Sean McVay is one of the best playcallers in the NFL, despite fans sometimes getting frustrated with his penchant for calling passes inside the red zone. He designs a terrific game plan more often than not, which keeps the Los Angeles Rams in position to win most weeks.
What fans may not know is how McVay puts together his call sheet each week. It’s not as simple as picking his favorite plays from the week of practice. It’s broken down into segments, from third- and fourth-down to red zone calls to 2-minute drills.
On the “Bussin’ With The Boys” podcast this week, McVay explained how he designs a call sheet for a given game, and it’s enlightening.
“It’s a good question, but really by the way we segment the game plan,” McVay said. “Easiest way I can answer that question without being too long-winded: Early downs, like your normal down-and-distances and your get-back-on-tracks, which is your first and second downs in the normal field. That’s what we’re introducing to the players on Wednesday, putting together Tuesday. On Thursday, your third downs and fourth downs in the normal field. You’re doing that kind of stuff, introducing that to the players. Your red-area stuff on Friday, but situationally, the main situations that come up: normal down-and-distance, get-back-on-track, your third- and fourth-down calls, your red-area calls, and then if you’re backed up or 2-minute or in some of those 4-minute situations where you want to ice the game. So, segment it by that and we’ve been better about being able to do that.”
Sounds simple enough, right? There’s a lot of time and preparation that goes into creating a game plan, and it goes beyond just the head coach. The offensive and defensive coordinators help with that, too.
And when things don’t go according to plan on game day, coaches are forced to pivot and steer away from their original prep. But that’s part of what makes the great coaches as good as they are.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: How does Sean McVay build playcall sheets each week? He breaks it down
Reporting by Cameron DaSilva, Rams Wire / Rams Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
