LA Rams assembling millenial NFL staff for HC Sean McVay

Setting realistic expectations for offense

Head coach Sean McVay called the offensive plays, and there is no reason to believe he will delegate that responsibility to newly hired Kevin O’Connell. In fact, there is little pressure for him to do so with this hire.  After all, O’Connell is being shot out of the same cannon which blasted McVay to head the LA Rams three years previously.

Kevin O’Connell is quite familiar with California, having gone to high school at Carlsbad, California. He then attended college at San Diego State University. After a series of stints on NFL teams, he was hired on as the quarterbacks coach of the Cleveland Browns in 2015. The following year he jumped to the San Francisco 49ers coaching staff. Eventually, he was brought in to the Washington Redskins as quarterback coach in 2017, the year McVay left to join the LA Rams as head coach. He was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2019.

While O’Connell does not bring decades of NFL offensive experience, he brings exactly what McVay sought: innovation.  No one denies the huge impact on the NFL being made by the Baltimore Ravens innovations for quarterback Lamar Jackson.  Similarly, the offense at the Arizona Cardinals by quarterback Kyler Murray is raising eyebrows around the league.  McVay correctly wants to infuse the LA Rams offense with that same innovative philosophy.