Much has been made in recent days about Rams coach Sean McVay making the most of the ability to talk to quarterback Jared Goff until the coach-to-quarterback communication system shuts down with 15 seconds left on the play clock. On Wednesday, McVay downplayed the perception that he’s micromanaging his quarterback.
“We operate in the huddle, at the line of scrimmage – we’ve got a lot of smart players and we change up our tempos throughout the course of the game and really, just like anything else, whether Jared is calling a couple plays in the huddle or one call, we do the same thing, we just do it at the line of scrimmage,” McVay told reporters. “We talk about it all the time, the quarterbacks being an extension of the coaching staff, and that is certainly what Jared has become, that’s what Sean [Mannion] is, and there’s a lot of times we’ll snap it outside of the 15 seconds, under the 15, we’re doing various tempos throughout the course of the game.
“To say that you’re in his ear – because I’ve seen some of the things out there -- I think it’s a discredit to what Jared has done and, really, when you just look at it with the experiences that I’ve had in Washington and here, it’s totally at the quarterbacks’ discretion whether they want to have you be able to talk to them, give them any sort of reminders or if they say, ‘Just give me the play and then let me go ahead and just play the position.’
McVay said that, during his time in Washington, both Kirk Cousins and Colt McCoy would tune out McVay if they didn’t think they needed to hear from him, realizing that, during the final 15 seasons, they’re on their own.
“That’s exactly how Jared and Sean and Brandon [Allen] like it here as well,” McVay said. “But [Jared is] doing a lot of different things at the line and that’s really a credit to him because a lot of that communication goes on after that 15-second window and then like I said, there’s different various tempos that we operate with. But to say that I’m in his ear the whole time, that wouldn’t be the case.”
Chances are the whole thing has been overblown. For each coach and every quarterback, the pipeline is open until 15 seconds remain on the play clock. Surely, Sean McVay isn’t the only one out of 32 who is taking advantage of the opportunity to talk to the quarterback even after the play has been called and the huddle has been broken.
It would be news only if any of them aren’t.