Special teams blunders are now a staple of the Sean McVay coaching tree

The Los Angeles Rams' vaunted superteam has stumbled to a 2-3 start that could have easily been 1-4 had it not been for a furious comeback in Week 4. Sean McVay's team suffered a serious gut punch during their Monday Night Football defeat to the Buffalo Bills, as special teams wasted a brilliant game from Matthew Stafford.

LA's 37-34 overtime loss could have been a win had kicker Harrison Mevis not missed a field goal early on and had a second one in overtime blocked. McVay lost despite Stafford completing 40 of his 54 passes for 383 yards and three touchdowns. This isn't the first (or even the second) time in his career when special teams blunders cost McVay a big win.

Mevis is gone, but here's what doesn't change: McVay's special teams blind spot once again cost the Rams, adding yet another incident of a coach from his tree messing things up in that phase of the game.

Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay oversaw yet another special teams blunder

Since the Rams' McVay and the 49ers' Kyle Shanahan were hired, the league has consistently prioritized hiring coaches who are either younger or come from offensive backgrounds. Bonus points come if both are true, even more so if they served under McVay or Shanahan.

The thing is, coaches from this tree all seem to have issues with kicking or kick coverage. it's beyond coincidence at this point.

Only five head coaches hired before the 2021 season are still with the team that brought them on: Andy Reid (Chiefs), McVay and Shanahan themselves, and two of their acolytes in Matt LaFleur (Packers) and Zac Taylor (Bengals).

Of the latter four, only Taylor, who lucked into a special teams coordinator in Darrin Simmons, who has been with the team since 2003, has managed to avoid embarrassment.

San Francisco and Green Bay have both consistently ranked among the worst special teams units in the game over the last few years due to Shanahan's kicking problems and LaFleur's poor coverage, despite some highly paid coordinators. The McVay-Shanahan tree doesn't bear very ripe special teams fruit.

Sean McVay and many other young coaches struggle with special teams

To give McVay some credit, he has tried everything to fix this unit. He has cycled through multiple kickers and coordinators, used some of his limited draft capital on specialists like Joshua Karty, and looked at all avenues to bring in talent. Nothing seems to stick, confirming this as a blind spot for the very accomplished coach.

What is the reason? Well, it's complicated. It's likely a combination of things. Could it be the lack of draft assets making it hard to land quality role players for this unit? The constant coaching turnover? Is it as simple as McVay and his buddies simply not taking this part of the game as seriously as offense or defense?

Some great coaches have weaknesses that persist during their best eras. Bill Belichick could not draft or bring in wide receiver talent (outside of Randy Moss) to save his life. Reid still stinks at clock management. Mike Tomlin let bad assistants linger for too long. McVay, and others with his management style, just can't get special teams right.

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