INDIANAPOLIS – Rams head coach Sean McVay confirmed his stay at the 2020 NFL Scouting Combine will be brief. He departs Indianapolis tonight and he's scheduled to be back in Los Angeles by Wednesday.
However, he believes spending more time around the team's Thousand Oaks, California facility and less time in Indianapolis will benefit L.A. the most during a crucial stretch of its offseason. He also believes the team can still accomplish what it needs to when it comes to its draft preparation without him being present at the combine.
"I think it's an interesting situation that presented itself this year," McVay told reporters during his podium session Tuesday morning. "We've got great continuity in a lot of spots on our coaching staff, and we have three new coordinators on offense, defense and special teams. So I'm not going to be here the whole week."
Part of McVay's reasoning is that he trusts the evaluations of general manager Les Snead and the rest of the Rams front office, as well as the new and returning assistant coaches – most of whom will be in Indianapolis this week. He also wants to spend more time working with new offensive coordinator Kevin O'Connell and defensive coordinator Brandon Staley on implementing schemes.
"Les and his group do a great job in the vetting process and then our position coaches have a great feel of, 'okay what do we want to do, what are the things that we want to get out of the combine,'" McVay said. "So being able to empower them and then feeling like, let's get back to L.A., still be able to study the film which is the most important part of the evaluation, trusting some of the vetting on the backgrounds with these guys and then being able to kind of continue to get a jump on the schemes that we'll implement specific to the offense and defense, that's really what went into it."
Los Angeles does not have a first round pick in this year's draft barring an unforeseen trade, which will inherently impact how they approach the combine this year. While McVay won't be doing any in-person evaluations at the combine, he'll still be able to watch film back at the team's facility.
"It's really thinking through, 'Okay, what is the intent of the week, what do we get out of that," McVay said. "There's a lot of really good things to gain and I still think we can get all the things that this week entails out of it and (without) necessarily me having to be there present for all of it. And then you say, okay, what can we gain being back there with Kevin and Brandon and being able to go through some of the things that we're looking for as far as continuing to evaluate and do our due diligence with the draft process but then also start to have a vision for – okay – this is what we want to be able to do but how do our players fit into that, because it's always about adjusting and adapting to your players and as we're getting through just kind of the natural cycle of the offseason."
While the Rams also hired a new special teams coordinator in John Bonamego and a new running backs coach in Thomas Brown, they still return 16 assistant coaches from last year's staff. They also promoted from within via their scouting department by making Tory Woodbury their new assistant special teams coach.
That continuity is enough for McVay to feel comfortable letting his assistants take the reins in Indianapolis this week.
"If it was a bunch of turnover, then I'd think you say, 'okay we can get a lot of stuff done out here,' but because of the continuity of the position coaches, we felt like that was the best approach and the most efficient way to utilize the week," McVay said.
