Los Angeles Rams’ One Big Question: Does Sean McVay Get Enough Credit For His Adaptability?

Los Angeles Rams’ One Big Question: Does Sean McVay Get Enough Credit For His Adaptability? originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

In this offseason series, Athlon Sports’ Doug Farrar asks the One Big Question for every NFL team that will become readily apparent when the season does begin, and the lights are at their brightest. We continue with theLos Angeles Rams, who have a head coach in Sean McVay who everybody already knows is a super-genius. But it's McVay's recent adaptability to the new that has taken him to an entirely different level as a play-caller... and as a leader.

With most head coaches, especially established head coaches, you tend to know what you're going to get in a schematic sense. Rare are the coaches who change everything for the upcoming opponent, as Bill Belichick was always fond of doing. Far more often from one season to the next, and as resplendent with eye candy as those playbooks can be, there aren't fundamental changes.

One recent example of a head coach who has taken the road less traveled is Sean McVay of the Los Angeles Rams. When you talk about the NFL's best offensive minds, McVay either is — or certainly should be — at or near the top. Since McVay became the Rams' main man in 2017, the franchise has generally ranked in the top half of the league in Offensive DVOA, and both Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford have seen their quarterback profiles rise to serious degrees under McVay's tutelage.

The interesting thing, though, is how much McVay has switched things up in recent years. As he became established as an offensive and play-calling genius in his own right, McVay's Rams became known for 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, and three receivers), as well as liberal doses of the inside and outside zone run games.

It all worked fairly well until the Rams' offense imploded in 2022. Stafford played in just nine games due to injury, Kyren Williams wasn't the main back as he is now, and outside of Cooper Kupp and tight end Tyler Higbee, the targets weren't always... well, targeting. McVay's offense ranked 25th in DVOA, and his team finished with a 5-11 record.

The 2023 season was much better for several reasons — Stafford was healthy, Williams had his first 1,000 yard season, and the team found themselves an electric bargain in fifth-round rookie receiver Puka Nacua. More than that, the new schematic points McVay preferred were all out in focus.

In 2023, the Rams ran behind gap blocking schemes on 42% of their snaps, which ranked fifth in the league. In 2022, it was 29%, which ranked 20th. In 2021, it was 20%, which ranked 28th. In 2020, it was 17%, which ranked 28th. 

Williams was the team's ideal instrument when it came to a refocus on man blocking of all kinds. 101 of his 241 carries (including the postseason) came out of some sort of man scheme, as did 482 of his 1,205 yards, and five of his 12 touchdowns.

Then, just when everyone thought that McVay was going to keep zigging, he zagged. The 2024 Rams utilized man blocking on just 39% of their rushing snaps, leading instead with 221 zone attempts. And with Williams, that former gap-first runner, it worked just fine.

Interestingly enough, after trending heavily towards man-blocking in their run game over the last few years, the 2024 @RamsNFL reversed course to zone-blocking tendencies that mirrored older-school Sean McVay.

Kyren Williams didn't seem to mind at all. pic.twitter.com/YBXETwzIBh— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 15, 2025

McVay has also used far more pre-snap motion and condensed formations than in previous years. The 2024 Rams led the NFL with motion on 69% of their overall snaps, and Stafford had 453 dropbacks with motion, third-most in the NFL behind only Patrick Mahomes and C.J. Stroud. Motion wasn't a big thing for Stafford earlier in his career, but it is now — and with McVay's shift/motion concepts, it's highly effective.

Stafford's game-winner. The Seahawks go Cover-0, expecting run and a field goal. The Rams had other ideas. Love what McVay called here with the two tight ends (Hunter Long, Davis Allen) moving across to present eye candy against Demarcus Robinson's vert. Seattle got pantsed. pic.twitter.com/NLRexS6bAC— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) November 4, 2024

As for the condensed formations, which have all receivers inside the numbers, there are distinct advantages to that, as former Rams receiver Cooper Kupp detailed in his introductory press conference after signing a three-year, $45 million contract with $26.5 million guaranteed with the Seattle Seahawks in March.

“In eight years with the Rams, I think it’s tagged with the slot, but I don’t know how you determine that when we’re in condensed formations,” Kupp said. “I’m outside, but I’m running a slot route. A lot of times I was outside, and I’m not sure if it was being tagged as a slot route or not. But the ability to move in an offense is being able to ‘formation’ guys to be anywhere. You’ve got to learn the whole thing because you could be in any one of these spots at any time.”

When the @RamsNFL's passing game is humming... good luck stopping it. Condensed formations, wicked receiver deployment, motions all over the place... yikes. The @BuffaloBills found out the hard way. pic.twitter.com/TKz8yV4BPs— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) December 11, 2024

Last season, the Rams and the San Francisco 49ers tied for the league lead with a 60% condensed formation rate, and this is one place the NFL is going — forcing defenses to think differently from down to down as to how and why receivers are deployed.

With McVay, the bottom line is that he's learned to be adaptable to his personnel, and to emerging NFL trends, to the point where he's setting the pace, and he's becoming a trend-setter himself. It's a big step forward after his first few seasons as the Rams' shot-caller, when it seemed that opposing defenses would figure out what he was doing and how to stop it, no matter how great it all was at the beginning.

Still, the journey continues, as the 2024 Rams lost their divisional-round game to the Philadelphia Eagles, 28-22, and that is never the end goal for McVay and his team. Through rebuilds that have included both "F Them Picks" and high-level draft thinking, it's Super Bowl or bust for these guys. McVay's new adaptability is a major reason for that.

“I think the biggest thing is there would be a little bit more versatility," McVay said in his January 23 season-ending presser, when he was asked what the 2025 Rams offense might look like. "The easy answer is to complain about the injuries that we had that threw off the continuity, and while that might be true, you can't allow that to inhibit us the way that it did. That's nobody's responsibility but my own.

"I think [the offense should be] more fully functional. I think even our teaching progressions for the totality of the group. How do you utilize the offseason and how are you making yourself more versatile from a personnel perspective or from a run variety perspective? Those are the things that I'm excited to be able to dive into. I was talking to [former Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator and new Jacksonville Jaguars head coach] Liam Coen the other day. One of the coolest things that I think is reflected about what a great job he did was you’ve got a background and then when you watch them evolve with [Buccaneers running back] Bucky Irving and the way they ran the football, and some of the variety and personnel groupings.

"I thought that was a cool reflection of, maybe we think we're going to do that, and then what you evolved into if you’re able to understand that the best coaches adjust to their players. That's what we've to do a good job of as it moves forward from what it looks like from our offensive line and from the surrounding parts with our backs.

"I could go on and on about the variety of things that I'm excited about attacking to hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls that we had throughout the year to ultimately lead to more consistent production and play, regardless of whatever our injury situation is.”

Every coach says that they want things to be better. Sean McVay is able to speak these things into existence more often than most, because he understands that everything — from the intellectual curiosity that prods him to come up with new concepts to the leadership that allows him to take those ideas to the field — starts with the man in the mirror.

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus and Sports Info Solutions).

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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 17, 2025, where it first appeared.