LA Rams Sean McVay-Jay Gruden combination is huge for NFL

The LA Rams have hired former Jacksonville Jaguars offensive coordinator Jay Gruden as a consultant. On paper, it’s a minor detail, one more NFL coach throwing his perspective and wisdom into the Rams’ brain trust. Much like the fictional Borg from Star Trek, the LA Rams coaching staff operates like a collective, an aggregate summation of the various perspectives of each and every coach on the staff.

And it’s that willingness to develop coaches to assume much greater roles, frequently with other NFL teams, that has made the Rams one of the cherished and premium spots to hire on as one of the NFL or NCAA sharpest football minds and hottest names.

But that steady annual depletion takes a toll on the remaining coaches, who must circle the wagons each year, regroup, and onboard a new wave of positional coaches. The LA Rams just won Super Bowl LVI. If these LA Rams repeat as Super Bowl Champions, and it could happen, NFL teams will certainly have multiple Rams coaches and coordinators on speed dial, eager to interview and make offers to anyone who has worked with McVay in the past.

Rams collaboration just leveled up

So the Rams need to be a bit proactive. To do that, the organization needs to give head coach Sean McVay some support. Who better than his former head coach, the man who promoted McVay to become the offensive coordinator for the Washington Football team?

Consultant? A great role for Jay Gruden. Now, what does it mean?

Well, it is one more example of the LA Rams thinking outside of the box, a hire that proves that the Rams organization is about adding intel to their team from practically any viable source. Much like the hiring of Andy Benoit as a football analyst, adding Gruden as a consultant gives this team one more pair of objective eyes.

You can bet that the relationship and friendship that has developed over the years between Rams HC Sean McVay and now Rams consultant Jay Gruden is one that will survive the test of time.

Why Gruden? Why now?

Gruden can help the Rams make tough decisions

Well, the LA Rams organization is stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. Roster cuts are coming, and the Rams must send 27 young men packing, only to pick up the phone one day later and offer to re-sign 16 of those players back to the practice squad.

The Rams are deeply talented at defensive back and wide receiver. But does that abundance of talent compel the team to load up the roster with players who may not even take the field this year? What of the positions where the depth is more shallow, or the talent level is not nearly as robust?

Should the Rams choose to go right to the edge of disaster by shorting the roster there, just to retain talent upon talent elsewhere?

Not-so-easy decisions ahead

For fans, these decisions are easy to do. Depending on the day or the latest performance that is reported, opinions can take the direction of whichever way the wind blows. But for any NFL team, the deliberation and discussions that lead to those final roster cuts are fraught with uncertainty. Teams must consider the immediate ability to perform, the potential development of younger players over the course of the season, the degradation of older veterans, and finally, the sequencing of existing contracts.

Take the challenge of drafting a fantasy football team and trying to stagger the impact of the NFL BYE week on your roster. Now, multiply that by 53, and you begin to approach the complications involved with resetting the roster.

In almost any non-football industry, the title of a consultant is a hired gun who is brought in to help a business develop new lines or to reduce staff by observing excesses and duplication. In this case, Gruden is likely tasked with both.

Gruden and McVay mean business

I’m not suggesting that the decision to pare down to a functional 53-man roster will be exclusively Jay Gruden’s decision. But I can certainly see how Gruden and his third-party objectivity could aid the team in any either-or tiebreakers. And because he and McVay have a long-standing trust, Gruden’s recommendations would certainly carry weight with Sean McVay.

It was the Gruden-McVay combination that deployed a fullback in the Washington offense for two seasons, and then ended that role and emphasized multiple tight ends in its place. It was the 2015 efforts of Gruden-McVay that earned Washington a playoff berth, a feat that would not be repeated until 2020.

Right now, the Rams appear to have an uphill climb to restore the effectiveness of the rushing attack. To cure what ails the running back room, the team can re-emphasize tight ends, repurpose some of the team’s bigger wider receivers into a tight-endish type role, reintroduce a fullback/power back role, resuscitate the running-back-by-committee approach, or simply start from scratch.

Necessity is the mother of invention

Is doing nothing at all on the table? Perhaps, but after the Rams were forced to manage veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford’s throwing arm work through OTAs and training camp due to pain, the team will not be interested in a pass-heavy offense by design.

One of the most fascinating things about the LA Rams organization is simply the fact that the team seems to be about two-three years ahead of the latest NFL trends. And it just feels like McVay has reached out to his former boss and mentor to write the next chapter of NFL offensive innovations.

What might that be? Who knows? But I can tell you one thing, any combination of Sean McVay and Jay Gruden means business is about to be booming for the LA Rams.