This season has come with a lot of firsts for Sean McVay. It was the first time he lost more than three games in a row as a head coach, going six straight games with a loss from Week 8-13. It’s also the first time he’s finished a season with a losing record, sitting at 5-11 entering the final week of the year.
McVay hadn’t faced a ton of adversity in his first five years with the Rams, but this season was especially difficult for him and the team. The Rams have continued to battle and won two of their last four games despite missing several key players, which McVay appreciates.
But if there’s one thing he’s learned from this season, it’s that the adversity he experienced before wasn’t close to what he’s gone through in 2022.
“I think what I used to refer to as adversity is a very different thing now. 7-1 and then being at 7-4 as the biggest adversity faced last year, sure seems like some adversity that I would love,” he said. “I think more than anything it’s about accumulating all these different experiences to try to shape yourself in a way that keeps you grounded, keeps you with the appropriate perspective to be consistent day in and day out. There’s nothing like what this year would be to compare to any other year and that’s why you truly understand more than ever that every single year is a brand-new year. You’re forced to learn and grow, and certainly this year there’s been an incredible amount of takeaways that you’ll use to try to make sure that you have…I don’t know if it’s better support, it’s just more about being able to kind of envision the possible things that could occur that maybe I was naïve to in the previous five years.”
As challenging as this season was, the McVay is confident he and the Rams will bounce back in 2023 with a campaign that’s much closer aligned with the standards the organization has. That’ll still be difficult given the team’s lack of draft assets and salary cap space, but if any coach can turn things around, it’s McVay – who turned the Rams into a winning team in 2017 one year after they finished 4-12.
