Schefter: Phillips going to sign on with Rams

Herzog wrote:

Did the Rams run the wco last year?

No…it was a Coryell variant.

Wade Phillips to Rams as defensive coordinator

Josh Alper

Wade Phillips to Rams as defensive coordinator

The Rams will be balancing out the league’s youngest head coach with a very experienced defensive coordinator.

Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that Wade Phillips will be running the defense for Sean McVay in Los Angeles. There was a report that Phillips was McVay’s preferred choice as defensive coordinator before McVay was hired by the Rams.

Phillips ran the defense in Denver for the last two years and won the first Super Bowl of his long career thanks to an overwhelming effort by his unit.

In addition to his long list of defensive coordinator stints, Phillips has been a head coach on six occasions with one of them — an interim tour with the Saints in 1985 — coming before McVay was even born. That knowledge of the NFL would help any head coach, but Phillips should be particularly beneficial to a young one who comes from an offensive background.

McVay worked with Phillips’ son Wes with the Redskins. The younger Phillips is that team’s tight ends coach and the team was interested in interviewing his father, but will now have to look elsewhere to replace Joe Barry.

Since he was hired as Houston’s DC in 2011, Wade Phillips’ defenses have finished 2nd, 7th, 7th, 1st, and 4th in the NFL in yards allowed.

— Ryan Kartje (@Ryan_Kartje) January 13, 2017

Report: Wade Phillips turned down Redskins because of talent
The Washington Redskins were on the verge of interviewing Wade Phillips for their vacant defensive coordinator position.

Jamie Oakes

http://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/report-wade-phillips-turned-down-redskins-because-of-talent/

The Washington Redskins were on the verge of interviewing Wade Phillips for their vacant defensive coordinator position.

The interview was set to take place on Friday, but Phillips, before making the trip to Redskins Park, accepted the defensive coordinator position for the Los Angeles Rams and new head coach Sean McVay, who was the former offensive coordinator of the Redskins.
Breaking Burgundy’s Chuck Sapiezna reported that Phillips’ decision was due to concerns over the lack of talent on the defensive side of the ball.

According to the source, Phillips was “very concerned about the Redskins overall lack of talent” on the defensive side of the ball. The Redskins, per the source, strongly believe they are only “two or three starters” from fielding a very competitive defense if all their players can remain healthy and get on the field.”
An additional source familiar with the situation between the Redskins and Phillips states that Phillips had asked the Redskins front office for assurances that the defense will be a top priority in free agency and the draft. In turn, the Redskins shared more information about future plans than normal because “they wanted to complete the deal before another team acted.”

This may be the wake-up call that the Redskins front office and general manager Scot McCloughan needed.
The Redskins have continually thrown money at the offensive side of the ball, while ignoring safety, linebacker and defensive line. Those decisions haunted Washington over the course of this season and now it has bled into the offseason.
It will be interesting to see what, if any effect this will have on the Redskins offseason plans.

Wade Phillips’ hiring outshines even Sean McVay’s

http://www.dailynews.com/sports/20170113/wade-phillips-hiring-outshines-even-sean-mcvays

THOUSAND OAKS >> The new 30-year-old head coach wasn’t the point. The new 67-year-old defensive coordinator was.

The Rams introduced Sean McVay Friday, with his Pepsodent smile and bright eyes and his devoted way of saying everything a new coach always says.

They haven’t introduced Wade Phillips yet, but the fact that McVay hired him, or was OK with hiring him, is a sign that the next 16 games will surpass the previous 16.

Ageism is wrong no matter which way it points. McVay, who turns 31 on Jan. 24, is the youngest full-time coach in NFL history. In 1963 Baltimore hired a 33-year-old who was also the youngest full-time coach in NFL history. He was Don Shula. Still is, for that matter.

Phillips directed a Super Bowl championship defense for Denver in 2015. As Pat Kirwan pointed out on Sirius XM, he began his NFL coaching career 10 years before McVay was born.

Denver was fourth in yards allowed in Phillips’ two years. They were first and fourth in points allowed. In the previous two years the Broncos defense was 19th and 22nd in points.

But Phillips is also 82-64 as a head coach, with four seasons of 10 wins or more. He is the ideal consigliere for a guy who will face 10 new issues per day, half of which McVay won’t see coming.

Mostly Phillips will make the Rams’ defense reach the sum of its parts.

Every club would take Aaron Donald, Robert Quinn, Alec Ogletree, Michael Brockers and Mark Barron. But only seven NFL teams had fewer takeaways in 2016, and the Rams ranked a plump 25th in points allowed. Either their heads were preoccupied or their hearts were congested.

“It’s important to get the offense married to the defense,” said general manager Les Snead, realizing a nasty divorce was looming in the Rams’ locker room by December. “But it’s a team sport. If the other team is getting more possessions and our defense is having to go back on the field, it will wear down.

“But two games stand out and we can recite them (fourth-quarter losses to Miami and San Francisco). We got a 10-point lead over Miami with six minutes to go and they’ve got 99 total yards, and they wind up with drives of 76 and 75 to win it. That’s something you want to eliminate, for sure.”

Snead, who said he was returning as general manager, noted that Phillips asks defenses to be “proactive. Less thinking. More attacking. Denver always had good players, but in the past two years they were different.”

Still, McVay was the star of Friday’s show, and he wears an approval stamp from Jon Gruden, Marshall Faulk and especially Kirk Cousins, the Redskins’ quarterback whom McVay groomed.

Snead remembers watching Cousins throw a 44-yard TD on the last play of the game to beat Wisconsin for Michigan State. (Russell Wilson was quarterbacking Wisconsin). He knew Cousins oozed with intangibles and smarts. But if anyone had suspected Cousins would be Pro Bowl-caliber, he wouldn’t have lasted until Round 4 of the draft.

“Most people were thinking he had a chance to be a good No. 2 in this league,” Snead said, meaning a backup. “That was one thing that attracted us to Sean, because he was a big part of that development.”

The best way to get a general manager’s attention is to beat his team. The Rams began 2015 with a 34-31 victory over the defending NFC champion Seahawks. They rolled into Washington with monumental hopes. Then Snead watched Cousins complete 23 of 27 passes, grab a 17-0 lead and lead a 24-10 victory.

“They went after some of our weaknesses and attacked them well,” Snead said. “From that moment, you’re thinking you’d better pay attention to this guy (McVay).”

Washington was 17-14-1 in McVay’s two years of coordinating and finished 12th and 10th in points. But then the Redskins had the No. 7 offensive line in the NFL this year, according to Pro Football Focus. The Rams’ OL was ranked 27th, and Todd Gurley and the big fellows were on different frequencies all season.

“It’ll be nice to have an independent counsel to take a fresh look at that,” Snead said. “Todd takes some of the responsibility there and so do our linemen, but also the receivers. They have to block, too.”

One possible red flag: McVay says he’ll call the plays. Since new coaches traditionally have a hard time delegating, perhaps McVay will realize he shouldn’t be married to that.

Otherwise, Friday was fragrant with something old and borrowed, something new and blue.