorce, a Rams coach is quoted as saying (anonymously) that McV knew how to tear Goff down but not how to build him up.

I think what we’re seeing in Detroit now is Goff playing with confidence, in a system that is specifically built to his strengths (and with a top notch OL).

I said all of this at the time of the trade btw but then I defended the trade. My take was, if the qb and the coach are not built for each other and the coach is winning, then, the qb will go. I don’t like the way they handled it (in fact they handled the entire trade very badly that way). But then Stafford was a better fit for McV. Stafford walked into the room demanding respect with his veteran smarts and longevity, so it was more of a case of coach and veteran qb collaborating than an impatient coach handling a young qb.

In a different way than Martz, McV is a mixed bag. He has all sorts of strengths as a coach, but they come with some pronounced liabilities. He may change, but at this stage, McV needs veterans in key positions to win. He’s not a patient team builder. By way of contrast DV was that and in fact did it twice, with the Eagles and Rams. McV inherited a team loaded with players like Gurley and Donald and Goff and did not need to “rebuild.” 6 years later there are still some pre-McV players starting for the Rams, including Donald, Higbee, and Hav.