Is It Too Early To Have the Sean McVay Conversation?
Photo Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Is football’s wonder boy ready to exercise some of that cold, hard leverage which he’s earned over the course of his six-year career as a head coach? After contemplating walking away from the NFL entirely following a disastrous 5-12 campaign last season, Sean McVay doesn’t appear to be particularly jazzed at the idea of spearheading a rebuild in the City of Angels. McVay’s favorite world-champion toys — Matthew Stafford (35), Aaron Donald (32), and Cooper Kupp (30) — are all on the wrong side of 30, and the Los Angeles Rams are staring down the barrel of yet another stinker this season.
If coaching the Rams doesn’t tickle his fancy, would McVay really hand in his playsheet and opt for a seat in the broadcast booth or studio on Sundays in 2024? The powers that be have already identified the offensive whiz kid to be dripping with star power as an analyst or gameday commentator.
I know what you’re thinking.
But McVay is under contract with the Rams through the 2026 season!
Please. Go ask Suge Knight or Jimmy Iovine how they felt about contracts when there was an artist out there who could make magic (and boatloads of money). Let’s face it, the NFL is knocking on the door at the house of Player Empowerment that the NBA built over the past decade-plus. Shoot, the Rams won their Super Bowl in 2021 as a result of Stafford forcing his way out of lowly Detroit. Last season Russell Wilson used his leverage and got the heck out of dodge with the Seahawks and landed with the Denver Broncos. Aaron Rodgers finally won his two-year standoff with the Green Bay Packers and ended up with the New York Jets.
And Super Bowl-winning head coaches are getting in on the empowerment fun. After the New Orleans Saints implemented a similar win-now and worry about the future tomorrow organizational approach as McVay’s Rams have been rolling out since the Stafford trade, Sean Payton said to hell with this once the music finally stopped in the French Quarter. Granted, Payton decided to play the TV card before ultimately getting what we wanted, which was a fresh start with an organization that would bend the knee to him. Let’s ride.
For a coach of McVay’s magnitude who’s in such high demand, the possibilities are endless. And a team that is ready to win now would happily pay a king’s ransom for the best young coach the game has ever seen.
Enter the Cleveland Browns.
When you think of it, the parallels between the post-Wilson-trade Broncos of last year and the present day Browns aren’t too dissimilar. Last season was essentially Year Zero for Deshaun Watson‘s tenure after Cleveland handed out five draft picks — including first rounders in 2022, 2023, and 2024 — to obtain the former Houston Texans quarterback. And the warning signs — similar to Wilson’s stinker of a season last year with the Broncos — were (and are) aplenty; Watson was nothing short of horrendous, compiling a 79.1 passer rating across six starts with his new team in 2022. When the Broncos were forced to play the hand they dealt themselves after paying a similar price for Wilson, they made yet another splash with Payton to try and rectify the disaster they inflicted upon themselves.
Sure sounds like a probable outcome for the 2023 Browns if Kevin Stefanski can’t get his highly controversial and heavily compensated quarterback to play at the level we grew accustomed to seeing during Watson’s time in Houston. Even the oddsmakers in Las Vegas feel Stefanski’s hot seat getting warmer, as he currently has the fifth-best odds (+900) to be the first NFL head coach fired this season. If the Browns are forced to go in a different direction, you’d like to think that an ownership group that is cutting the largest check in the entire league for its offense would be more than happy to swing for the fences and make a run at the Ohio native McVay.
Even though McVay was born in Dayton, Ohio and played his college ball at Miami University of Ohio, he was raised in Georgia and won the 2003 Georgia 4A Offensive Player of the Year. The NFL’s wonder boy returning to his Ohio roots to bring the Browns out of the dark and into the light — with an offense that is armed and ready to win RTF — might just be the escape plan that gets McVay out of the mess that he helped create with the Rams.
The Broncos traded their 2023 first-round pick and 2024 second-round pick to the Saints for Payton. Although the Browns have already traded their 2024 first round pick to Houston as part of the Watson trade, Cleveland could package a similar deal including their 2024 second-round pick and 2025 first-round pick to the Rams if McVay finally concedes that coaching LA’s fixer upper is considerably beneath him.
Speculation about 2024 could be considered a bit too spicy as we’re still weeks away from the kickoff of the 2023 season. But, rest assured, the McVay narrative will only get louder if and when the Rams start to crumble for the second consecutive year. And the Cleveland Browns are in prime position to throw themselves into the McVay sweepstakes if the opportunity presents itself.
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