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Sean McVay likes to attack deep, will seek more balance with Rams
Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — The sample size is too small for Sean McVay. He has only been an offensive coordinator for one team; only called plays for two seasons. At 31 — younger than any head coach in the NFL’s modern era — McVay is too early in his career to have solidified his offensive philosophy, which is part of what makes his transition to the Los Angeles Rams so unpredictable and so enthralling.
With the Washington Redskins, McVay helped Kirk Cousins compile the NFL’s fourth-highest Total QBR from 2015 to ’16 and led an offense that ranked sixth in yards, ninth in points and third in third-down conversions over that two-year stretch. But McVay was handling a more experienced quarterback, a better group up front and a dynamic collection of receivers. With the Rams, he takes over an offense that has amassed the NFL’s fewest yards each of the last two years — with a 22-year-old quarterback, an uninspiring group of pass-catchers and perhaps the game’s worst offensive line.
How much of McVay’s scheme moves with him from D.C. to L.A. remains wholly uncertain, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from the evidence presented to us. Below are three of the main takeaways from McVay’s Redskins offense.
Stretching the field vertically
Seven days before McVay was hired as the Rams’ head coach, he sat alone with Jared Goff and went over film for two hours. Goff left that meeting ecstatic about what McVay’s offense could do for his career. He talked about how “everything kind of runs through the quarterback” and said he expects McVay to “bring out the best in me.”
Goff, the 2016 No. 1 overall pick, was forced to make a lot of adjustments coming out of Cal, which ran an Air Raid offense that spread the field and prompted Goff to take almost every snap from the shotgun. But McVay often resembled a spread offense with the Redskins. He frequently ran formations with DeSean Jackson, Pierre Garcon, Jamison Crowder and Jordan Reed, a tight end, out wide, designing an assortment of deep vertical routes mixed with short, easy targets to take advantage of a soft middle of the field. He loved trips formations, running complex routes off of them that confused defenders. And he did a nice job of using motion before the snap to set up deep strikes down the field.
The play below illustrates several key aspects of McVay’s offense: (1) motion before the snap, (2) use of play action, (3) unique routes off trips. It came in the season finale against the Giants, in the third quarter of a 19-10 loss. On first-and-10 with less than three minutes left, Cousins sent tight end Vernon Davis in motion to the right side of the screen. At the snap, the two outside receivers ran post routes towards the middle of the field, while Davis ran a deep fade up the right sideline.
The safety had to pay attention to the deep post and the outside corner had his eyes fixed on the outside receiver. That allowed Davis to beat the slot corner in single coverage and make a 31-yard, heel-tap catch near the 15-yard line. You can see the finish here.
Only one team, the Steelers, attempted more passes of at least 20 yards than the Redskins this past season. The Redskins used three-receiver sets more often than all but four teams, and in the vast majority of those sets, a tight end — either Reed or Davis or both — also acted as a downfield threat. Their vertical passing game opened things up, but it also became a hindrance in the red zone. Only 45.9 percent of the Redskins’ red zone drives resulted in touchdowns, fourth-worst in the NFL, because spreading things out doesn’t work so well with a shrunken field.
They needed a bigger threat with the run, which brings us to our next point.
Unbalanced attack
Chris Cooley, the former Redskins tight end who is now part of the organization’s broadcast team, will tell you McVay “believes in a true run-pass balance system.” He just wasn’t able to implement that with the Redskins. McVay’s offense averaged 23.7 rushing attempts per game, ranked 27th in the NFL even though it didn’t play from behind very often. Cousins, meanwhile, was one of six quarterbacks to attempt more than 600 passes in 2016.
The Redskins averaged a solid 4.5 rushing yards per carry, but Cooley will tell you that’s “entirely misleading, because there were 10 games this season when we could not run the football at all.”
As a result, the Redskins threw frequently and unconventionally. They attempted 232 passes on first down and 80 passes in the red zone, both marks within the top 10. One of McVay’s best skills was designing plays that put the Redskins in favorable third-down situations, evidenced by the fact they needed 3 or fewer yards on 32.2 percent of their third-down plays in 2016, fourth-highest in the NFL. But they were rarely able to do it on the ground, and correcting that will be a major focus for McVay with the Rams.
Todd Gurley, coming off a disastrous sophomore season, is traditionally a downhill runner who prefers to run behind a fullback or a pulling guard. Goff is more comfortable taking snaps from the shotgun and running a spread offense. McVay must strike a favorable balance, which brings us to our last point.
Ability to adapt
A turning point for McVay came on Dec. 7, 2015. The Redskins lost to the Cowboys, 19-16, on Monday Night Football and ran the ball on 16 of their 23 first-down plays. Their play-calling was too predictable and too basic. McVay vowed to turn up the aggressiveness. He soon adapted to an offense that was better-suited for throwing the football. He maximized Jackson’s abilities as a deep threat, utilized Reed’s skills on the outside and, according to several of those who watched that offense closely, constantly put his receivers in position to succeed.
Some say McVay was simply running an offense installed by head coach Jay Gruden. But there were shades of Mike and Kyle Shanahan, particularly the outside stretch zone and the bootlegs. McVay also incorporated the power run concepts of offensive line coach Bill Callahan. And he added his own wrinkles, too.
Two weeks after that fateful Monday night loss to the Cowboys, Cousins was mic’d up for NFL Films in a game against the Bills. At one point, Cousins walked over to McVay on the sideline and said, “Look at what putting our foot on the gas pedal the whole time has done.” McVay’s response: “That’s what we did last week, too. I’m going to keep doing that. I’m learning, too.”
The Redskins beat the Cowboys, 34-23, to finish the 2015 season. When the two teams met again in Week 2 of the 2016 season, the Redskins lost, 27-23, but gained 432 yards from scrimmage, even though Cousins missed two open receivers for long touchdowns. There was no way Cousins could miss Josh Doctson in the early stages of the fourth quarter, however. The rookie receiver was too open. It happened, once again, on first down, with motion before the snap and off play-action passing.
Doctson was motioned to the other side of the field, lining up almost directly behind Jackson. At the snap, Jackson ran a post and took both defenders with him, leaving Doctson wide open on a fly route for a 57-yard gain. The Redskins led by three, were just starting their fourth-quarter drive and had lined up in an offset-I formation. A deep pass down the field was the last thing the Cowboys expected. You can see the play here.
McVay has a lot to learn as a young, first-year head coach, but he will call plays for the Rams in 2017.
And he promises to adapt to his personnel.
“When you talk about forming an offensive identity, it’s about first let’s figure out what our players do best,” McVay said at his introductory press conference. “What does Jared do best? How can we maximize Todd, and Tavon [Austin], and our linemen up front? We’re going to continue to get to know our players, figure out what they do best, and fit our scheme to their skill-sets.”
My ears and back can now withstand the Vermont winters due to a cozy, thick pelage I’ve developed over the last few years.
He called it “the Iroquois vs Halliburton”.
Well I think that was over-stating it. Now, I think of it more as the HURON v. Halliburton.
Though I don’t see why in the end it turns out the on-site corporation is supposed to be so bad. They were just trying to do business. Nothing wrong with that.
Instead…Magua wins. Hardly seems fair.
