LA Rams HC Sean McVay facing his own 'bigger than football,' moment

There is football life, a life that few truly get to experience. For LA Rams head coach Sean McVay, he has been blessed with football life, a career that may have many chapters, but a story about his professional football career that he will author. Still the youngest head coach in the NFL after seven NFL seasons, the 3-6 LA Rams may not inspire Rams fans to optimistic visions of grandeur, but the Rams organization had already accepted their tarnished season, and still persuaded McVay to return to his place at the helm.

In many ways, 2023 has always been about new beginnings for the LA Rams. After the Rams plummeted due to a tsunami of injuries in 2022, the Rams front office understood that it was time to abandon veteran players to compete elsewhere, and sign up a new crop of rookies who could play this game. And 14 draft picks later in the 2023 NFL Draft, plus rookie long snapper Matthew Orzech later, the Rams are competing once more

Bigger than football moment

Even as the LA Rams worked feverishly to reinvent themselves throughout OTAs, training camp, and the preseason, other forces in Sean McVay's life were at work as well. You see, he married Veronika Khomyn in 2022, and they welcomed the first child into their lives in October 2023.

For those who have never been blessed with a newborn baby, the child's arrival is not an event that is simply a new stocking to hang on the mantle come Christmas Eve. A baby is totally dependent upon parents for everything. And whenever everything is not 'just so,' the shrill cries of that baby are so annoying that nobody finds rest or respite until the baby's needs are met.

And that is a lesson that LA Rams head coach Sean McVay learned up front and personal during his BYE week:

Since Sean has a job that takes him to the office on a daily basis, and sometimes all over the country, his wife Veronika has been the primary care giver for their son, Jordan John McVay. Unlike generations ago, when the father's responsibility was primarily simply to stay out of the way, roles have blended a bit in recent times, allowing both parents to share the burden of caring for a new baby.

Well, most parents at least:

But take notice of one thing. The last comment from Sean McVay was 'I could get used to it.' That is not the type of comment that LA Rams fans want to hear from the head coach who struggled after winning Super Bowl LVI to say no to an offer to join a broadcast booth as a color commentator for NFL games. And the same head coach who had to step away from the game after a disappointing 2022 NFL season as he focused inward to determine if he truly wanted to coach in the NFL and further.

One more link in the chain of life

Some people are incredibly gifted at multi-tasking. But is Rams HC Sean McVay? I'm not so sure. Becoming a father changes everything. There is far more emphasis on living life, not just in the moment, but with an eye to the future. Patience overtakes instant gratification. Life speeds up in some sense but slows way down in other ways. Perhaps the greatest change to anyone is the upheaval that occurs to the priorities in life.

Everything that a person possesses will be transferred in one form or another to children. Whether that something is belief, perspective, intelligence, personality, physical features, or simply possessions, becoming a parent instantly changes accumulation into transference.

Life is definitely changing in the McVay household. Whether those changes are for the better or for the worse, who can say? What I can say is that changes are only just beginning.

The LA Rams hired a young head coach for the team who has been driven to win at all costs. But that pace has also forced him to overshoot the mark, leading to two separate occasions when he had to answer the question in his life of whether that was enough. Now, his life is going in a brand new direction, and the debate is over. Sean McVay cannot be torn going forward. He must either be all in for the long haul, or get out now.

After all, Jordan John McVay will be watching.